Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 116455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“Our first client,” I corrected.
My mother beamed. “And this will be happening…” Her voice caught. “…in Honeybridge?”
I nodded. “It’s home,” I said simply. “I don’t need to go looking for success anywhere else. I can stay right here and build it for myself.”
It had taken me a really long time to figure that out, but now that I had, I was committed.
“Even if things don’t work out with your Mr. Honeycutt?” she ventured.
I swallowed hard. They would work out. I trusted Flynn, and I believed in us. But I also knew what she was asking.
“This isn’t just about Flynn. It’s about running a business I can be proud of. It’s about believing in myself. It’s about…” I broke off, searching for the proper word.
Mother studied my face for a long moment, and then she lifted her wineglass in a toast. “Passion,” she said in a satisfied tone.
“Exactly,” I agreed.
And when I fell asleep that night, I felt more confident than I had in a long time, not because I thought I had everything figured out, but because I’d been reminded just how many people I could rely on to support me through any storm that came my way.
I only hoped that, wherever Flynn was, he knew he could trust me to be that for him, too.
Chapter Eighteen
Flynn
By the time I found my brother in Boston in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I was dirty and exhausted, not to mention out of my mind with fear. During the drive to the city, I’d convinced myself PJ had been snatched out of a dark alley one night and left for dead by criminals who had the false impression he might have money on him.
When I finally found him, after hours and days spent roaming the streets, showing PJ’s picture to every random stranger I met and trying to get the police to take my missing person’s report seriously, I wasn’t that far off.
“PJ? What the hell?” I raced over to the too-skinny, too-dirty kid who vaguely looked like my baby brother. He was sitting in the flickering yellow light of a restaurant service entrance alcove that a homeless woman had pointed me to, with his bony arms wrapped around his knees. He looked over at me through the predawn gloom with a confused crinkle between his eyebrows.
“Flynn? Is it really you?”
“Shit,” I said, closing the distance between us and skidding to a halt in front of him. I crouched down and pushed a dirty hank of hair out of his face. “Bro. Oh, thank god. I thought…” I broke off, not wanting to give voice to all the nightmares that had haunted me in the few hours of sleep I’d caught over the last three nights. “What the fuck is going on? Are you high?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I don’t do that stuff.” But he shivered as he said it, like maybe he’d had a closer call with it than he’d have liked. “You always told me not to, and I listened, Flynn. I tried to make you proud.” Tears filled his eyes.
I grabbed his chin and tilted his face toward the light. There were dark circles under his eyes and a faded bruise along his chin. “PJ. What happened, buddy? What the hell’s going on? Your roommates said you moved out two months ago because you couldn’t afford rent anymore, but that’s not possible, unless—”
A tear slid slowly out of one of his eyes. “I lost it,” he whispered. “The money.”
My eyes widened. “What, all of it?”
He nodded miserably. “All the rent and more besides. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was such an idiot. And I know how hard you worked. I… I wanted to figure out a way to get it back so you’d never have to know. I didn’t want you to be mad.”
“Mad? I’m not mad, Pollux. I’m fucking gutted. How could you be homeless and not tell me? And not ask me for fucking help?” My hands shook as I tried pulling him up from the sidewalk. He reeked of unwashed body, and his clothes were filthy. “Where’s your stuff? We’re going home.”
He shook his head, but my usually cheerful, talkative younger brother shuffled out of the alley after me, meek as a puppy. “No stuff. Sold all the stuff. Sold my phone, too, last week.”
PJ seemed numb. Tired in a way that implied he hadn’t slept well in weeks… maybe even longer. The only information I’d gotten from his drunken former roommates at his old apartment was that he’d moved out earlier in the summer and they hadn’t seen him around campus since. One roommate had mentioned seeing PJ with an older guy—maybe a boyfriend, hard to tell—the previous semester, and I’d wondered if my brother was shacked up with some guy.
I hadn’t imagined him alone. On the street.