Page 25 of Ambition

Now, he knows everything and his attitude about it has landed additional stress on my shoulders.

“Cosmo,” Karia says sharply, glancing in the rearview. “Cover your ears.”

I frown, turning to glance at him, hunched over in the small back seat, but he takes out AirPods and puts them into his ears, then busies himself on his phone.

“Um, is this about your uh…assignment?” Karia’s timid voice breaks through my thoughts as I straighten in my seat.

I glance at her pointedly. “What do you mean?” Surely neither of the Bentzens would be so stupid as to speak about my taskin frontof her and Cosmo, who isn’t even in this life.

She flexes and curls her fingers around the wheel, both hands as she stares straight ahead, proceeding forward at a slow crawl.

Von used to race his first car—a Supra—down this street at fatal speeds. I would be right there in the passenger seat, grinning my face off and egging him on.

Karia nor Cosmo ever went with us on those adventures.

Usually when it comes to danger, it’s Von and I against the world.

Now, it feels like something has snapped in our friendship.

“They went to the patio, outside,” Karia says. “I was just in the kitchen and Cosmo was on the couch. I heard snatches of conversation. Von saying he wanted the assignment but Mads was telling him no.”

I tense in my seat, grinding my teeth together as I stare at the side of Karia’s head. “And did you hear anything else?” I press, fucking furious at Von all over again. He tried to steal my job from me right before he got me off. Motherfucker.

Karia glances at me and shakes her head once. “No. I went back to the couch after I got a water bottle from the fridge.” She smiles a little, cheeks rising as she does. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Mads left kind of angry. Didn’t say two words to me or Cosmo. I’m sure Von didn’t sabotage anything.”

I’m still staring at her but I’m not really seeing her. I’m thinking about how obvious it is to everyone around us that Von would do anything to keep me bubble-wrapped and it does not make me feel cocooned. Instead, I’m claustrophobic.

I want to hack his bubble wrap to fucking pieces.

“Even my parents talk about you,” Karia continues, smiling still. “Say Mads has spoken highly of you taking his place one day.”

Despite my irritation with Von, a thrill of warmth trails up my spine. “Really?”

Karia nods once. “Dad says you have your head on straight and Mom says you’re tough as nails.”

I relax marginally into my seat, turning my gaze to the drive. “All true,” I mutter.

Karia laughs a little and I smile myself as Cosmo hums a song only he can hear under his breath.

* * *

Slowly I descendinto the basement of the Bentzen home.

I have probably spent half of my life here, but most of it on the third floor, in Von’s room. I slowly glided his fingers inside of me when we were teenagers, and he was trembling and I was aching for him. I crawled down his body and pulled off his pants to take him in my mouth under this roof.

But I have rarely ventured down here, and never the day of a ceremony.

It is extremely dark and Lora, Von’s mother, directed me this way as she conducted an orchestra of organizing catering in the form of food, wine, and something that looked curiously like blood in a mason jar.

Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what it was.

I swallow tightly, one white sneaker after another tiptoeing down the stairs as I grip the iron railing. Unlike the curving, curling double staircases in the rest of the house, this one is dingy, drab, and the stairs are only wood, the railing set against a gray brick wall. All of the irritation I had about Mads speaking to Von instead of waiting for me and Von trying to ruin my job fades marginally as I inhale and catch the scent of damp grass, heavy rain. It reminds me of running through a cemetery once under the night sky with Von, both of us drunk and dazed and one week from graduating high school, our hands linked together.

But this doesn’t hold that same promise.

This feels…more somber.

And the deeper I go, the darker it gets. The colder too, a chill curling over the back of my neck.

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