Page 30 of Try Me
He shrugged. “I guess I am.”
“Maybe I just dragged your ass out of there because I suspected you’d give me up if you got caught. But if you ran, you were just as complicit.”
Even though I was joking, Mark appeared to give it some serious thought before dismissing it with a shake of his head. “No.”
“There—” I stopped myself. That was too much. Too much confession, too much of myself to explain the little seed of intrigue that had always remained. The desire, the longing. “I think about when we were kids a lot. How we’d fight over stupid shit. You remember that skateboard you got when you were eleven?”
“You flipped your shit when I wouldn’t let you borrow it.”
“Stormed home all pissed off.”
“Then showed up in my window that night. That was a dick move on my part. I should’ve let you take it.”
I nodded. “We fought, but we got over it fast. I thought it would always be like that.”
“The problems got more complex.”
“Yep.”
You’re mercurial, my mom had told me once. I’d been about fourteen. I thought she’d meant I was fast, like mercury. I didn’t figure it out until a couple of years later. She wasn’t wrong.
“So what are you really doing here? Rebelling?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what my dad thinks.” Mark exhaled noisily. “Aren’t internships about trying something different, though? Seeing if you’re interested in a particular career?”
Gordon Farrow had been the rudder to Mark’s ship for so long I wondered if he even recognized it. “But you’re still going to join Farrow Capital when you graduate, right?”
“If my dad gets his way, yeah.”
It should’ve irked me that he’d essentially admitted he was just dabbling in this internship for the hell of it, while I could make a strong case that my future depended on it. But it was rare we talked like this, and I was intrigued. “Is that what you want? You wanted to be a teacher when we were little.”
“Are we having career day now?” Mark waved a hand. “I mean, yeah, I did. But I also wanted to be an astronaut, a fireman, a policeman, and a garbage man. I’m good at finance, though, and…” He shrugged. “It’s job security. I’ll be set for life. But maybe that’s not all there is. I’m interested in law—that’s not bullshit. I’m not here fucking around.” He gazed pensively at me. “That’s what you thought, right? I’m here fucking around. That I’m spouting privileged bullshit again because who the fuck wouldn’t want job security, right? Like you said the other day. Guaranteed salary, benefits. But you probably also remember what my dad was like. And let me tell you, the years haven’t softened him.” He bit his lip. “I don’t know that I want to be his lackey as a career path.”
I thought about my mom’s shoes on the floor, the way she rubbed the spot between her eyes, how her shoulders always seemed to bow slightly inward now. The loans I’d be taking out when and if I could get into law school. The years I’d spend working them off. And even considering all of that, I couldn’t disparage him for wanting something different.
I could only be envious that he had the option in the first place.
Mark nudged a paper sack on the table I’d noticed earlier. “You want the rest? I ate a huge breakfast.”
“What is it?” I was more struck that he made the offer than I was interested in the sandwich, which was on crusty bread and had globs of green, yellow, and white dotting the sides. Not very appetizing.
“Cold grilled cheese with avocado spread. But really fucking good,” he tacked on when I made a face. “My roommate Jesse made a bunch last night. He’s a badass cook.”
“I know Jesse.”
Mark’s brows shot up. “You do?”
“Yeah, we had a bunch of classes together sophomore year.”
He fell silent for a moment. “Did you…have you…?”
“Are you about to ask something that’s none of your goddamn business?” Mark shrugged, and I cocked my head at him. “You assume I’ve hooked up with him because he’s a fellow teammate on the sexual playing field?” I laughed.
“No. I assume because Jesse’s cool and good-looking.” He fiddled with the sandwich bag. “And I don’t remember you ever having trouble getting anyone you wanted in bed.”
You.There wasn’t a chance in hell the word would leave my mouth, though. I jerked my thumb toward the files. “Want to take these back to our desks and check ’em out? We can split them down the middle.”
“Sure.” Mark’s tone was distant, but as I straightened, he watched me arch my back in a stretch, gaze skipping down my torso, then climbing slowly back up. I felt each landing like a thumbprint, a tiny pinprick of heat that rippled through me. Then he turned away, tossed the rest of his lunch in the trash, and shoved the file cabinet closed.