Page 5 of Mad Rivals
“This isn’t it. You know? This isn’t what I want out of life,” she says. “Slogging back and forth to a job that sucks with a long-ass commute and no time to get out and just have some fun. No time to meet hot guys and have a wild night of crazy sex. No time to doanything.”
I nod. “Agree. I hate it here. I hate this apartment.” I glance at the crack in the wall that we complained about two years ago that still hasn’t been fixed. “I hate the commute. I hate my job. But I love you.”
“I love you, too. And I love our pact to live together until one of us gets married, but if it’s here…I just don’t know how much longer I can do it.”
I take a bite of my cereal, and then I clear my throat. “What if I have the solution, but it goes against everything we believe in?”
She focuses her gaze on the slats of the vertical blinds covering our patio doors that have never hung quite right. One is missing, so there’s always a way for outsiders to peep inside at our shitty apartment.
“I’d trade my morals for a better situation any day of the week,” she says.
I laugh, though the truth is that it’s not really all that funny.
“My parents have a job waiting for me back home. One with a big paycheck and plenty of benefits.”
Her brows crinkle. “Okay? Well, I’m happy you’ll get out of this at least.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want it. You know that I’ve never wanted it. But I’ll take it on the condition they hire you, too.”
“Hireme?” she asks, her hand flying to her chest. “But what will I even do?”
I nod. “We’re in this together, Carter. We’ll find a place for you. And, you know, we’ll only accept if we have somewhere closer to the office to live. We can’t live way down here and commute all the way up there.”
She nods slowly. “I mean, obviously not. But what’s your proposed solution?”
“We move in with my parents until we can save enough to get on our feet and afford a place of our own.”
She twists her lips and wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know about that.”
We both hear our neighbors starting up at the same time.
The walls are thin.
“Oh, Michael, yes, yes, yes!” Katie moans, and good Lord, if I never hear Katie moaning over Michael again, I might actually get some sleep.
Clem sighs as her eyes meet mine, and it’s like the porno going on next door is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. “Make the call.”
I head into my bedroom because I know, Iknow, that my mother will say something cruel about Clem, and I don’t want her to overhear it.
“Kennedy, darling, how lovely to hear from you,” my mother answers.
We’ve never really been all that close. To be honest, I was raised by a series of nannies more than by my own mother. But she’s still the woman who gave birth to me, and I suppose I don’t call home as often as I should.
When I was a pre-teen and learned where babies came from, I often wondered if I was an accident. When I hit my late teens, I finally realized that I wasn’t.
Only…now I believe I was meant to be a boy—or that’s what they were hoping for, anyway. I’m not, just one more disappointment in a long line of them, but regardless, I’m the sole heiress to Van Buren Construction.
I don’t want it. I’ve never wanted it. But it’ll be mine anyway.
Andthatis why this call is so goddamn hard to make.
“Mother, hello. Is Father with you?”
“He’s still at the office. Is there something I can help you with?”
I draw in a deep breath and bite my lip, schooling myself as I come up with the words that’ll hit exactly where I need them to without getting too detailed. I take the easy cop-out rather than getting into the details of Katie and Michael and the bus and my stolen wallet. “You were both right. Please say the offer to work for VBC is still open?” I beg.
“Darling, of course. You know you always have a place here. After all, this will all be yours someday.”
