Take What You Want (10 page)

“No.” She caught her mistake immediately and bit down on her lip, darting her gaze to Josh and away again as her hands clenched into fists. “Um, er… I have. But not much. Recently.”

“Terribly dangerous. We keep trying to talk this one into selling his, but no dice.”

“As if I would ever,” he scoffed. His parents had never approved, but considering the way he’d worked on it and put it together himself, they’d never officially put their foot down. “I actually took Ellen out on it a couple days ago. She loved it, right?”

She relaxed her posture and looked at him with a relieved expression. “Absolutely.”

Just then, his mom appeared at the doorway, looking like a merciful angel. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Great.” Josh rubbed his hands together as he stood up, moving entirely too quickly in his rush to end one awkward conversation and move on to the next. He waited for Ellen, threaded their fingers together and clasped her palm tight before heading to the dining room.

At that big table, they sat across from each other, with his parents at the head and foot. They served up and passed plates with the absolute minimum of conversation, the silence broken only by the sound of metal on china and the occasional murmur of someone’s name to get their attention. When his father finally nodded with the go-ahead to dig in, Josh did so with gusto, just glad to have something to focus on. Plus, the faster they ate, the sooner he and Ellen could escape.

It still wasn’t soon enough.

“So,” his mother said. “Josh has told us so little about you, Ellen.” She gave him a pointed glare.

Ellen looked like she wanted to hide under the table, but she kept her brave face on. “Oh, well…”

“Yes,” his father interrupted. “Tell us all about yourself.”

With all eyes in the room on her, Ellen dabbed at her mouth with her napkin before resettling it in her lap. She met Josh’s gaze for a second, and he gave her a sympathetic look. She smiled and glanced between his parents again.

He didn’t mean to, but Josh found himself holding his breath anyway as he waited to hear what she was going to say.

His heart swelled with pride as she sat up straighter and kept her chin high. God, how had she hidden in the back of that classroom for so long? When she got up her nerve, she was magnificent. Confident and sexy and amazing.

“Well, I’m kind of between things right now. I waitress at the Park Diner, but I’m looking to go to school. To study medicine.” She gave the same basic details she’d given Josh, but he listened more closely this time, heard the way she parsed her words.

It struck him all of a sudden that she
was
between things. She was a senior like him. She probably had her own little pile of acceptance and rejection letters somewhere in her apartment. He swallowed hard. Even if they did get past their current miscommunication and he got everything he wanted, she could be planning on moving halfway across the country come fall.

He needed to know.

He heard his own voice before he’d fully decided to speak. “Ellen told me she was thinking about going to school here.” He turned to her. “But did you have any other schools in mind?”

Just like him, she hadn’t flat-out lied yet. She’d danced all around the truth, but she hadn’t lied.

He begged her with his eyes.
Tell me.

“I have a few on my list,” she answered slowly, and he could practically see the gears turning in her head.

“Such as?”

“Just some schools on the coast.”

He wanted to groan with frustration. He needed specifics.

Of course, at just that moment, his dad broke in. “Josh has been applying to medical school. We’re just waiting to hear.”

Her eyes flashed to his for just an instant before she addressed his dad. “Well, I’m sure he’ll end up someplace that’s right for him.”

“I have no doubt.” He chuckled. “Though I’m still holding out for Harvard.”

“Dad…”

“Hush, hush. Johns Hopkins will do just as well.”

Josh’s stomach fell. He wasn’t ready for this conversation. Didn’t know if he ever would be.

“And which would you prefer, Josh?” Ellen’s voice sounded innocent, but she knew exactly what she was doing.

He swallowed and forced a smile. “Guess we’ll just have to see.”

“Surely you must have a preference.”

She couldn’t just let it go.

He gazed at her across the table without speaking, and silence hung in the air for a moment before his father chuckled. “I’m pretty sure Josh is a Harvard man. Just like his old man.”

Josh looked down at his plate, catching the inside of his bottom lip between his teeth. He could feel Ellen’s gaze, probably his father’s, too. But he couldn’t meet either of their eyes. Hell, he didn’t think he could have even met his own.

After a long, tense minute, his mother coughed. “These are lovely rolls, Ellen.”

“Thanks. Actually, Josh, would you mind passing me one?”

His eyes darted to hers and then to the basket, and he lifted one eyebrow. She could reach them well enough herself. Still, he flipped the cloth covering them aside and pulled one out.

“No, not that one. The smaller one, next to it.”

His eyebrow lifted higher. Humoring her, he dropped the one he was holding onto his own plate and went for the one she’d requested. “This one?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Picky, aren’t you?”

“What can I say?” She gazed at him levelly as he deposited it on her plate. “When I know what I want, I’m not afraid to go for it.”

What felt like hours later, Josh’s father finally pushed back from the table and dropped his napkin down next to his place setting. “Wonderful as always, Nancy.”

“Yes,” Ellen chimed in. “Everything was great.”

“I’m so glad you liked it.”

“If you’ll excuse me.” Josh’s father rose, nodded at each of them and then walked away.

That was their cue. Josh and his mom rose as one, followed immediately by Ellen. As he always did, Josh went to gather up his father’s plate and his own, but his mother waved him off. “I’ll take care of this tonight, hon. You two can run along.” She gestured toward the door. “I’m sure Ellen would like a tour?”

Josh smiled at her gratefully but didn’t move away from the table until she’d disappeared into the kitchen. He hadn’t quite managed to look Ellen in the eye since she’d hung him out to dry with her little metaphor about the rolls, and he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with her now. The silence between them felt hot and shameful, and that in and of itself had him clenching his jaw.

She was the one living a lie right now. And she had the audacity to try to call him out. She didn’t even know what she was talking about.

He heard his mother moving about in the kitchen, and he rapped his knuckles against the back of his chair, then walked around to the other side of the table to stand beside Ellen. As uncomfortable as things were, whatever conversation they were about to have, he wasn’t willing to have it in front of anyone else.

“Come on,” he said, still not quite looking at her, nodding his head toward the doorway. “I’ll show you my room.”

Any other time, it would have been suggestive, and on some level, it still was. Even as irritated and indignant as he was now, the air between them was charged. When he brushed his hand against hers, he still felt it all the way up his arm.

The second he had the door to his room closed behind them, he had her pushed up against it, his mouth on hers. It wasn’t a kiss full of the sweetness they’d shared up on the roof beneath the stars, nor of the raw heat from those first couple nights. It was frustration and bitten-back words—all the things he hadn’t said to her and to his parents. To himself.

If he didn’t kiss her, he was going to scream at her.

She pulled away, gasping for air, head thumping against the wood behind her, but her hands clutched at him. As if he was going anywhere. With an intensity he didn’t know what to do with, his whole chest a mess of emotion, turning and twisting, he nipped and sucked his way down her throat and slid his hands up the skin of her thighs. Lifted her up and pressed himself against her.

And all the words came spilling out.

“It’s not so easy,” he said, panting against her ear. “It’s not so easy for some of us to forget everything. Everyone’s expectations.”

“What—?”

He growled and bit the tendon in her neck, pulling a gasp out of her that sounded as full of dismay as it did arousal. Bracing himself, he pressed his face against her hair. “Not everyone can just decide to be a different person one day.”

Her hands on his hips dropped away instantly, only to rise up between them, shoving at his chest as she slid to stand on her own two feet. He pushed off from the door, retreating just a foot but still breathing raggedly, staring at her. Every line of her face was panic.

And he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. Couldn’t be that cruel or force her to own up to everything. Not like this.

He placed a finger against her lips, asking for silence as he fought to calm his racing chest. With the most even voice he could muster, he returned to the source of his anger and ground out, “My parents expect certain things of me.”

Her mouth widened into a surprised O, and he couldn’t help running the tip of his finger along her bottom lip. Those lips that had looked so fucking sexy pursed around him in the shower the day before.

Focus.

He let his hand fall and tucked it into a fist at his side. “Yes, I need to have a conversation with them. But not over dinner when I’m introducing them to the girl I—” He stopped himself. What the hell had he even been about to say? He shook his head. “The girl I’m seeing. Not when I’m not prepared.”

Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she gathered her thoughts. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“You were pushing. And I wasn’t ready to be pushed. Especially not—”
Not by you. Not when you started this stupid, stupid lie.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he walked over to his dresser, heart in his throat, and dug out the letters that had been sitting there, taunting him. He threw them on the bed and dropped himself onto the edge of the mattress beside them. When she didn’t move, he gestured toward the folded papers. “Go ahead.”

She sat beside him, settling there gingerly, two feet of space between their bodies as she reached for the letters. As she scanned through them, he watched her from under his lids. Her expression shifted from confusion to surprise to thinly veiled excitement. His heart picked up again, but for a different reason entirely. Did she see schools in there that matched hers?

“Holy crap, Josh.” She flipped from one sheet to the next. “You didn’t tell me you were this smart.” At the last page, her eyes flew to meet his. “Harvard med.”

“Yup.”

She put the letters down and leaned back on her arms. Her voice was strained as she said, “Your dad will be so proud.”

“You see why this is complicated?”

“I do. But this is your life.” She swallowed hard. “Believe me, I know. It’s hard to try to be who you really want to when people, like you said,
expect
things of you. But it’s amazing. To get what you want when you finally go for it.”

He studied her for a moment, then rifled through the pile for the two letters that were different from the others. He pushed them toward her. “Read those a little more closely.”

Her eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “These aren’t for medical school.”

“Nope. They aren’t.”

His dad was going to kill him when he found out about the applications he’d secretly put in at half a dozen graduate chemistry programs. He’d been holding on to the secret for months now, and it lifted a burden from his chest to share this with someone. With
her
.

Because even though they’d spent all this time lying—even though it had only been a few days—he felt like she knew him better than anyone.

She scanned the pages again, her eyes lighting up, but she pressed her lips together as if to hide her smile. He wondered…

“These are great schools, Josh. CalTech, MIT…” She paused, then admitted, “I was thinking about Boston, too.”

Did that mean—? He dug his fingers into the comforter beneath him. “It’s a great town.”

And he could see them there. Together. If they could just get past all this bullshit…

She put the letters down and smiled at him, her warm hand settling on top of his. “You have to tell him.”

“I know. I will.”

And then I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.

Suddenly, everything crystallized in his mind—the closest thing he’d had to a plan in ages. He’d go on this trip with his dad, only instead of grinning and bearing his way through it, avoiding talking about the only thing they needed to talk about, he’d get it all out in the open.

He’d be the man that Ellen seemed to think he could be.

Then he’d come back to her. He’d tell her that he’d known all along, and that her lie didn’t matter, because it had brought them together. He’d ask her to forgive him for his.