Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,56
I could scrape together until I had enough for a few semesters of art school.”
“But you had a choice.” His voice has gone surprisingly soft and I see his eyes have thawed a bit. “The only choice for me, for anyone in my family, is an undergraduate career at an Ivy League school, followed by one of three paths — an MBA, a law degree, or a medical degree, also from an Ivy League school. That may sound like a charmed existence but, believe me, when I hit eighteen and realized my whole life had already been scripted, that everything I’d ever wanted to do was out of reach because it didn’t fit the mold of what my family felt was acceptable… Well, let’s just say, the Croft name stopped being a gift and became a burden.”
“Is that why you left five years ago?” I ask quietly.
His eyes lock on mine and his lips twitch. “Been researching me, huh?”
“No!” I flush. “My friends, Chrissy and Mark… they’re kind of…um…” I trail off, trying to think of the best way to describe my wackadoodle friends.
Chase’s eyebrows lift with amusement, and his fingers begin absently toying with a strand of my hair, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. The look on his face is one I can’t easily describe — his features are torn between surprise and disbelief and maybe even tenderness as he stares at his fingers, siding through the dark silky locks.
Fighting the urge to squirm, I try to pretend he hasn’t just forced my heart into overdrive and scrambled my brain to mush as I search for the right words. Or really any words, because if I go much longer without saying anything, he’s going to think I’m having a stroke.
I clear my throat a little desperately as he leans closer, closing some of the space between our cushions, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
Danger!
“Um… Chrissy and Mark… They’re nosy. And protective. And maybe a little overbearing,” I finish, forcing the words out with a wince. “But it’s mostly out of love, I swear.”
“They care about you,” he says simply, but there’s an edge of sadness to his words. His eyes flicker to mine, holding intently as he adds, “They love you.”
I nod, feeling my heart skip a beat inside my chest. His mouth opens, and I think he’s going to say something else about it, but then I see his eyes flash as he changes his mind.
“To answer your question,” he says instead. “No – the burden of being a Croft is not why I left.”
“Oh.” My voice is soft, and I don’t push when he doesn’t offer more.
“But that is why I came back,” he adds lowly.
I open my mouth to ask what he means, but he cuts me off with a personal question that throws me.
“Did you go to art school here in Boston?”
“Mhm,” I confirm. “But only for a few semesters.”
“Why didn’t you finish?”
I shrug, embarrassed by the answer.
I ran out of money.
Instead I say, “Real life happened.”
He nods. “Do you ever think about going back?”
“Not really.” My eyes find his again. “My mother always taught me, you end up at the destination you fix your eyes on: look to the future and you’ll get there, keep looking at the past, and you’ll find yourself back where you started.”
“A philosophy you live by?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know about that. But, in my experience…” I play absently with the sun pendant at my neck, a nervous habit. His eyes watch my fingers move along the gold chain. “The past holds pain; the future holds promise.”
Something flashes in his eyes, when I say that, but I can’t quite decipher it. Before I can analyze it too deeply, my purse starts beeping, my embarrassing text-alert tone — the first eight notes of the Harry Potter theme song — ridiculously loud in the silent loft.
Do-dooo-do-do-dooo-do-dooo-dooooo.
Chase’s eyebrows lift.
Blushing furiously, I reach into my bag and pull out my phone, its cracked screen flashing Shelby’s name.
“It’s just Shelby,” I say, pressing a button to toggle it into silent-mode. “I’ll call her back later.”
My eyes lift to Chase and I see he’s staring at my phone, his intent eyes examining the cracks in my screen, the sparkly blue case I bought when I was twenty and still use because it’s such an old model, they don’t even sell replacement cases anymore.