Page 10 of Break Point

“I’m sorry. This isn’t coming out the way I want it to. Please . . .” I nod toward the card and cinch my mouth on one side in a guilty expression.

Her blank stare is eventually interrupted by rapid blinking as she stuffs the card back in her wet back pocket. I’m making her nervous, I think. Or I’m infuriating her. It’s hard to tell.

“Can we just . . . not talk?” she huffs.

Infuriating it is.

I nod and draw my index finger across my closed lips. My pulse picks up as we walk side by side again. I’m anxious. Amelia really needs this to work, and I’m the reason she put Jaden on her list in the first place. I pulled her résumé out of that pile of papers and told my sister Jaden was going to get a lot of attention this season. It wasn’t a total lie. She is going to get a lot of buzz. And she’s probably going to finally nail that number one spot. But that’s not why I wanted my sister to pick her. I wanted to make amends. But so far, I’m failing at it miserably. It is my fault she’s drenched. And her check was ruined.

“Maybe not a ten,” Jaden utters.

I mash my lips for a moment, fighting the smirk. Eventually, I let my mouth stretch wide.

“Oh, thank God!” I blurt out.

A breathy laugh slips from her pink lips.

“I didn’t realize my hate scale meant so much to you,” she says with a chuckle.

“Oh, it doesn’t. I’m just glad you broke the no-talking rule first. That was driving me crazy.”

Her brow pinches as she stares at me with a puzzled look on her face before shaking her head with silent laughter and, yes, rolling her eyes.

“You’re strange,” she mutters.

I keep my gaze on her face as we walk, eventually pulling my lips into a tight smile. Strange. I’ll take that. It’s better than raging asshole.

We make it to the bursar’s office with plenty of time to spare, and I hang back in one of the oversize leather sofas by the bay of windows that look out on the forest preserve. The billing specialist doesn’t flinch when Jaden hands over my father’s business card. I didn’t think they would. Universities don’t really care where the money is coming from as long as they’re getting paid. And seeing my dad’s name on a card is a lot like seeing a scholarship certificate. He’s paid for a lot of things around this place, much to my chagrin. I think when I went down with an injury freshman year, he felt like he needed to buy some goodwill to make sure my starting spot was held open. Not that he didn’t bring up the option to transfer to Tech every time he had the chance.

Jaden’s shoulders relax when the billing specialist walks away to snag her receipt from the printer, and her backpack slides down her arm and onto the floor. I get up and move toward her, picking it up while she finishes talking with the agent. The irony that I’m now handing her a backpack doesn’t seem to be lost on either of us when she finally turns to face me. Both our faces crack into barely contained smiles.

“I swear, I didn’t see any contraband,” I tease. Her smile falters a bit, though, so I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

I clear my throat and hand her bag to her. She stuffs the receipt inside, then hands me my dad’s gold card. I’m embarrassed by it, or maybe I’m embarrassed by him. Either way, I take it quickly and tuck it out of sight in my back pocket.

“Thank your sister for me. Or I guess thank your dad,” she says, meeting my gaze for a beat before nodding and turning to head the opposite direction.

I chew at the inside of my mouth for a second, trying to learn from our earlier conversation and not simply blurt out everything on my mind. I decide defending my sister is too important to let go, though, so before Jaden reaches the door, I jog toward her.

“Hey, wait up. I’ll walk with you,” I say, pushing the glass door open with my shoulder. She pauses for a second but eventually passes through.

I scratch at the back of my neck and mentally wrangle together the right way to broach the topic of what it’s like to be the progeny of Jacob Michael Moss.

“Look—” I start, reaching toward her shoulder but stopping short of touching her. She takes my cue and stops in the middle of the tree-lined walkway to hear me out.

“This app is my sister’s baby. She’s worked hard to create something and start a business of her own. My dad gave her some seed money, but she’s paid most of that back. So that’s why she flinched a bit at using his card to cover your pay for this month. She doesn’t want to owe him any more favors than she has to. She wants this to be completely hers. So, I hope you’ll give her a fair shake. And if you really want me to back out, I will. This thing is too important to Amelia for me to fuck up. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for coming at you all aggressive like that. I think I just got nervous.”

Jaden’s body shakes with a short burst of a laugh.

“I make you nervous,” she scoffs.

“Uh, yeah,” I say with a wry smile. “I mean, you also scare me a little. I feel you’ve been winding up to punch me in the teeth since our freshman year, so . . .”

“Oh, I definitely have.” She doesn’t smile at first, but after a second or two she cracks, and I sigh in relief.

“Phew! I like my teeth,” I say, tapping my fingertips against my lips. “Did you see the pictures Amelia sent?”

She still hasn’t responded to my offer of dropping out of this gig, so I pull out my phone and open the text from my sister, really looking at the one she tagged as her favorite. Jaden looks amazing, her smile wide across her face, pushing her cheeks into round, freckled balls. I know the exact moment Amelia snapped this one. It was a second after I made Jaden laugh, a millisecond before I scooped her up and ruined her check in the fountain. Possibly the only second of the day that she enjoyed my company.