Kiss the Sky (Calloway Sisters #1)(106)

“Almost four months,” she says, dumbfounded. But she doesn’t attack me, doesn’t throw up her hands and call it quits. Her eyes are on the ground as she thinks it over.

“You would’ve given up something if you didn’t, right?” she asks, her eyes flitting to mine, so many questions swimming in them.

“Not you,” I tell her. “I would have never given up you.”

“Wharton?”

I nod, and she shakes her head in dismay. “I don’t want you to choose me over your dream,” she says. “But I can’t stand here and be okay with you choosing me over your health.”

It’s not fair for me to put her in a position, to trap her into giving me an ultimatum. I know what I have to do. Even if the semester is almost over, I still have a year and a half left. I’m not even close to graduating and earning this final degree.

I notice the space between us. Five feet away. Five feet too much. I imagine that space so much further if I make the wrong decision right now.

Frederick is right.

My mother is right.

I can’t have everything. So I’m going to have to fucking choose.

“I’m withdrawing from Wharton,” I deliver the lines with finality. It hardly topples me backwards. It doesn’t even make me sway. In fact, a weight rises off my shoulders—a heaviness that I didn’t even know was there before. Dragging me down.

It’s not as earth-shattering as I once believed it would be. Sometimes the dreams you construct for yourself at ten, twelve-years-old aren’t the same ones you thought they would be at twenty-four. And it just takes a while to finally make peace with that.

I think I just have.

“Connor—”

“I’m going to quit taking Adderall.” I step towards her and place my hands on her shoulders.

“Your MBA—”

“I don’t need it.”

“You never needed it,” she reminds me. “That’s not why you were trying to get one.” I see the guilt in her eyes. I’ve chosen her over my dream, and I told her never to do that for me.

I cup her face with my hand, skimming her bottom lip with my thumb, her lipstick a dark red that makes her look as fierce as she is. I want to be with her every day of my life. I want to be here, not in class. And I have the means to do so.

“My dreams have changed,” I say. The future I once imagined is gone. Where I proudly accept my diploma, where I prove to myself that I’m the best because I can be. The longer I’ve been with this girl, the faster it’s flitted away.

I kiss her deeply, and she reciprocates in reply, silently telling me that she’s accepting my decision.

“That was easy,” I say as we part, holding her around the waist while I stare down at her smooth skin, her cheeks reddened with blush and heat from the kiss. “I thought you would fight me harder.”

She shakes her head. “You should see the look in your eyes.”

I frown.

And she smiles. “You’re wearing your emotions, Richard.” She runs her hands over my chest, smoothing down my navy-blue shirt. “I can tell you don’t care about Wharton as much as you used to, and I want you, my sisters, their boyfriends and Lo’s brother to do whatever makes them happy. Isn’t that the goal?”

It is for me now, but I’m not so sure it’s always been that way. “Your sisters’ boyfriends?”

Rose’s nose scrunches in disgust. “Daisy is still with Julian.”

“And I’m not happy about that,” I tell her. “What were we saying about happiness?” I feign forgetfulness. “We…do what makes us happy.” I keep her in my arms, one hand lowering to her ass, glad that five feet no longer separates us. “I’d happily like to remove him from your sister’s life.” I see the gangbanging text he sent Ryke, which worries me the most. I don’t want him with her for longer than he has to be.

Rose says, “I’d happily cut off his dick and toss it into a tank of flesh-eating piranhas.” She flashes a cold smile that would shrivel his balls too.

“Creative,” I grin.

Rose saw the text like the entire nation did. On television. Production aired my conversation with Julian in the hallway. I thought people disliked me, but I learned it’s more of a love-hate after the intense backlash Julian has received.

No one has started an online petition to have me thrown in jail.

He definitely beat me on that account.

Julian should be fired from the Marco Jeans campaign that he booked with Daisy. But the designer won’t let him go. He likes the media attention, even if it’s negative. So Daisy has to work with him.

I try to not think about Rose’s little sister whose life is more complicated than any seventeen-year-old’s should be. And I glance down at the joints in the plastic baggy, still in my hand. I step back from Rose and pull my phone out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling?” she asks curiously.

“Frederick. I need to know if I can mix Adderall and marijuana.” I put the phone to my ear.

Her face fills with surprise. “You still want to do that?”

“Yes, darling.” I rub her bottom lip and kiss her once more, right before the line clicks.





CHAPTER 41