would be great, too.”
“Ouch,” Mina said as the waitress put a pint of beer in front of me and a fruity mixed drink in front of her. “That wasn’t anything like my house.”
“No? What was yours like?”
“I think my parents might actually be the nicest people on the planet,” Mina said. “I know you’re not supposed to say that about your parents. You’re supposed to resent them for whatever they got wrong. But my parents are just nice people, period. My dad used to help me make puppets when I was little, so I could put on puppet shows for them. My mom calls me every Sunday at four o’clock because she’s worried I’m lonely in New York City, and every week she says I can come home if I want to. I’ve been here for ten years.”
“That’s nice,” I said, meaning it.
She shook her head. “It’s off topic. We’re talking about you. You and your brother were supposed to be great at everything. Go on.”
“Right,” I said. “My parents weren’t abusive, but they made it understood from the time Caleb and I were little that their expectations were high. It was just something we lived with. We didn’t think about it much. At least, I didn’t. I just did my best to be everything my parents wanted me to be.”
“You did pretty well,” Mina said. “Though I don’t remember you on the student council.”
“I got into too many sports,” I said. “I didn’t have time. Though to be fair, I would have hated it.”
“I remember,” Mina said as our food arrived and she used her fork to stir her chicken stir fry. “Football, basketball, swim team. Honor roll. Everyone thought you’d be a CEO someday, maybe. Or president. At least a senator or something.”
“Instead, here I am,” I said gesturing to my uniform. “Intubating people before I finish my charts, then go home to my four roommates.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Four?”
“It’s the only way to afford the city. I want to know how you got here. What you’ve been doing for ten years.”
“You’re changing the subject,” she said.
“Maybe, but I’m already sick of talking about me. I’d rather talk about you. I take it you came to this city for the theater.”
She lit up a little at the mention of theater, like I knew she would. “This place is amazing for theater. Not just the Broadway stuff, though that’s great, too. But the off-Broadway stuff and the little independent productions. You can go on any Saturday night and find something to see. Maybe it won’t be very good, and maybe it’ll only cost six bucks, but it’s theater. It’s a dream.”
“And what about you?” I asked, digging into my steak. I really was more interested in her than me. “Are you getting roles?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “It’s a tough town. Everyone who’s any good comes to New York.”
“You’re good,” I said.
“How do you know? You haven’t seen me perform since I sang in the world’s worst high school production of Oklahoma! over a decade ago.”
I shrugged, a gesture that always used to irritate her in science lab. “I just know.”
Mina narrowed her eyes. “Maybe, but it doesn’t change the fact that I need to pay the rent. So I waitressed for years, and now I spend my days working at a financial firm.”
I nearly dropped my fork. “A financial firm? You?”
“You don’t need to look so shocked. I can add and subtract, you know, and I was the one who got us the grades in science lab. But I’m not actually a financial…person. Whatever they’re called. I order office supplies.”
I frowned. “So you literally just…”
“Order pens, paper, toner, that kind of thing, yes. It’s boring and I hate it. I hate my boss, and I’m pretty sure she hates me back. I should hate the CEO of the company, because he’s an arrogant jerk, but I don’t, probably because he’s hot.”
For some reason, that bothered me. “That sounds like a bad idea, having a crush on the CEO.”
Mina took a forkful of her stir fry. “I don’t have a crush on him, Holden. I just said he’s hot. I save my crushes for fictional men.”
“Fictional men?”
“The ones in the romance novels I read.” She lifted her chin. “Yes, I read romance novels, and any opinion you have of that can go straight up your—”
“I get it,” I said. “I never said there was anything wrong with reading romance novels.”
“Then you’re one of the few people who doesn’t feel the