“No. That's not happening.” I shoot to my feet, feeling the need to move.
She tugs me back down, her hand still soft even as my blood starts boiling.
“Zach—”
“No, Honey. It's not happening. You're not taking a job at a company you hate just for them to drop the lawsuit.”
“Why not? If I do it, then Tiff and Ella can move here immediately. No court delays. No uncertainty.”
“No. We'll find another way.”
“How? We’ve been looking for another way for a year. All it’s gotten us is a DNA test and more legal fees. My father—”
“Is not a nice man,” I snap. “And I know being near him doesn't end well for you.”
“Exactly, but I’ve lived with that man for my entire life. I can handle him. Do you really think Tiff will be able to handle him when things start to get really bad? What if the Nicks gain custody of Ella? What if they bury Tiff in litigation until Ella is eighteen? How is Tiff ever going to build a new life with her daughter when she’s worrying about some rich assholes who can just snap their fingers and spend more money on fighting her?”
I shake my head, annoyed that these are all the thoughts that have been running through my head, but I’ve never spoken them out loud before.
“A job with my father isn’t a big deal.” She plays it off, but it is a fucking big deal. “It was always the plan before senior year. It comes with the same stipulations. I’d still live at the dorms, and all I’d have to do is work there over the summers. He’d want me to do a few days in the Indianapolis office every semester, which is nothing I can’t handle.”
“But you’d be locked into a contract with your father for five years?!”
“It sounds worse than it is. If I start now, I’ll have to do two years full-time after I graduate. The rest is treated as credit for my degree.”
“Your degree?”
“Yeah. I’d have to commit to law, but maybe I need to try it out. Litigation runs in my blood after all.” She lets out a humorless laugh. I know she doesn’t believe it.
“Law?” I choke out. “You’re going to hate it.”
“Zach.”
Fuck. Did I say that out loud?
“Do youwantto be a lawyer?”
She bites her bottom lip. “I'm not sure, but working at one of the biggest law firms in the country would be a good start to figuring that out.”
Honey. Honey. Honey. I love her with every fiber of my being, but sometimes she feels untethered—like she’s drifting, not because she wants to, but because she hasn’t found the place where she’s meant to land yet.
“I just think you’re too creative for that.”
“Creativity doesn’t make a living,” she says with a bitter edge, and I hear it. I hear her father in those words. “And this is an opportunity other students would die for.”
I want to say she’s being ridiculous. That this is a trap—that this isn’t her path, this ishispath to keeping her caged. She doesn’t want this. She wants something to fill the void she hasn’t been able to fill herself, but I can't say anything.
I can’t be another person in her life trying to control it. Even if I feel like I know her better than I know myself, she needs to be the one making the decisions about her life and deserves the same support she gives me.
I drop to my knees in front of her and take her hands.
“Honeycomb,” I say softly. “If this lights even the smallest spark in you… then I won’t stop you.”
“But…”
“But I've seen what your family does to you, and I don’t want them to bleed you dry again.”
I pull her into my arms, press a kiss to the top of her head, like maybe I can protect her just by holding on tight enough.