Page 31 of The Fire

“And it’s not like you did it alone.”

I frowned. “What’sthatsupposed to mean?”

Jamie shrugged.

“Okay, let’s get something straight. I worked myassoff to get a down payment to open Hoff’s.Twojobs, Jamie, for six straight years. No vacations. Ethan and I used to make these plans of places we were gonna go, but it was all bullshit. Neither of us left thestatelet alone the country. At least, Ethan didn’t until he started dating his boyfriend.” I shook my head, feeling my own temper rise. “We weren’t exactly living high, you know? And everything I had, Iearned.”

“M’kay,” he said, his tone laced with disbelief.

I set my teeth. It didn’t matter if he believed me. It didn’t matter if he still thought I was weak and dependent. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, it didn’t—“Can you drive any faster?”

“Nope,” Jamie said with maddening calm. “Otherwise I’d end up in a snowbank. Like an idiot.”

“You are the most…Ugh. Were we actually friends at some point? Jesus Christ. I feel like I should have gotten a medal. Or maybe therapy for the Stockholm syndrome.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Nuh uh!” I held up a hand, palm out. “Stop talking.”

“My point was—”

“La, la, la, la.” I put my cold fingers in my ears. “Don’t wanna know. Not another word.”

“Your parents had to be bankrolling you.” He shrugged. “At least during college.”

“Bank—?Myparents?” I pulled my hands away from my ears and laughed out loud. “Oh my God. Are you joking? You do remember Lance Hoffstraeder, yes? Does he seem like the kind of guy who’d bankroll his son?”

“Your mom—”

“My mom wanted me out of O’Leary,” I agreed. “But she didn’t want me working at a bar! She wanted me to be a doctor or a senator. Something she could brag about to her friends. There was no bankrolling, Jamie.Jesus. Where’d you come up with this shit?”

Jamie frowned at the road in front of us.

“They paid for my first year of college,” I admitted. “I decided to go to BU so suddenly and so late in the summer that there was no financial aid available.”And you know why it was so sudden, I thought but didn’t add. “After that, though? No. My parents aren’tthatwell off. So I took out student loans—tons of them—and got scholarships.” I shook my head. “Honestly, it’s none of your fucking business in the first place, so why do you care?”

“I don’t,” he bit off. “I don’t care at all.”

“Whatever.” I dug in my pocket for my phone. “I’m gonna call Marci and tell her you found me.”

“Don’t bother.”

“But I’d hate for them to send—”

“Cell signal is shitty on this stretch of the Camden Road,” he reminded me. “You can call from my house.”

“But what if— Wait.Yourhouse?” I shook my head. “No. You can drop me at the school. They have an emergency shelter-thing happening.”

Jamie snorted. “I heard. And I’m not bringing you to the shelter.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you’ll be stuck there for days.”

“Better stuck there than at your house!”With you.

“There are no showers at the school, and the cafeteria always smells like tomato soup and hotdogs.” He side-eyed me. “You hate it when rooms smell like food and there’s no food.”

I blinked. Ididhate that. It was why I’d been in such a hurry to move out of my last apartment. I had no clue how the fuck he remembered. Or why.