Chapter 3
Conrad
The muted skim of saltwater as it cut along the rowing shell hummed over the sound of the music playing in my ears. I gripped against the wooden oars, and with a coordinated push with my feet and steady pull from my arms, the boat sliced through the water like steel through silk.
My heart raced. Fueled by the tabloid gossip I was bombarded with when I woke up this morning, I pushed harder. On top of being the reason for my calluses and the curious glances I’d surely be met with later, my dad was scheduled to visit me on campus, and that was never good news.
I was exhausted, but I moved past the soreness that crowded my arms and back and kept going.
“Jesus, Con. Look out!” A loud warning cut through the blaring bass line, yanking me from my thoughts a couple of seconds too late.
I looked up, spotted James, and then came a swift smack against my torso from the oars, pushing all the air out of my lungs as I nearly ran aground. The boat rocked violently.
“Shit,” I cursed, steadying the shell with my oars. Just what I need. I yanked my earbuds out and called to my best friend, “Is it bad?”
I pushed to the pier a few feet away where he and Ishani stood. I got out of the shell and James picked up the end. He clicked his tongue when we put it down and gave it a quick inspection.
“No, you’re fine,” he answered.
“I’m guessing you’re out here because of your father?” Concern laced Ishani’s proper British accent. She tucked a lock of her long black hair behind her ear, crossed her arms, and arched a brow as she watched us.
James and I pulled the shell up and hauled it onto our shoulders to walk it back to the outdoor rack outside the shell house. “Yeah. He’s going to be here next weekend.”
He orchestrated his appearances when he needed to levy threats, and he always made good on them.
A fact I learned the hard way as a seven-year-old, when my mom and I stumbled upon his first mistress in Newport one summer.
After that, I started acting out and spent the remainder of elementary school in some form of trouble or another.
He got frustrated and decided to ship me off to Swiss boarding school so I wouldn’t damage the family name.
It was how I met James and Isha; we all went to Le Rosey together.
“You’ll have to behave for Scroll it was rarely far from my own mind.
We turned, wandering over to the path that led away from the bay and toward the far side of campus.
“I don’t need a tutor, if that’s what you’re asking.” I headed her off, saving her from her tendency to worry.
Last semester had been a mess academically. I missed a lot of class because someone had to check on my mom and I was the only one who’d been concerned enough to do so. I took the incomplete in my Monetary Policy class knowing I’d figure a way out of it.
“How’s your mum?” Isha asked.
She’d kicked my dad out of the Manhattan house, like usual. Every time he cheated, she kicked him out. Then she’d spiral, and he’d move back. Rinse and repeat, ever since that sunny July day in Newport.
It never changed.
I shrugged. “Better. You guys don’t have to worry.”
My friends checked in a lot last spring when things got a little out of control. My mom wasn’t the best at accepting help, and it took a while before she was willing to.
“We’re not worried.” James mulled over the words he wanted to use. “More like, accessible. Here to help. We all are. We can check on her too.”
“I’m good,” I insisted. “My mom does seem better.”
It wasn’t a lie, not completely. Mom had started going out to her normal lunches with her friends and ventured out of the house more frequently. When I saw her a couple of weeks ago, right before the start of the semester, she was doing a lot better.
“Well, Lucy and Felix are waiting for us on campus.” Isha glanced at her phone. “You okay to go?”
Lucy McMaster and Felix Herrera made up the rest of our tight-knit group. Although I’d known James and Isha since boarding school, the five of us had been friends since freshman year.
I had two older brothers, but they weren’t my family, not like my friends were.
“Yeah,” I assured her. “I’m fine.”
“Great.” James hooked an arm around my neck. “Let’s have some fun this semester, starting with the Scroll & Ivy party.”
He gave me a wolfish grin.
“Under-the-radar fun,” Ishani reminded us. “Let’s keep poor Conrad out of trouble.”
Much like crew and Scroll & Ivy, every Hastings was involved with the Winchester Daily News. Unlike the other two, I found the paper tedious. However, when you were set to inherit a third of the largest media company in the world, you were expected to take an interest in the family business.
I stood waiting outside the newsroom in the humanities building because I knew James’s lit class let out soon. After missing Dillian yesterday, I tracked him down when I got back on campus earlier, and I hoped after the meeting we’d had, today would be my last time stepping foot in this building.
“What did Dillian want?” James asked when he found me outside the lecture hall’s doors. He jumped out of the way to avoid being trampled by a crowd of people rushing toward a couple of sheets of paper tacked on the bulletin board.
I rolled my eyes. “I swear that guy is on some power trip.” He was the editor of a college paper and acted like none of us had anything better to do than bend to his whims. “He ran an audit and noticed I haven’t written anything…”
“Shit.” James looked at me then back at the commotion by the notice board. Neither of us was in a rush, so we were content waiting for the class to disperse. “Does that mean you’re actually going to be a Hastings this year?”
“No,” I scoffed. I saw how that was going for my mom and brothers.
He let his bag slide to the floor and leaned against the wall, a curious look on his face.
“I called Barrett,” I stated. “Guess who’s going to intern at Hasting International’s newsroom over winter break?”
Seeing as my older brother Barrett oversaw the entire division, I had him set Dillian up with the internship, and in exchange, he was going to re-assign the work for me. Dillian wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to argue.
James chuckled. “That’s one way to handle it.”
“And now I’m free all year.”
We walked up to the two printed-out spreadsheets that were the center of the fuss.
“Dammit. Every time.” James cursed and ran over the list of names from Professor Cromwell’s American Literature class. One of the only professors who still posted names next to the grades, he was really taking the whole “tenured” thing seriously.
“Hmm?”
“She was in Cromwell’s Advanced Comp tutorial last year too.
She beats my score by a point or so every time there’s an exam or a paper.
And she’s a junior,” James complained, his brow crinkling as he read the printed spreadsheet again.
James was a Rutherford—the ones behind every train, jet, and motor engine built in Europe and most of the States for the last century.
And as the human embodiment of work hard, play hard, he hovered at the top of our class.
“And we only had a week to write this one. I swear this girl is my Aaron Burr.”
“I’m pretty sure getting bested at every turn makes you Burr.” A new voice—soft but sharp—pulled our attention, and we both paused. “And me, Hamilton.”
Awareness tingled down my body. A thin flowing blouse tucked into a skirt, long black hair pulled into a bun, legs that went on for days. Big brown eyes and an instigating smile.
It was her. The girl from the paper.
Immovably intrigued, my pulse jumped as I searched my memory for her name. I’d seen her in passing a few times but never stopped to glean anything more.
Maybe I should have.
“If it makes you feel any better…” She leaned up and tracked her finger along the rows on the spreadsheet, confirming what James had announced.
I glanced at the grade list to catch it—Malena Amin.
Her chest filled with air and a proud look overtook her face.
It was gone in a flash. She turned to smile broadly at James. “You shoot me in the end.”
I chuckled.
“It does make me feel better,” James retorted, the playful bite in his tone whipping me back to reality. My eyes flicked between them. “Just tell me the time and place.”
She was cute. And James was flirting with her.
“And expedite everyone forgetting who you are?” She tilted her head patronizingly.
Her gaze moved to mine and paused. For that second, I was frozen.
Her lips tipped to the side in a quiet acknowledgment, but the moment passed as quickly as it came, and she looked back at James. “I’d never do that to you, Burr.”
She turned on her heels and walked back the way she came.
“Hamilton? Burr?” I tamped down the curiosity—or whatever it was that thrummed in my body—with a hard swallow, because that little exchange was as good as James drawing a hard line of interest in the sand.
I watched as she walked down the hall toward a friend waiting for her underneath the stone archway. “Adorable. Are you gonna ask her out?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“You were flirting with her,” I pointed out.
“I like to be on a flirtatious basis with all the beautiful women on campus.” James looked at me and shrugged.
My face crinkled. “Since when?”
I’d known James since we were kids, and he was always in a relationship—loyal as a dog. After a breakup over the summer, he was determined to embrace his single status. Maybe a little too much. His weekends were starting to look a lot like mine, which was concerning.
“Since I’m single and planning to enjoy it.”
“If you say so,” I answered, unconvinced.
My gaze lingered on her.
I wondered if I’d see her again. If James did ask her out, I probably would.
And for some reason, that fact was both alluring and unsettling.