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I never expected to leave Harvard feeling more overwhelmed than when I started, but here I was.
“You going to come to Cleo’s?” Eric knocked me out of my worries as he followed me out of the classroom. “A bunch of us are going to celebrate.”
I smiled. I had intended to work my troubles out at the pool, but maybe a drink was more in order.
Because Eric had taken one of the lucrative positions at Sterling Grove, he talked nonstop about his plans there as we made our way across campus to the bar. He had a few weeks off to rest, but would start a bar exam class at the end of May. I sighed. Just another thing to figure out, depending on which state I’d be living in.
“So, have you decided yet?” Eric asked as we joined the students from our class who had colonized a back corner of the bar. We waved to a few of them, but took seats at a big booth that was mostly full of coats and book bags.
I shook my head while I dropped my bag in the corner of the booth and removed my jacket. “No. I still have no fucking clue what I’m going to do.”
“Is it just your family that’s pulling you back to New York?” Eric poured us both a pint of cheap beer from the pitcher in the middle of the table.
“No,” I admitted as I accepted a glass. “There are other factors too.” Eric gave me a knowing look, and I glared. “It’s not what you think.”
He chuckled. “Whatever you say, Crosby. But come on, you’re not exactly Lady Justice. I know you like working with women and everything, but the Brooklyn D.A.’s office? That’s going to be intense. It won’t be anything like FLS. You’d be happier at Kiefer Knightly, where you can be choosier and make better money too.”
I sighed. He wasn’t wrong. But someone else was Kiefer Knightly’s biggest client. Someone I was trying—and failing—to put out of my mind.
“Hey, kids.”
I turned to find Jane joining our small group. She took a cozy seat next to one of the kids from our seminar, and he wrapped his arm around her in a way that indicated they were a lot more than just casual classmates. As I watched them, I envied her. Jane never made any commitments in Boston, especially since she had planned to move back to Chicago the whole time. She had fun, and as much of it as she wanted, no apologies to anyone. Ever.
I took a long sip of beer. Maybe taking a page out of Jane’s playbook wouldn’t be such a bad idea. A few short-term flings might be the perfect antidote for Brandon Sterling.
As if my thoughts telegraphed his name directly to Jane’s brain, she looked up from her man of the hour and pulled a small box and an envelope from her purse.
“Here,” she said with a knowing look, handing the packages across the table to me. “It was on our mat this morning.”
I took the envelope and box with a sigh and set them down on the table in front of me. The envelopes had been coming every day since Brandon had realized I wasn’t going to take any of his calls. Surprisingly, he hadn’t shown up anywhere he knew I would be, and after a few weeks, I had stopped expecting to find him leaning against the entrance to the law school, FLS, or my apartment building.
But every day for nearly the last five weeks, a simple white envelope had been delivered to the doormat outside of my apartment. The only address was my name, written in bold, direct print across the front. And inside each and every one was a letter, handwritten on legal paper, in which Brandon poured his heart out in the way of stories about himself.
The first one had made his case plainly:
Skylar,
I thought about sending flowers. I thought about sending gifts. I thought about kidnapping you to a deserted island where you’d be forced to talk to me, and I could eventually win you back with my wit and charm.
But you said you didn’t want any of that shit; you said you wanted to know me. So, I’m going to tell you about me, as best I can, all the stuff that I would have had the chance to share with you on dates, in bed, over the normal amount of time we should have together. I don’t know what I did to mess up. Maybe it was the divorce. Maybe it was school. Maybe you were telling the truth, although I can’t shake the feeling that there is something more. But if you won’t tell me what changed between our last night together and the following morning, so be it.
So. this is me, and if I have to write you an encyclopedia a month for the rest of my life, I’ll make you fall in love with me again. I know I can be that man for you, Skylar. If you’ll let me.
I love you. Always.
Do you love me yet, Red?
B
They varied in length after that, from one page up to fifteen at the longest, each bearing a story of who he was. Memories of his childhood, good and bad. The feeling he had when he stepped into his first seminar at MIT. How he started his company. The one time he went looking for his mother again. When he found out she had died. The moment he knew he wasn’t in love with Miranda. How he felt when he married her anyway.
Some were easy and light, and others were incredibly difficult to read. But I read them all—I couldn’t help it. And every one ended the exact same way:
I love you. Always.
Do you love me yet, Red?
B
