Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“I was just going to get the whiskey,” I lied.
“I told you. We need clear heads.”
“For what? I’m not going back to London.” I needed to be here—to earn money, to keep an eye on Mom so she kept bringing in a salary. “I don’t have anything to go back for.” My internship was over. I’d not made any friends other than Dexter really, and well . . . that was over. And now I couldn’t bring myself to find out who’d won the competition. I would be devastated for him if Daniels & Co hadn’t, but if they had, I was worried I’d be so bitter about not being there that I’d take that bottle of whiskey and down the entire thing.
“You have the rest of your life to go back for,” my sister said. “You have Dexter. And your career.”
I watched her, scribbling numbers down on this huge sheet of paper. She wanted to help and my bones ached I was so grateful, but there was nothing she could do. I was stuck.
“I think on this side,” she said, indicating the right-hand side of the huge sheet of paper, “we need things that don’t cost money but you’ll have to do before you go. I’m going to write ‘job’ up here and then we’ll do a bubble where we put all the preparation you need to do to get a job—you know, applications and stuff.”
“Honey,” I said, placing my hand on her arm. “This is so sweet of you. But I’m not going back to London.”
She turned to me, fire in her eyes. “Of course you are. I’ve never seen or heard you so happy as when you were over there. And Dexter’s there and you’ve never been into a guy like you’re into him. Ever. In. Your. Life.”
Into him. It sounded so cute but so completely inappropriate for what I felt for Dexter. I tried to push it down but it kept bobbing to the surface—the realization that I was in love with him. I tried to think back to when I’d transitioned from wanting to rip his clothes off to being in love with him. It was somewhere after I’d started to like him, then really like him, and it had morphed without me realizing into something much deeper—respect and admiration mixed with an understanding that he enjoyed making me happy just as much as I enjoyed doing the same for him.
I loved the bones of the man.
I loved the heart of the man.
I loved the soul of the man.
I glanced at my phone. It would be so easy to call. Too easy.
“I have responsibilities here,” I said. “I need to be realistic.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I’m not planning on robbing a bank. This chart is a real plan. We can do this. You saved up the first time. And now I’m about to graduate and get a job, we’ll get there a lot quicker. Which reminds me,” she said, flipping over the paper. “I need a column because I need to find a job that pays. None of this interning without a salary shit,” she said. “I’ve started applying and I have a couple of interviews lined up. But I’m not going to put all my eggs in one basket. I’m going to keep applying.”
It was the first I’d heard about her applying for jobs already. “You’re going to apply around here?” There weren’t many good jobs in Sunshine.
“No, I thought Portland. And I’ve even applied for a couple in New York.”
New York? That was more expense. I’d have to pay for her flights and hotels. But good for her that she wanted to spread her wings. There was no point in two of us being stuck here. After all, giving her a future was what the last years of sacrifice had been about.
“And before you start worrying, I got a scholarship to pay for travel and accommodation to and from job interviews. There won’t be any additional expense.” Autumn was beaming at me.
My heart rose in my chest. “What kind of scholarship?”
“The kind that pays for kids like me to go to job interviews.”
“Wow, I had no idea there even was such a thing.”
“Well, there was and I got it. And then you’re not going to have tuition to pay for anymore.”
I nodded. I just had to get past the bottleneck of deposits on our new apartment—first month, last month, security. Once I did that, I could relax a little. Until the next disaster.
“Let’s put rent for parents down here,” she said, scribbling down a figure in the costs column. It was probably useful to look at my expenses and get a handle on how long it was going to take to get back to something like normalcy, but Autumn’s insistence on including a return to London in our grand scheme was wishful thinking.