Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Oxford sounds pretty incredible too.
It rains all the time in England…
How often does it rain in Sydney? I should look that up.
At home, I go right back to obsessing over my options, spreading the envelopes across my comforter. On the left side of the bed is the no pile. It features every New England school. Sorry, Ivies, but it’s been swell. Four years was enough.
On the right side, I have Sydney and Oxford.
On my desk sit the two rejections.
It’s ridiculous how much weight these one-page letters carry. How a single sentence can make or break my future.
There’s a knock on my door, and I know it’s Faith even before I hear her say, “Char? You in there?”
“Come in,” I tell her, and she pokes her head inside.
“You want to watch a movie or something?”
“No, babe. I’m too distracted.”
She stares at the sea of paper. “Grad school?”
I nod.
“Any closer to picking one?”
I nod again. “I think so. I’m going to run a pros-and-cons list now and see if it points me in one direction.”
She rolls her eyes. “You are the biggest nerd in the world, and I love you dearly.”
“Love you too.”
Once she’s gone, I grab my laptop and settle on the bed, leaning against the headboard.
I open a new document and begin my favorite process in the whole world. The Method.
ACTION: Move to Sydney.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
WILL
Ours, baby
THE JOB OFFER FROM TESSA DIAZ SITS IN MY INBOX LIKE AN ARMED bomb, waiting for me to either defuse it or let it blow my life up. A campaign job in DC, working for one of my father’s biggest critics.
It’s so tempting.
And so fucking risky.
I just had lunch with Case, and we spoke about it in length. He thinks I should take it. But Case doesn’t know my dad. He can’t grasp the sheer force of my father’s wrath.
Now, I’m driving home from the diner, still torn, and after several more minutes of vacillating, I call the one person who might actually give me valid advice.
“Hi, kiddo.” My stepmother answers on the second ring, her voice wafting out of the car speakers.
“Do you have a minute?” I ask Kelsey. “I need to talk.”
“Of course. What’s going on?”
I turn at the end of Main Street, driving in the direction of Hastings’s residential neighborhood. “I got a job offer. A big one. Campaign work.”
“I know. Your father told me.”
I frown. “Oh. Okay.”
“And I knew it would only be a matter of time before you called to talk about it.”
I hesitate, feeling the words catch in my throat. “Harper Wozniak has been really critical of Dad in the press.”
“Yes, she has.”
“Dad flipped out when I told him.”
“Yes, he did.”
“So what do I do?”
The silence on the other end of the line is loud.
“I know,” I grumble. “It’s a shitty move.”
“Very much so,” she says wryly.
Frustration seizes my throat. “I get that. But it’s exactly the kind of work I want to do. I can’t just wait around for the next opportunity. This is right in front of me.”
“Will, you can’t take that job. It would be terrible for your father’s image. Do you realize what it would look like? His own son working for the opposition? It would tear him apart.”
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. I knew she’d say something like that. But hearing it still makes my chest tighten.
“Fuck his image, Kels. I’m tired of living my life worrying about what it looks like for him. This is my career. My life.”
“I know, honey,” she says. “But you’ve worked so hard to get to where you are, and I just worry that taking this job will make everything more difficult. Not only for him but for you. The media machine will spin this, and it won’t be kind. It’ll become a mess you don’t need.”
“I can handle the media. And I don’t care what they write about me.”
“Listen to me, Will. Sometimes, the right job isn’t the one that comes first. It’s the one that fits with who you are. And I don’t think this is it.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Whatever you decide, though, I’ll support you.”
Will she? Because it sounds like this is one of those rare times when she’s firmly siding with my father.
But maybe that’s telling. Maybe it’s a sign that this job is not the way to go.
After we hang up, I’m no closer to figuring out what the hell to do. Her advice lingers in the back of my mind, but I hate that a part of me feels obligated to consider my dad’s image in all this.
When I get home, I hear Beckett’s voice before I even open the door.
“Yo, Larsen!” he calls out as soon as I walk in. “Got news.”
I toss my jacket on the hook in the front hall. “What kind of news?”
He grins from his perch on the couch, looking way too excited for someone whose team got knocked out in the semi-finals last night.