Fearless Like Us (Like Us 9)

I hold my breath. “If I tell you I won’t, will you think worse of me?”

Her fingers slide against my calf. “No, of course not, Kits. But I will try fucking hard to change your mind. Because I do think that’s something you’d regret.”

Maybe.

I don’t know.

I place a hand atop her head in affection. “My little fucking conscience.”

She smiles. “I’m not that fucking little.” She slugs my arm pretty hard. “And that’s for the curse.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fudged it up.

On purpose.

“I was thinking,” Sulli says, “you need a manager, and I could use a job.”

“You want a job?”

“It’d be nice to have a new goal where my family starts treating me like I’m a capable, responsible adult.” She’s still pissed her dad is treating her like a little girl. “But maybe it’d be a bad idea. You hiring me might not look like I earned it.”

“Good because you’re overqualified.”

She crinkles her nose. “What? How?”

“You’re an Olympian,” I remind her with a smile. “You’re more suited to run some fitness classes than to manage this place.”

Her green eyes bore into me. “I just want to fucking help. You and Banks watch out for me all the time—”

“Literally our job,” I twirl a piece of her hair around my finger.

She smiles. “But I’d like to be a positive fucking force in your life, too.”

“You’re already a positive force, Sul. You’re…” I take a deeper breath. “You’re what keeps me moving. Besides SFO, you’re all I’ve got here.”

She scoots closer and wraps her arms around me. I fit mine around her. My chin rests on the top of her head. It feels good to hold her. It feels like home.

And then a phone starts ringing.

I glare, about to disable every single phone on this planet. We’re going back to the stone ages. For my sanity.

“It’s mine,” Sulli realizes, reaching for her phone.

We break apart a little while she checks Caller ID. Now I’m asking, “Who is it?”

“Unknown, but it says they’re calling from Philly.” She goes ahead and answers. “Hello?” Phone pressed to her ear, I can’t hear anything.

Her brows jump. “Yeah…yeah, I’m definitely interested…wow.” She starts smiling.

I’m more cautious.

It’s the bodyguard in me.

“Thanks, yeah. Sure…I’ll look out for the email. Bye.” She hangs up, grinning. “That was the swim coach from Warwick University.”

Shock arches my brows. “Warwick?”

“It’s a private school in Philly.”

“Yeah, I know that one. It was one of the few colleges I applied to way back before I bailed on the idea of college.” I pause to consider something. “They have a really good music program.”

“Is it the college that gave you a music scholarship for drums?”

I smile, realizing she remembers an offhanded comment I must’ve made years ago. “Yep, same one.”

She refocuses back on her phone with the kind of Sullivan Meadows focus that has been documented extensively online. Her grin returns in full.

I ask, “Did the coach want you to swim for Warwick’s team?”

“No.” She checks her email. “Apparently, they have a couple of Olympic hopefuls on the team.” She glances up to me. “He’s looking for an assistant coach, and he wants me to help train them.”

The Sulli I know would have a hard time training someone else for a competition that she’s still fit to compete in. But a lot has changed since she retired from swimming, and I’m not sure she’s in the same headspace.

“You’ve been looking for a job. Sounds like it’s coming at the perfect time.”

She nods. “It feels a little like fate farted in my face, and I’d be an idiot not to take notice.”

I smile. “Do I need to have a talk with fate? It can’t just be farting around you like that.”

She laughs, then says, “I told him to send me the info. I think I’m gonna do it, Kits.”

Looks like we’re headed to college.

A path I thought I left in the dust. But I’m prepared to protect my girlfriend wherever life takes her next.

I stand and hold out my hand for Sulli. As she grabs tight, I tell her, “I’ll lead the way.”

15

BANKS MORETTI

Fall on a college campus. Yellow, orange, burnt red leaves landscape old brick buildings and the grassy quad. Straight out of a university pamphlet.

Pamphlets that I’d more likely use to blow my nose in than actually read. Nuns at Saint Joseph’s didn’t bother even talking to me or my brother about college.

We couldn’t even afford tuition to the private Catholic school without clocking in hours of volunteer work at bingo halls and canned food drives.

College was for the rich.

For some bougie fuck down the street.

Not me.

What a fuckin’ life—look at me now. I flip a college ID over in my hand, my gorgeous mug staring back at me. Not in all my twenty-nine years did I think I’d be given one of these.

After Sulli accepted the assistant coach position at Warwick University, the three of us needed to be logged into the university system. The IDs act as keycards for all the buildings. Including the gym, fit with a competition-sized pool.