out.”
“Six. Thousand. Dollars!” Lisa grabbed my forearm.
“Gah, Lisa. Ouch!” Her silk nails gouged my skin.
“You have to do it, Nora. Where else are you going to make two grand a week this summer?”
“I don’t know…” It was a lot of money, but I hated having things thrown on me all of a sudden. This was quickly becoming a difficult day. I tried to inhale discreetly and blow out the tension.
“You’re going.” Lisa pushed her blond curls out of her green eyes and jumped up from her chair. “I’ll go get the info.”
Brad tried to be cool about it, but I caught him checking her out as she went down to the desk. She did look hot in her sleeveless top and cut-off jeans with her flawless skin. She didn’t work out, but she was in great shape from her waitressing job at PF Chang’s.
I, on the other hand, was not in great shape—as every part of my body would attest. My muscles were still sore after putting in the garden last weekend. Hell, my bones were sore.
“Six thousand. Wow, huh?” Brad pushed his glasses up from sliding down his nose and ran his hand through his straight blond hair.
He was pretty hot himself, in a nerdy way. He was about a foot and a half taller than Lisa, with bright blue eyes behind square black-rimmed glasses and strong cheekbones. He was a classic. Always with the clean and pressed cotton shirts, complete with mechanical pencils in his pocket. He seemed more suited to computer science or architecture, not religious studies or—like last semester—Renaissance art.
And I didn’t believe for one second he was that impressed by the money. You can tell someone with Broke Student Syndrome, and that definitely wasn’t Brad. I’d bet his bills were always paid on receipt. Now that I thought about it, his clothes were new and good quality, and I was pretty sure those sandals on his feet were Mephistos.
I remembered hearing that he worked at BlueMagick, the big tech company in Folsom. He was older than me and Lisa, in his late twenties. “You didn’t get a Blue Book back,” I said.
“No, I’m auditing,” he said.
“Auditing. So you don’t even need the internship, for the units or the money.”
“Busted.” His face reddened. “Maybe I just wanted to spend time with someone I thought would be there.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I said.
His crush was minorly tragic. In a Frankless world, Brad and Lisa would have made a cute couple. And even though Brad was a cutie, he had a thing for my best friend so he was automatically on my do-not-touch list.
Thinking about touching—more precisely, about not touching—made me cranky. It had been a while. Four months, to be exact, since I’d broken up with my last boyfriend. My relationships never lasted long.
I was suddenly aware of the air on my bare thighs and arms. “I could use it,” I said. “Desperately. The money, I mean. But I’ll have to think about it.”
Stacey would be eighteen next week. I could leave her alone now without fear of Child Protection Services, but I wanted to know how she felt about it before I decided.
Lisa came back with the packets and we headed out the door. End-of-semester relief washed over me. All my assignments were finished and there was another chunk of units in the achievement bag.
That’s how I kept my sanity: little accomplishments, one at a time.
Outside the lecture hall, an unfamiliar guy in a chair by the elevators sprang to his feet when he saw Jane Marks. She looked irritated to see him, but she didn’t object when he followed her.
With a wary expression, Brad watched them enter the elevator going up. I wasn’t worried about Jane. I couldn’t imagine anyone giving the six-foot-four, athletic woman any grief.
We walked out of the humanities building into the late spring sunshine. I said, “I’m not taking the internship.”
“What are you talking about, Nor ?” Lisa said. “You need the money.”
“I can’t leave Stacey for three
“Six. Thousand. Dollars!” Lisa grabbed my forearm.
“Gah, Lisa. Ouch!” Her silk nails gouged my skin.
“You have to do it, Nora. Where else are you going to make two grand a week this summer?”
“I don’t know…” It was a lot of money, but I hated having things thrown on me all of a sudden. This was quickly becoming a difficult day. I tried to inhale discreetly and blow out the tension.
“You’re going.” Lisa pushed her blond curls out of her green eyes and jumped up from her chair. “I’ll go get the info.”
Brad tried to be cool about it, but I caught him checking her out as she went down to the desk. She did look hot in her sleeveless top and cut-off jeans with her flawless skin. She didn’t work out, but she was in great shape from her waitressing job at PF Chang’s.
I, on the other hand, was not in great shape—as every part of my body would attest. My muscles were still sore after putting in the garden last weekend. Hell, my bones were sore.
“Six thousand. Wow, huh?” Brad pushed his glasses up from sliding down his nose and ran his hand through his straight blond hair.
He was pretty hot himself, in a nerdy way. He was about a foot and a half taller than Lisa, with bright blue eyes behind square black-rimmed glasses and strong cheekbones. He was a classic. Always with the clean and pressed cotton shirts, complete with mechanical pencils in his pocket. He seemed more suited to computer science or architecture, not religious studies or—like last semester—Renaissance art.
And I didn’t believe for one second he was that impressed by the money. You can tell someone with Broke Student Syndrome, and that definitely wasn’t Brad. I’d bet his bills were always paid on receipt. Now that I thought about it, his clothes were new and good quality, and I was pretty sure those sandals on his feet were Mephistos.
I remembered hearing that he worked at BlueMagick, the big tech company in Folsom. He was older than me and Lisa, in his late twenties. “You didn’t get a Blue Book back,” I said.
“No, I’m auditing,” he said.
“Auditing. So you don’t even need the internship, for the units or the money.”
“Busted.” His face reddened. “Maybe I just wanted to spend time with someone I thought would be there.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I said.
His crush was minorly tragic. In a Frankless world, Brad and Lisa would have made a cute couple. And even though Brad was a cutie, he had a thing for my best friend so he was automatically on my do-not-touch list.
Thinking about touching—more precisely, about not touching—made me cranky. It had been a while. Four months, to be exact, since I’d broken up with my last boyfriend. My relationships never lasted long.
I was suddenly aware of the air on my bare thighs and arms. “I could use it,” I said. “Desperately. The money, I mean. But I’ll have to think about it.”
Stacey would be eighteen next week. I could leave her alone now without fear of Child Protection Services, but I wanted to know how she felt about it before I decided.
Lisa came back with the packets and we headed out the door. End-of-semester relief washed over me. All my assignments were finished and there was another chunk of units in the achievement bag.
That’s how I kept my sanity: little accomplishments, one at a time.
Outside the lecture hall, an unfamiliar guy in a chair by the elevators sprang to his feet when he saw Jane Marks. She looked irritated to see him, but she didn’t object when he followed her.
With a wary expression, Brad watched them enter the elevator going up. I wasn’t worried about Jane. I couldn’t imagine anyone giving the six-foot-four, athletic woman any grief.
We walked out of the humanities building into the late spring sunshine. I said, “I’m not taking the internship.”
“What are you talking about, Nor ?” Lisa said. “You need the money.”
“I can’t leave Stacey for three
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