Page 3 of No One But Us

Those are the first words out of her mouth. Before I’ve said anything atall.

I groan, burying my face in my hand. If Ginny, who’s spending the summer in a sleepy town on the Delaware coast, has seen it,everyonehas seenit.

“They didn’t mention you by name,” she soothes. “I can’t believe you were sleeping with Edward Ferris and never even toldme.”

“God, Ginny, of course I wasn’t sleeping with him! He’s my freaking dad’sage.”

“Well, he’s still mega hot,” she counters. “As is yourdad.”

The fact that Ginny lusts after my father is, I think, significantly ickier than my crush on herbrother.

I throw myself onto my bed and pull a pillow over my face as I tell her the rest of it—all the other things that would have been devastating on their own, but now almost seem mundane compared to my own spectacular implosion. “So now I’ve got no internship, and my father’s going to make me spend the summer locked away out of sight while he prepares for the birth of his newchild.”

She’s silent. I can almost see her there, brow furrowed, eyes focused. Ginny is never without a plan forlong.

“You need to come here,” she finally says with utter certainty. “Spend the summer with me at the beach. You’ll be away from the press that way, and honestly, you deserve this. You’ve never once had a normal teenage summer. You’ve spent every break since you were 14 wearing a suit and working your ass off. If it’s really all ruined anyway, then fuck it. Come out here and act like a normal teenager for once in yourlife.”

“What will I do for ajob?”

“You can work with me,” she says. “Not at the senator’s office—my dad had to sell a kidney to get me that job. But they’re always hiring at thebar.”

“The bar you said made the Hooters uniform look ‘professorial’?” I ask with a tearfullaugh.

“Come on. It’ll be fun. James and his best friend from undergrad are heretoo.”

It’s pathetic, but even in the midst of personal crisis, my heart starts fluttering at the mention of her brother. James is gorgeous, but he is so much more than that. He is brilliant and ambitious—currently in the process of completing a law degree and a master’s in international finance simultaneously—but most of all, he’s the one person other than Ginny who’s been consistently kind to me my entirelife.

“Why is James even there?” I ask. “I thought he was interning at your dad’s lawfirm.”

“Long story,” she sighs. “Tell me you’ll come, and we’ll have all summer to bemoan my brother’s terriblejudgment.”

* * *

I’m not sure when I first fell in love with James. All I know is it came long before I should have been thinking about boys. It came before my first sleepover (memorable solely because James was—OMG!—inthe very next room). It came before my First Communion (memorable solely because I wanted James to see my new white dress). Almost every memory I hold is like a pendulum with James as its axis. He came before everythingelse.

“I’m going to marry Bobby Sanchez,” Ginny would whisper to me duringrecess.

“I’m going to marry your brother,” I’d whisperback.

Her side of the conversation varied over the years. Bobby became Ryan Wesling, who turned into Adam Goldfarb, and then other boys, a new one each month. But my side of the conversation? It always stayed thesame.

James Campbell. James Campbell. JamesCampbell.

That was a long time ago, of course. The last time I saw him I was 14, and he—six years older—barely noticed me. But even to this day, I still wait for Ginny’s small references to him like a dog panting for a treat. And sometimes at night, just as I’m dozing off, it’s his face I see, and my brain seems to chant his name, as if insisting that I notforget.

I should say no when Ginny suggests the beach. I should do as my father has asked, given that once this dies down, he’ll probably be able to find me another job. But the part of my brain that still dreams about James is the part that saysgo—ready to abandon every last whisper of ambition for a boy I haven’t laid eyes on in fiveyears.

Chapter 2

JAMES

“This will all beyours oneday.”

I’m sure my grandfather thought I’d be excited to hear those words, his hand landing on my shoulder like a weight. Except I was a kid, and I didn’t want to inherit a law firm. I didn’t want to sit behind a sterile wall of glass, pecking away at a computer all day. The words felt like a burden, one I thought I might grow accustomedto.

But I’m 25. The words still weigh as heavily on me now as they didthen.

My mother calls. I answer reluctantly, knowing she’ll say the same shit I’ve heard every day since I left. I don’t know why I waited so long to tell my parents the truth. I suppose because, until I interned at the firm last summer, I didn’t fully realize itmyself.

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