“Is Saint right, Jamie?” Mom was still on the search for whatever I was hiding.
“Yeah.” My voice came out smaller than I hoped, less confident.
“And?” She glanced at Dad, who remained silent as he took another sip of his wine, but the silence was a ruse.
He hid his curiosity better than Mom. That wasn’t unusual. He always took time to reflect before springing into action.
“How did you do?” she prompted when I didn’t answer right away.
“I did pretty good.” I shrugged.
She sighed, the sound exasperated, and Saint touched her arm lightly.
“I think,” he supplied, “that Jamie means he passed his tests.”
“Fabulous!” Mom’s face brightened.
“Not that we ever doubted it.” Dad tipped his glass in my direction in a small salute.
“What next? Do you have a plan?”
I almost laughed at Mom’s continued questions, and I stole a glance at Saint. Shit…he was watching me, too. I didn’t want his attention on me.
“Jamie needs to find somewhere to intern.” Saint’s words were flat and emotionless, and his face didn’t betray how he felt, either.
“Well, that’s easy.” Dad set his glass down. “We have the owner of a law office right here.” He looked at Saint.
I squirmed in my seat. I’d already considered asking Saint to host me as an intern—of course I had. He was the logical choice. In a family with so many members, the majority of my life depended on who I knew, not what, and I wasn’t afraid of that reality, but I definitely didn’t want to abuse it. No, I wanted to work for Saint based on merit, rather than family connection, or not at all.
I definitely didn’t want any special favors or treatment.
Saint raised an eyebrow, and I sighed. Shit, the guy was like Mom. No wonder he made such a good lawyer. He could get to the bottom of anything or manipulate his way around the truth without even breaking a sweat, depending on where his mood took him.
“I wasn’t going to ask…I mean, only if you think…” I inwardly berated myself as I trailed off. Talk about selling myself. Why would my brother want to hire me if I couldn’t even make words into coherent sentences, never mind arguing my own case?
He started to nod, the movement slow and subtle, and I rushed on, not wanting him to speak.
“You just…think about it, yeah?” There were so many reasons I couldn’t work for Saint—the potential for family overinvolvement being just one.
The other reasons—all of them—were Nico. As I thought of him, my breath lodged in my chest.
Dear God, Nico.
My thought was halfway a prayer, halfway a cry for help. I’d nursed a crush on Saint’s best friend—now business partner—for longer than I even knew hormones existed.
Growing up in my household, as one of eight boys, there’d been a constant stream of… well, for lack of a better word, eye candy, as guy friends of all ages and stages of development visited or passed through on the way to evenings out or long afternoons of computer games and sports on TV. I’d definitely benefited from being a middle brother growing up.
But Saint, spoilsport of all spoilsports, hadn’t enjoyed jokes about how hot his friends were. Maybe he’d known I wasn’t entirely joking. But he’d introduced a ‘no dating friends’ rule, which hadn’t exactly limited things in a town as big as Lakeshore, but it had completely and utterly taken Nico off my table. He was no longer on the menu. I would not be partaking of that delicious dish…et cetera, et cetera. And not only had I not so much as looked in Nico’s direction—well, maybe a quick peek, easily disguised as looking at the view behind him—I’d never confessed to anyone how I felt.
Instead, I sat back and waited for my crush to fade away. I assumed all stages of unrequited love did that if it wasn’t acted on, but it became the itch I couldn’t scratch.
So, I wasn’t sure about putting myself in a position where I might see him on a daily basis. I certainly couldn’t break Saint’s rule, and I’d never challenge or confront Saint on that, either. But could I condemn myself to that level of unexpressed and unaddressed desire?
Everyone had returned to chatting as I contemplated my moral dilemma over asking Saint to let me work for him, and I sat back, comfortable not to be the center of anyone’s attention.
I dug my fork into the remaining piece of Mom’s much-loved brownies and brushed the mouthful through the rapidly melting vanilla