Living the Dream

by Lyla Payne

  The thought of my brothers uncovering those videos is enough to bring the slice of garlic bread halfway back up my esophagus. I rearrange my face into what I hope communicates anger and follow Cole’s lead, tossing my napkin onto the table. It’s crumpled from being clenched inside my fist. “Well, you’re welcome to say your piece, dear brothers, but do you really expect you have anything to tell me about Sebastian that will change my mind? I’ve heard all of the same stories you have.”

  “We don’t want to say anything bad about him. He’s done enough damage to his public image during the four years he’s attended Whitman on his own.” Nox swallows. “We want to know that you’re okay, Audra. And that you know you can talk to us if something’s going on.”

  A laugh forces its way through my nausea. “Why would you think something is wrong? Just because I’m continuing to date someone you don’t approve of, I must be losing my mind? Did it ever occur to the three of you that I’m simply growing up? That I might be making a decision for me?”

  “Don’t freak out. Jeepers.” Law shakes his head, giving me a look like I’ve lost my ever-loving mind. “You know you’d be worried if one of us started dating, like, that chick from Fatal Attraction.”

  “Maybe. Or I might be happy to be rid of your nosy asses.”

  “Uncalled-for,” Nox grunts. “We think you owe us an explanation.”

  As hard as I try to see things from their side, this whole evening and conversation only make me angry. They’ve been doing this for years—watching out for me in name but controlling me in truth. It’s time they stopped. It’s time I put a stop to it.

  This thing with Sebastian is as good an excuse as any, because even if I wanted to chicken out and give in to their demands, I can’t. It’s giving me the courage to take steps I should have a while ago, like those new vapor cigarettes give smokers the balls to finally quit destroying their lungs.

  “You know what, I don’t owe you an explanation.” I hold up my hand when Cole starts to protest. “You’re my brothers and I love you all. I love that you care about me. But it’s time I make my own decisions, starting with who I date. Right now, that means Sebastian Blair. So get over it.”

  None of them respond, their mouths hanging open in uniform surprise. Jenna still avoids my stare, but a proud glint in Ruby’s bright blue eyes pours confidence through me.

  Sebastian might not be the guy to take a chance on, but it’s the right time to do it anyway.

  Chapter Ten

  Sebastian

  Over half of the guys at this philanthropy committee meeting aren’t even pretending to pay attention. There are too many freshmen serving because it’s required and the two upperclassmen were assigned involuntarily when the rest of the SEA committees were already full.

  “Could you douchebags turn off your phones and pretend to care that we’re supposed to be planning a major event? We haven’t come up with a single workable idea yet.” My patience is wearing thin. Nothing in my life is moving as quickly as I would like, but at least I have some control over this.

  My mother texted me half the afternoon about the pain she’s in, accusing the nurse—who I’m barely managing to pay for with squirreled-away cash—of withholding pain meds. Logan Walters won’t let up even though I finally replied, letting him know the site will be repaired and making money again as soon as possible.

  My mood sucks, and did even before being forced to spend the evening babysitting. The only other person on the committee who gives a shit is Toby Wright, and there’s no way the two of us aren’t going to end up doing 100 percent of the work.

  Normally, I would shove it off onto one of the pledges or someone else who owes me a fucking favor, but that doesn’t exactly jibe with my new, rehabilitated image. The guy Audra Stuart would get into bed with would want to be a part of earning money for a deadly disease. He’d be goddamn gleeful about it.

  That guy doesn’t exist, of course, but he probably doesn’t have all the issues I have, either.

  “Time’s up, anyway,” Toby says, rubbing his face like maybe we’re sharing a throbbing headache. “We’ve got a good list of ideas started. Everyone get me two more before the end of the week and we’ll narrow it down from there. Hopefully they won’t all suck as bad as tonight’s.”

  The idiot drones shuffle off, skittish as they give me as wide a berth as the frat house chapter room allows. Toby shakes his head as the door bangs shut, leaving us alone. “This is a nightmare. Do you have an ibuprofen?”

  “Yeah.” I reach into my briefcase and toss him a travel container of Advil. Emergency stash. As tired as this so-called meeting made me, there’s no time like the present to work on my plan to get out from under Teddy Rowland’s thumb. “You want to go grab a drink? Maybe try to figure this out tonight? We really need to pick an event and get started.”

  Surprise flickers through his eyes but he stows it quickly. If there’s one person on this entire campus who might be willing to believe even I can change, he’s it.

  “Sure. Let’s run up to the Pub for a few hours and see what we can hammer out. Let me just text Kennedy and drop this paperwork in my box.”

  “Sure.”

  He meets me on the porch a couple of minutes later, tugging his jacket around his shoulders. I’ve got my peacoat on again tonight but it’s not giving me as much comfort as usual. It smells like Audra’s light, citrusy shampoo or perfume and it’s driving me a little wild. Like, I’d rather be headed out for a few hours with the intention of not going home alone as opposed to spending time networking.

  “Cold, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I take a deep breath and reach for the ability to small talk that’s going to be necessary, both tonight and for the rest of my professional life. It’s hard; Toby and his All-American Good Guy persona make me a little sick to my stomach. “Warmer than North Carolina, right?”

  “Oh, for sure.” He glances around before hopping down the house’s front steps. “It’s prettier there, though. If it’s going to be chilly it’s nice to have a little snow or at least colored leaves to offset the pain.”

  “You want me to drive?”

  Toby glances at his watch. “Nah, let’s both drive. I don’t want you to have to go out of your way to drive me home afterward.”

  I struggle for a second trying to decide if the appropriate response is to say “fine” or to argue that it’s really no trouble, but in the end I go with a shrug. It’s too awkward if the real reason he wants his own car is so that he can extract himself from drinks with me at the earliest convenience, and if it’s because he needs to be able to run when Kennedy snaps her fingers, I don’t want to know.

  The drive to the Pub takes less than five minutes—we could have walked if we were different people. The kind who eat granola and drive diesel-fitted shitsters. It’s bad enough that he suggested the campus pit of a bar.

  The Pub has been in the same spot for at least fifty years and even though the owner doesn’t look much older than that, I’ve always assumed he opened it. His two sons and one daughter are the only employees and the place hasn’t seen a mop or a bucket of bleach in at least twenty years.

  I sit at one of the only empty tables—which doesn’t mean it’s busy, since there are only about ten tables total—and do my best not to touch the furniture with any bare skin. There have to be about a million bodily fluids and bacteria squirming atop the lacquer.

  Toby sits down with a pitcher of watery beer and an apologetic smile. “These are on special and there’s no point in paying top dollar for booze that’s going to be mostly ice and mixer.”

  He’s right, but even so. Choking down that Bud Light or whatever nasty excuse for alcohol bubbles in that pitcher is going to be the biggest test of my commitment to this new-and-improved me so far.

  Once the glasses are poured and we both take a gulp—which I manage to keep down—Toby slaps a notebook on the table. “So, the best ideas we’ve got so far are the pub crawl and the same kind of party we threw l
ast year, or a soccer tournament. Co-ed, of course.”

  “The soccer tournament would be popular, I think, but maybe we should make that a fall event. And don’t the Kappas do something similar?” I swallow more water disguised as beer. “I was thinking something more in line with raising awareness about multiple sclerosis.”

  “I’m listening. As long as it involves alcohol, because that’s the only way we’re going to get people to show up.” The twist of his lips makes it clear he’s not counting himself among those kinds of people.

  Our job is to raise money first, awareness second, an ordering I understand after years on the board at Rowland Communications. Not to mention that the number of people who show up for a lame philanthropy event is directly related to the popularity of the Greek house putting on said event, and SEA has a reputation to uphold. Whatever we decide on can’t suck.

  “Well, what if we combine the pub crawl idea with an awareness tactic. So, a pub crawl but everyone on your team has to experience a different symptom of MS. Like, bind a hand or leg, patch an eye, going pee three to four times and hour.” I shrug. “If nothing else it will ensure people research the disease.”

  “Hmm.” Toby glances around the bar. My back is to the room and I prefer it that way. “It’s not a bad idea. Quite good, actually. Would we disqualify teams that don’t follow through on their symptoms?”

  “I think so, yeah. Although as the night goes on we can probably ease up. Lots of the symptoms like dizziness and unsteady gait and blurred vision will show up on their own.” I smile, and it doesn’t feel creepy. “We don’t want to be dicks about it.”

  That makes Toby laugh. We’re like two normal dudes having beer. At least, that’s how it feels to me, but my experience with such things is pretty limited.

  “No, I agree.” He squints at me. “How do you know so much about MS?”

  The truth is that my mother’s doctors thought maybe she had it before ruling it out and settling on the virtually unheard-of, impossible-to-treat vascular disease. “It’s been our philanthropy forever. I’m curious by nature.”

  “Well, I call bullshit on that answer but it’s a nice idea.” He pours us both second glasses out of the pitcher. “I think we should go with your idea. Fuck all those freshman idiots who would go to bed with their phones if it were possible. They’ll fall in line.”

  “Agreed.”

  We drink in silence for a few minutes while the wheels in my mind try to boot up. I could leave our discussions at this, finish our drinks and head home for the night, trust that this bonding experience will lay a subfloor under my new friendship with Toby that I can build on in the weeks to come. But I’ve only got a little over three months to find a job after graduation and he’s got access to the only world I can see myself being a part of for years of my life.

  He saves me by deciding to continue a conversation. “So, graduation’s coming up. Big scary world. What are your plans?”

  I don’t want to blow it, but I do need to talk about myself more than I ever feel comfortable doing. Don’t be a dumbfuck. Open your mouth, he’s not the enemy. “I’ve been working on Congressman Schneider’s campaign and enjoying it. Maybe something in politics.”

  The look on Toby’s face says he’s wondering whether or not to say something that he’s worried might piss me off. It’s familiar to me, but most people decide against it.

  Toby doesn’t. “You don’t mean as a politician, right? Because as someone who has spent his life in that world, let me save you some time—you’ve got way too many of the kind of skeletons that will put a stop to that dream before you blink.”

  My lips purse, but there’s something thrilling about having someone other than Emilie tell me exactly what they think. No punches pulled. It’s an odd feeling, given that I’ve spent my life making sure people are too scared of me to do anything of the sort.

  “I’m well aware of the constraints on politicians,” I reply with a dry tone that betrays a tiny bit of my amusement. “I was thinking I might be a better fit behind the scenes. The kind of guy who can get away with the things the guy in front of the cameras can’t.”

  That turns his skepticism thoughtful. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. Most campaigns—and permanent staffs, for that matter—can’t operate without a handful of people who know what needs to be done and how to do it without getting caught. You might be perfect for that kind of job.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. And I enjoy it.”

  “That said, you’d still have to clean up your act. You’re associated with a congressional staff at that point so you’d have to at least appear aboveboard.”

  “I thought you of all people would believe in the power of people to change.”

  That makes him laugh, his dark eyes dancing with delight. “You know, I’m surprised by how much I like talking to you when you’re not being a manipulative douche.”

  “I wouldn’t get used to it.”

  He gets his laughter under control and takes a drink, wiping his lips. “In all seriousness, Seb, you know I believe people can make their lives whatever they want regardless of where they reside currently. Kennedy is a case in point, but you should know that it’s still hard. Not every day anymore, but often enough. You can’t have real problems and walk away with no scars. They’ll always be there, she’ll always battle them. But she wouldn’t have come this far with only my belief in her. She wanted out. She made it happen.”

  The speech sinks in, rolling around in my head like loose marbles. Unlike all the shouted, scotch-drenched words spat at me by Teddy Rowland—and a few school administrators—over the years, this one feels relevant to my interests. If I’m going to take this seriously, this desire to take care of my mother during the couple of years it’s going to take her to die, then maybe I need to take this changing thing more seriously.

  Maybe it’s not something I can pretend to do.

  Maybe I don’t want to do it just so that I can take care of my mother. It’s more and more appealing to me, the idea of having control over my own destiny. A new identity. My own source of income and way I choose to spend it. Fuck Teddy Rowland and the train he rode in on—the guy never wanted me, he just wanted to avoid a scandal, and he basically stole a child from its mother to satisfy his own selfish needs.

  I don’t realize how long I’ve been silent, lost in my own revelations, until Toby nudges another full glass of beer across the table. “What made you decide to break away from Rowland?”

  We’re wading into deep waters now, ones that I’ve only swum solo. I need Toby, maybe I even have a grudging respect for the guy’s willingness to lay his cards on the table, but my father isn’t an approved topic of conversation. “There’s not really a niche for me there. Who wants to spend their whole life toiling away for something they don’t believe in?”

  It’s a pat answer, something the doubt in his eyes seems to pick up on, but it’s also not a lie. The honest reason is, of course, that there will never be a real job for me at Rowland. My father will continue to give me a monthly stipend and investment benefits to keep me hidden and quiet but will never give me any opportunities.

  If I keep going this way, agree to live the rest of my life in the shadows, nothing will ever change. I’ll be so bored there won’t be anything to do except fuck with people.

  “I suppose that’s what we all want.”

  “What about you? Plans after graduation?” The question about him rolls off my tongue with surprising ease, as though I actually want to know. Maybe I’m a little curious how things are going to work out for the alcoholic and the senator’s son.

  “Exciting wheels have been turning, man. Kennedy’s still got two years of school left and I don’t want to be away from her for that long, but I’ve made the decision after last summer’s internship to work in film, if I can. Luckily, there’s a production company filming a long-running television show in Atlanta and they’ve agreed to take me on for a yearlong internship. After that, I guess we
’ll have to figure it out.”

  “And then Los Angeles.”

  He nods. “Yeah. There really aren’t screenwriting jobs anywhere else.”

  Surprise stalls any additional response because I had no idea he would decide on a career so far away from his father’s. In my mind politics is about the only thing that’s diverse enough to hold my interest. “I wish you luck.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure I’ll need it.”

  We finish up the pitcher of beer and don our coats. I’m surprised at how not tipsy I feel after three glasses of the shit, leaving me to wonder how any of my cheap classmates ever manage to get a good buzz going. Not that there is an excess of poor kids at Whitman. They’ve probably had this beer on special every night for the past year and still can’t get rid of it.

  A blast of chilly air greets us at the door and I turn sideways to grab my car keys out of my pocket while letting Toby out into the night. Which is when I see my half brother and his gorgeous girlfriend lingering at one of the tiny tables by the door. Our eyes meet for the briefest of moments, long enough for his curiosity to hit me like a punch in the stomach.

  Long enough for me to realize he heard everything I just said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sebastian

  I go to the beach house instead of the SEA house because I can’t be responsible for my reaction if I run into any of the stupid idiots who blew off the meeting earlier, and also because my other-people quota for the day has been reached. The first glass of scotch at the bar downstairs tastes like another, which I nurse while catching up on the daily news. More death and destruction, war and disease, etc. Politics may not be a viable career field if the whole world is going to descend into ungoverned chaos that may or may not contain zombies, but hopefully it will hold off on that for another generation or so.

  A glance at the last couple of stories and the bottom of my scotch glass makes that hard to believe.