Chapter 33
Claire
Summer is slipping away and I still don’t have a job lined up.
This is so unlike me. I always have a plan for what comes next. Even in grade school. Every sport or extracurricular activity was lined up before the previous one ended.
Yet I’m dragging my feet. And I’m not even remotely freaking out over it.
My lack of concern about being unemployed is actually what’s giving me the most anxiety.
I’ve put it off long enough, though. It’s time to call the one person who always knows what to do.
The phone rings several times, but just as I expect to be sent to voicemail, he answers.
“H-hello?”
“Shit. Sorry. Did I wake you?” I curse myself for not considering where in the world my brother is. I rack my brain, searching for the answer, but come up with nothing. He and Joey travel so damn much I can’t keep up.
He clears his throat. “S’fine. Are you okay?”
My heart thuds. I’m so lucky to have a big brother who cares about me the way he does.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing. Go back to bed. Sorry.”
“Claire,” he snaps. “What’s up?”
There’s shuffling on the other end, then a quiet creak of a door.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice louder now.
“Really, I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you. Although I could use some brotherly advice.”
Cam has always been my safe place. When our mom was deeply depressed after our sister died, our father was her caregiver. And Cam became mine. Our parents didn’t force him to care for me. They wouldn’t have. But it’s simply in his nature.
My brother and father butted heads when Cam was a teenager and even while he was in college, and they’re different in a lot of ways, but I believe witnessing the dedication with which Dad took care of Mom had a profound effect on him.
So, now, in the middle of the night in whatever part of the world he’s in, he’s still caring for me.
“Claire, c’mon.”
After a long sigh, I admit, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Okay… I think you’ll need to be a little more specific.” His tone is surprisingly airy and welcoming for a man who just received a rude wake-up call.
“After this summer, I mean. I don’t have another job lined up.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You know me; I always have a plan. I searched for job openings at the beginning of the summer and made a list of potentials, but…”
“But what? What’s wrong with them?”
I shrug, even though he can’t see me. “Nothing’s wrong with them. It’s just…”
“Do you want to keep working for Asher?”
Subtlety is not a characteristic my brother possesses. Especially when it comes to me. He doesn’t like to beat around the bush.
“That’s not a possibility.”
“Why? Did he find a new doctor?”
I pick at a hangnail on my thumb and instantly regret it when it starts to bleed. “Um. I don’t know, actually. I haven’t asked him.”
“Claire.” My brother says my name in that tone. The infamous, reprimanding one.
“Cameron,” I volley right back. “My contract was only for the summer. That’s what we agreed upon.” Both professionally and personally. Not that I want to mention our situationship to my brother. This arrangement has been spelled out from the beginning: I’m only here for the summer.
“You’re being stubborn,” my brother says with more bite than compassion.
Annoyance sparks in my blood. “I’m not being stubborn. I’m being realistic.”
He doesn’t respond right away. Fortunately, when it’s the two of us, silence is never awkward.
After several beats, he sighs. “You want to stay, don’t you?”
“What?” I scoff. “That’s not the plan.”
“Didn’t say it was.” He’s being a brat and he knows it. “Plans change, Claire. Just look at me.”
“That’s different. You never wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps. That was his plan, not yours.”
“Still. The plan was laid out for me. But I chose to go off course, and so can you.”
I let his words simmer, eyes closed. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what a career here would look like past the summer.”
“There have to be doctor’s offices around. You’re not in the middle of nowhere.”
My chest constricts. He’s right. He usually is.
“And Claire? If you’re in love with the man, just tell him.”
That comment sucks all the air from my lungs. With a harsh breath in, I say, “I’m not—What? Why would—We’re not—”
“Oh, dear sister,” he says, using a tone laced with false condescension. “There are some things a big brother knows. And other things he wishes he didn’t.” He mumbles that last part under his breath.
I low-key panic over what he thinks he knows. But I ask anyway. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s just say you weren’t as stealthy as you thought you were on the weekend of Millie and Ezra’s wedding celebration.”
“Shit,” I whisper. I don’t know what he saw or heard, but I refuse to ask for specifics. That seems traumatizing. “Are you disappointed?” I ask instead.
“Why would I be disappointed? Because you fell for your roommate? For your best friend’s brother?
You’re a grown-ass woman. You can do whatever the fuck you want.
But… and this part’s important.” I raise the volume on my phone so I don’t miss what’s next.
“Please, please promise me we’ll never go to a sex shop together ever again. ”
I bark out a laugh. “Hey, I didn’t want you to be there in the first place.”
“True. But Joey and I needed—”
“Uh-uh-uh! I don’t wanna know,” I practically shout into the phone. “Gross.”
“Now you know how I feel,” he teases. He’s quiet for a second, and when he speaks again, his tone is far more serious. “Why don’t you just ask him?”
I release a long, even breath. “I’ll think about it.”
But I don’t want to think about it. Because if Asher has a replacement lined up and doesn’t ask me to stay, I don’t know that I could take the rejection.