Bring Down the Stars

“Bread is easier to accept than bread,” Weston said.

I laughed again and gestured to his work. “Am I keeping you?”

“I’m okay,” he said. His eyes were soft. “You?”

“Not really. On top of everything else, I’m panicking about my grades. As opposed to panicking about my Harvard application.” I ran my hands over my hair, yanking it back from my face and letting it fall again. “I’m really sinking. If I don’t maintain my GPA I’m going to be in trouble with this school, never mind Harvard.”

Weston nodded. “I had a partial NCAA and it ran out last year. I’ve been able to stretch the living stipend through this year because Connor’s parents are paying our rent. But next year?” He raised his lean muscled shoulders in a shrug.

“Student loans?” I asked.

“I don’t want to be saddled with that kind of debt. My mother’s been in debt her entire life. It scares the shit out of me. I’m thinking about Army Reserves.”

I sat back in my chair. “The Army. Really? Things are really a mess in Syria right now. And the war in Afghanistan seems like it will go on forever.”

“It’s only the Reserves,” he said. “One weekend a month.”

“What if the service falls on a track meet weekend?”

He shrugged again. “Bottom line, I have to take care of my mom and sisters and I need a degree and a decent job to do it.”

Mother and sisters. No father. Weston never mentions his father.

“I’m looking forward to meeting your family next weekend,” I said.

“Brace yourself,” Weston said. “You’re basically going to walk into a Mark Wahlberg movie.”

I laughed. “Connor seems really nervous about the day. Are his parents really that hard on him?”

“The Drakes are good people at heart,” Weston said. “They want Connor to be his best self. But they don’t get that his best self doesn’t involve being in his dad’s business, or politics, or even being in college.”

I nodded. “I think he’d be happy with his own sports bar.”

“He’d be good at it.” Weston’s pen tapped his page. “At least an economics degree could come in handy for it, even if it’s not what he wants.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Is economics what you really want to do too? Wall Street?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked slowly.

“I don’t know,” I said, and narrowed my eyes at him with a small smile. “Part of me thinks you working with numbers and money makes no sense. The other half thinks you’d make an excellent, cutthroat Wall Street vulture.”

His eyes widened first, then his smile unfolded—a genuine smile free of irony or dryness. It kept growing, unleashing a full-throated laugh in his deep—sexy—voice.

“Oh, you can laugh,” I said, my own smile growing. “I have to say, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself right now.”

His laughter tapered to a chuckle. “I don’t know which title I like better—Amherst Asshole, or Wall Street Vulture.”

I made a face. “I don’t like that name, Amherst Asshole. Where did it come from?”

“Track guys, mostly.”

“That’s because you don’t let them know you. You have facets just like everybody else. Even for a guy who thinks feelings are like tonsils.”

His brow furrowed. “When did I say that?”