Page 20 of Reckless Hearts

“Right, heard loud and clear.” Korol glances at the front page of the book—it’s my copy—before grinning and sliding it back onto the table next to my other course work.

My phone dings.

“Shit,sorry,” I wince, making a face as I snatch it up and turn off the ringer. The notification is for an email, though, so I thumb open my screen and bring it up.

My eyes bulge when I read it.

“What?” Eilish blurts, seeing the stunned look on my face.

“I… I got an internship!”

She shrieks. “That’s awesome! Congrats!”

The grin threatens to split my face in half. Itisawesome. Landing a real, business-world internship isn’t just a big part of our program, it’s required. Eilish found herself a loophole and is technically “interning” at Gavan’s company. Which, yes, is sort of bullshit, because I’m guessing by her perpetual shit-eating grin these days that she’s spending more of her time bentovera desk than working at one while she’s at his office.

But I’m not really mad about it. After all, she’s one of my best friends, and with all the crap she and Gavan have gone through, yeah, she deserves it.

“Who’s it with?!” she gushes, leaning across the table toward me with wide, excited eyes.

“Hmph. Thoughtsome peopleneeded silence to study,” Korol mutters to himself.

“Shush, you.” Eilish rolls her eyes again, holding up a finger. She grins at me. “Well??”

I scroll further down the email from my academic advisor. “It’s with…” My brows knit together. “Laconia Logistics?”

Eilish frowns. “I don’t think I know them.”

“No,” I shake my head. “Me neither.”

She shrugs. “Well hey, at least it’s an internship, right?”

“Yeah…”

Except something’s off with this.

Eilish chuckles. “Dude, it’s just an internship. It’s not like it needs to be with Facebook or a legacy company. It’s just a course requirement.”

“No, it’s not that.” My brows furrow as I glance up at her. “It’s just… I haven’t submitted my final internship paperwork yet.”

As in, the paperwork required for the school and my advisor toplace mein an internship at all.

Eilish frowns. “Well… You must have.”

“I swear, I didn’t. I was still working on my personal mission statement.”

“What the hell is a personal mission—”

“The door isright there, Korol,” Eilish mutters, jabbing a finger at it without looking away from me. “Wait, you’re positive you didn’t?”

“Completely. I was going to work on it tonight.”

“Huh.”

Yeah,huhis right.

“Well, screw it.” She shrugs and grins at me. “I mean, if your advisor says you got it, then you got it. Whoo hoo.”

“Yeah, but—”

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