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I grab her hand and stop her.
Tilting my head back to look up at the huge façade of the building, I reply, “Stop it, Crina. You don’t know what life has in store for you. Everything’s online nowadays. Your mother doesn’t have to know you applied or got in, and you will get in. I believe it, whether you do or not.”
She squeezes my hand back and says, “I don’t know…”
“Keep the faith, Crina. Promise me.”
Silence. She purses her lips. Her gaze drops to her feet, where she digs her toe into the sidewalk.
“Come on…” I prod.
I grab her other hand. We stand in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the glass doors of the entrance, facing each other. A stream of students part around us, flowing by to go wherever college students go after classes are done for the day.
Crina’s eyes drop to the pavement. “And what happens if I get in and I can’t go? That will literally kill me.”
“You’ll convince your husband to let you go. And if he dares give you trouble, talk to Cat. She’ll support you in front of your husband. Along with Luca. He might not besef, but as the second oldest, he has clout. Gabby and I will help you, I swear it.”
“You and Gabby won’t be here to help,” she notes. “That’s why I need it more than ever. I’ll have nothing but school.”
I’m about to answer her when I feel a weird prickling on the back of my neck. I glance past Crina’s shoulder and freeze. A familiar pair of gray eyes are glaring at me from across the street.
“Goddammit,” I curse softly.
Crina’s head whips around. “What the hell are they doing here?”
She releases my hands and turns around fully, her shoulders hunched forward as if preparing for battle. Flicking her thick hair over her shoulder, her voice is hard when she shouts out, “Are you following us?”
Marku’s face turns deadly.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?” he shouts over the traffic.
“None of your business, you imbecile,” Crina sneers.
Marku steps into the street. A taxi blazes past him with a long blare of its horn. He steps back cursing and waits for a break in the stream of fast-moving vehicles. At the first lull in traffic, he sprints across to our side.
“Like hell it isn’t,” he growls as he stalks up to us, Lucian following close behind. “Does your mother know you’re here? ’Cause I bet you lied to her. No way she’d be down with this.”
“Fuck. You,” she shouts, shoving her face in his. “Don’t you dare bring up my mother.”
“Oh boy,” I whisper as Lucian strides right up to me.
Grabbing my upper arm, worry creases his forehead as he asks, “You okay?”
I jerk my arm, but he doesn’t let it go. Of course not, he never does. He treats me like a rag doll, like an object he can toss this way and that.
“Of course,” I snap. “We’re just going for a cappuccino.”
Befuddled, he responds, “You can get one at Adrian’s Bakery.”
Marku’s and Crina’s voices rise high beside us. They’re really going it at it now. Crina is in a pique and there’s no shutting her up once you’ve triggered her fight mode.
I let out a sigh of vexation and, dripping with sarcasm, reply, “Yes, I’m aware, but that’s in Queens. We wanted to go somewhere new. You understand the concept, no?”
“And why did you stop in front of here?” he asks, glancing up at the building.
Shit, they’d spotted us long enough to watch our heated discussion in front of Cooper Union.
“No reason,” I say stiffly.
