Chapter 20
Jase
What are your parents like?
Workaholics. Control freaks. They worry too much about what other people think. Emotionally unavailable. Not there.
—J
“This has to be a bad joke,” I mutter as I flip through the forms that Camille has just given me, like maybe doing so would make the monthly sum I have to pay smaller.
I knew the tuition was high, but somehow, I seem to have repressed the fact that it’s almost thirteen thousand dollars for a semester.
I’m screwed.
I don’t have that kind of money. Not even close. What I saved from my vacation jobs teaching at my old ballet school isn’t even half of what I need. Even if I could pay the fee in installments, my account would be empty in three months at the latest.
“Is everything okay, Jase? Do you have any questions?” Camille peers at me over the edge of her glasses.
Just one. Where the hell am I supposed to get all that money?
I’ve forgotten a few not entirely unimportant details. I desperately need new clothes and practice gear, and I have to pay my phone bill. I don’t need much, but I won’t have enough for even the most basic things if I don’t manage to get more money from somewhere.
The most obvious solution would be to get a job, but that’s not easy for a lot of reasons.
1. I have no professional experience other than teaching children the basic steps of ballet.
2. A job at a ballet school would be the obvious choice, but there’s no way in hell that I’ll earn enough with that.
3. Studying is practically a full-time job. I practice six hours a day and then have two theory courses. Thanks to Zoe, I now have additional practice in the evenings.
4. At nineteen, I’m too young for any job I might have time for after this workload during the day. If I were older, I could ask East to get me a job at The Lighthouse. But I’m not, so that’s the end of it.
“Jase? Do you need anything else?” Camille repeats. She sounds a little more annoyed than before. She wants to get rid of me; it’s obvious. And for a change, I have no problem granting her wish.
“No, I have everything.”
“No questions?” Her eyebrows go up, and she looks at me skeptically. As if I were too stupid to understand what the documents said.
“Nope, I get it.”
I understand completely that I’m screwed. Thank you for asking.
“Good. Then you can fill out the forms and give them back to me next Wednesday.”
“I will.” I stuff the papers back into the envelope that Camile gave me and leave her office, immediately colliding with a petite figure.
At first, I’m expecting Zoe, because let’s be honest, my karma is crappy enough that it must be her. Especially since I’ve been trying to avoid her outside of class as much as possible since our first practice session.
But the girl in front of me is blond, not a redhead. Lia.
Super.
I try to walk around her and disappear, because I have nothing to say to my sister. Honestly, I have no idea when we last had a real conversation with each other. But I’m stopped by a guilty expression on her face and an embarrassed blush.
It’s not difficult to put two and two together. The door to Camille’s office was open the whole time. I didn’t worry about whether someone would find out what we were talking about because it didn’t matter to me if anyone knew.
Except it matters to me that it’s Lia who heard everything.
“Are you happy now?” The question slips out before I can stop myself.
“Jase—” She stops as I push past her and continue down the corridor. “Why are you acting like this?” She calls after me, her voice sounding so desolate that I turn back and stare at her.
“What are you talking about?” I return her gaze in disbelief. Her green eyes glitter tellingly. Lia is the last person who has the right to cry right now.
“You could have it all. Some people would kill to have the chance to go to Harvard. Why can’t you just do what Mom and Dad want?”
I stare at her, unable to comprehend what I’m hearing.
“You’re making a huge drama out of nothing.”
I laugh, stunned. “You’re kidding me, right? Would you do it? Give up your dream because Mom and Dad want you to?”
She hesitates for a second. “This isn’t about me, Jase.”
“That’s not an answer. Would you?”
She shrugs, and I want to shout at her, but I know it wouldn’t get me anywhere. “You’re not interested in my answer anyway. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
“And you’re so incredibly selfless, are you?” I say disparagingly.
“I never said that.” She sighs and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “But unlike you, I care about our family.”
“Give it a few years. Mom and Dad will probably manage to cure you of that.”
“You know what? Forget it! I can’t talk to you.”
She turns on her heel before I can reply and stomps away down the corridor.
I stare after her blankly. I could tell her that I do care about our family, just not in the way she thinks. But that would lead to a complicated conversation full of questions and accusations, and we don’t have conversations like that in this family.
* * *
Two days later, I’m walking out of a shiny glass building feeling angry and powerless. It’s the third bank I’ve visited today.
I’m sorry, Jase, there’s nothing I can do for you. Your father . . . blah, blah, blah. Bullshit and more bullshit.
I’m on the verge of lashing out, even though I know it won’t help me.
Christopher Shaw is my godfather. He just threw me out of his office with a sympathetic look on his face and a huge ass-kicking.
He’s a finance guy who works in a bank, and about seventeen minutes ago, I more or less begged him to give me a student loan.
Maybe it would have been smarter to go to him directly instead of trying two other banks first and being turned down by them in a friendly but consequent manner.
Not even my name got me anywhere, even though half the city knows my parents and how wealthy they are.
But that’s exactly the problem. It’s my parents who are wealthy. I, on the other hand, am totally broke.
Applying for a student loan was one of the last of my almost nonexistent options. Chris was my last chance, and that’s probably why I put off going to see him. I knew he would probably email Dad the second I left his office.
I just didn’t realize that Dad was a few steps ahead of me and had already talked to Chris.
No loan, no scholarship, no job. That went well.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and check my messages in the faint hope that my old ballet teacher, Miss Plum, has answered and can create a job out of thin air for me. She hasn’t.
I hesitate for a moment, then I text East.
Jase:
Do you have time to talk?
His answer comes a few minutes later:
Easton:
I’m at home. The guys are here, but come over if you want.
I write a quick reply and call an Uber, which pulls up a few minutes later. A good fifteen minutes later, my ride spits me out in Southie in front of the tiny house where East lives with his sister, Willow.
I can already tell from a distance that Jax, Beck, and Colin are there.
The music from the house is deafening. I don’t bother knocking on the front door, because no one would hear me over the noise, but instead walk around the house and through the microscopic yard to the back door, which is usually open when the band is rehearsing.
I go into the kitchen, which is also ridiculously small, and find Willow standing in front of the fridge wearing oversized noise-canceling headphones. I try to alert her to my presence without startling her. No luck.
She shrieks as she closes the fridge door and notices me.
“Jeez, Jase! Don’t scare me like that!” she cries, pulling off her headphones with one hand and holding the other to her chest.
“Sorry,” I say, then point at the back door. “Maybe you should lock the door if you’re going to walk around with headphones.”
She sighs and rubs her eyes. She looks tired. “I know. East and the others are in the living room. As you can hear.” Willow is a few years older than me and dances for the Boston City Ballet, though she seems to be on an involuntary hiatus, judging from the thick bandage around her ankle.
“Is it bad?” I ask over the music, giving her a sympathetic look. Injuries can end badly for dancers, not least with regard to their careers.
Willow turns pale and avoids my gaze. As though her brother realized something was happening, the music stops. An oppressive silence falls in the small kitchen. “I’ll be fine,” she says softly. Her voice trembles. “A few weeks of rest, then I’ll be back to my old self.”
I just nod, because nothing I say could make the situation any better for her.
“I’m going back upstairs. If you can convince the guys to call it quits for the day, I’d be grateful.” She gives me a weak smile, but tears are shining in her eyes.
“I’ll do my best,” I promise her.
She nods and disappears, limping down the narrow hallway.
I go over to the living room, the biggest room in the house, where East and the others are now sitting on an old swayback sofa, bent over a tattered notebook. East looks up as I enter.
“Jason Alexander Winslow, to what do I owe the pleasure?” He laughs.
I roll my eyes. Aside from my father, East is the only person who ever uses my full name. I have no idea why he does that.
“You can skip the formalities,” I say, slapping the other guys’ hands.
“Nope. I like your name.”
“If you want, I’ll give it to you.” Along with all the obnoxious problems that I have at the moment.
“Hmm, I’ll think about it. What are you doing here, Jase?
You didn’t come just to hang around with us, did you?
” East eyes me skeptically. Jax, Colin, and Beck look curious.
East is right; I wouldn’t just pop by, even though I lived with him and Willow for almost three months last year when I had no idea where to go and East took pity on me.
I still hate the fact that it was necessary.
I cross my arms and lean against the wall. “I need a job.”
Colin’s pierced eyebrows go up. “You need a job?”
“My parents cut me off. So yeah. I need a job, and a little help wouldn’t suck.”
* * *
East promised me he’d ask around, but he didn’t sound very optimistic.
After spending the last two hours searching for jobs online, I’m not either.
Every job I find, either I’m not qualified enough for, the work hours interfere with my classes, or the job is so badly paid that I’d end up having to spend the entire paycheck on the commute.
My mood is at an all-time low when I return to the dorm. Then I see Zoe standing at my door, just about to knock, and the words “all-time low” take on a completely new meaning. I want to turn around and disappear before she notices me, but of course it’s too late.
A shy smile appears on her face when she sees me, and my body tenses. Fuck.
There are reasons why I’ve been avoiding her for the last few days.
They have a lot to do with her smile. And the way her hands felt in mine.
And the way she leaned against me. How fast her heart was beating, not because she was scared, but .
. . Yeah. I don’t know why, and I really don’t want to know.
Liar.
“What do you want?” I ask before she can open her mouth and say something I don’t want to hear.
“Can we talk?”
“No, I don’t have time.”
She takes a step back, and the muscle in my chest complains, but I can’t pay any attention to that.
“Only for a minute. I want—”
“I don’t care what you want, Zoe,” I say, bluffing. “I’m not interested in what you have to say. Is that clear?”
She goes pale, and I hate myself for it, but I really don’t want to hear what she has to tell me.
When she asks if we can talk, especially in that tone of voice, insecure and hopeful at the same time, I can tell it’s not going to be about ballet.
It’s about us. But there’s no such thing as “us,” and it can damn well stay that way.
How does that feel?
It feels like you.
Her words have been haunting me all week, just like the feeling of my fingers on her skin and the way my body reacted. Not the way it should have.
“Are you serious?” Her expression hardens, her nails dig into her palms, and she shudders. I hate everything about this, but at the same time, it’s exactly what I need.
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You look like you’re acting like a jerk.”
I laugh. “Not my problem. Get used to it, or don’t bother.”
She shakes her head in disbelief, opens her mouth, and closes it again.
I push past her and open the door.
“What about our practice session? Is that out too? Or don’t you care about the scholarship anymore?”
I turn around. She has her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes flash with anger.
Anger is good. I can deal with anger. Better than the damn closeness that she’s trying to build up.
Unfortunately, she’s right. I can’t cancel the extra practice session, even though I’d love to.
We need to improve. She needs to improve, and there’s no other way.
“We can do it tomorrow,” I say, because I don’t have the nerves for it today. I don’t wait for her to answer, just slam the door firmly behind me. What a fucking awful day.