Page 9 of Off Limits

My stomach free-falls to my feet. This isn’t her checking in on me, caring. This is her trying to ask me to stay, something I’ve been worried about.

“No, Mom. I don’t. I’m going to Cornell next year.”

“Are you sure, sweetie? It’s just so far away. And you’ve been so helpful around here for the past year.”

“I’m sure.” Helpful. All she wants from me is my assistance to run the store.

“Maybe you can just think about it. Rethink your plans, you know.”

“I’m sorry, I have to get out of here.” My heart is hammering against my sternum and I’m not entirely sure I won't be sick.

Storming out of the office, I make a beeline to the backroom, crashing through the door and sliding to the floor, trying to catch my breath. I need something. I need to talk to somebody. But for some reason, the only person I feel could calm me down is the one who spent weeks in this stockroom out of the goodness of his heart.

I put my head between my knees and try to take deep breaths, thinking back to some of the conversations I’d had with Lochlyn in this room, not caring that he shouldn’t be on my mind.

A few days after our conversation regarding my mom’s thoughts on him, he expanded on his muttered comment.

“I know you were probably wondering what I meant when I grumbled about my path the other day.” We were in the backroom again, a place that seemed to be somewhere we chatted openly.

“Oh, it’s none of my business. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Simply put, my dad, in all his self-proclaimed wisdom on what’s best for me, has decided that I will be going to Cornell, get into Cornell Law, where I will get my graduate degree, and then work for him. As a fucking lawyer.”

"I take it you don’t want to be a lawyer?”

A low laugh escaped him. “No, I definitely don’t want to be a lawyer.”

“What do you want to be?”

He looked up at me, eyes wide and brows high as his hair fell across his forehead. “You’re the first person to ever ask me that. I’ve never put much thought into it. I was informed of this plan for my life a long time ago. But, I don’t know, I’ve always liked music a lot. Maybe something in the music industry. I’m interested in business. Like, your parents opened this place themselves, ran it. I don’t know, just…not a lawyer.”

“Music, huh? You realize that’s one of the first things we bonded over.”

“You have good taste in music.” I smiled, noticing as he absentmindedly scratched at his ribs, where he has the song lyrics tattooed. He’s the only person I know that likes the same alternative music I do. “You know, my parents wouldn’t even let me learn an instrument, aside from the one required for school? I wanted to learn guitar. They wouldn’t let me. It didn’t 'fit in' with their plan.”

“I’m sorry.” There were aspects of the lives of the Reynolds children that I knew, but much of this was a shock. What harm can learning an instrument cause?

“Did I ever tell you why I started getting the tattoos?”

I shook my head, mouth pressed into a line.

Lochlyn shifted his feet and leaned in closer, closing the two-foot gap between us. “It was a tiny way to have control of my life. When I asked what would happen if I didn’t follow through, didn’t go to Cornell, or decided to go for something that was what I wanted, they said they’d cut me off. It’s not like I have access to all the money in the world, but it’s kind of hard to do anything with none.” A tick of his jaw showed the frustration his tone didn’t.

“My dad flipped shit when he saw the first one. I told him I was eighteen, didn’t need his permission, and it can be covered by a shirt. That if I wasn’t wearing a shirt at work, I had bigger problems than a tattoo. The sword was a little harder. I just needed something that I was deciding.”

“I had no idea.” The lyrics on his ribs made sense suddenly; the song being about taking control of your life.

“I’ve never told anybody.”

“Nobody? Not even Chelsea?”

He snorted. “Definitely not Chelsea. As far as she’s concerned, it’s my ‘rocker ways,’ as she likes to call them. I like a certain type of music; it doesn’t mean I lead a lifestyle or something.” I’d learned to read Lochlyn well enough to sense he was growing beyond frustrated. But I was hung up on the fact that he hadn’t shared this with anybody, except me.

I wasn’t quite sure what to say. “You’ve really never told anybody?”

His eyes locked on mine. “Nobody.”

“Why me?”

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