But this was Harvard.
“Baby Girl?”
“Angel?”
Worry decorated both of their voices, and I glanced up to find them staring at me, plates of pizza in hand. Jake even had a plate with three slices for me.
“Harvard,” I said, holding up the letter.
Ian dropped into the seat next to me, while Jake perched on the coffee table in front of me.
“What does it say?” Jake asked, his pale eyes steady as he set the plates aside.
“I’m almost scared to open it.” Harvard had been the goal for so long that it became synonymous with getting away from Maddy. From escaping this apartment and this town…but I had gotten away from Maddy, and now this apartment had them in it.
I sucked at my lower lip, torn between looking at them and looking at the letter. It just sat there in my hand like no big deal. It could be a ticking time bomb ready to shred my dreams, or it could be my ticket out. And what if it was? What if it was an acceptance letter? Archie had gotten into Harvard, but no one else had theirs yet. What if we got in, and they didn’t?
Then I just wouldn’t go to Harvard.
I wouldn’t leave them behind.
Blowing out a breath, I said, “Well, let’s find out.” Having made the decision, it seemed easier to slit the envelope open.
The form letter thanked me for my application and informed me that I had been placed on the waitlist. They indicated that spots do open up later in the semester as students accept their admissions to other schools, but it could be as late as summer before I heard anything more.
The crash wasn’t as bad as I feared. A part of me had already thought I wouldn’t get in. They were very exclusive and had nowhere near as many available spots as they had applicants. Reality and odds said my chances of getting in were less than three percent.
Three.
But still, it hurt, and my heart sank and my stomach bottomed out. Even as I tried to tell myself I didn’t need this ticket out anymore. Any other school would do…
Ian wrapped an arm around me and tugged me close, and then Jake plucked me away and they shifted around until I was sandwiched up between them again. I sniffled and then let out a watery laugh. “It’s stupid to be upset.”
“It’s not,” Ian told me. “You’ve wanted this for so long. The stupid ones are them.”
“Damn straight,” Jake rumbled, and then pressed his lips against my hair, even as he rubbed a hand along my thigh. Ian had his hand on my back, and I swiped at the stupid tears. “You have been wanting it for a long time, but no one would go there without you, you know that right? None of us.”
“You didn’t even care about Harvard,” I pointed out. “You and Arch wanted MIT.”
“True,” he admitted. “But I don’t care where I go to school, Baby Girl. I care about going with you. I care about none of us making this long distance.”
“Agreed,” Ian stated, and his tone was so firm, like it was a done deal. “We applied to the same schools, I auditioned for all the programs. If you four get in somewhere and I don’t, well, I’ll be house boy while you guys go to school and I work on my music.”
Jake snorted. “You’ve got a potential recording contract.”
“That too,” Ian said with a gentle smile. “A contract I have no interest in chasing if it doesn’t have you involved somehow.”
I sighed. They were making me feel so loved…treasured. “I don’t want you to put your lives on hold for me. You guys have dreams too…”
“Fuck that,” Jake said, and his voice went hard, inflexible, and downright stern. He cupped my chin, turning me to look at him, even as Ian lifted me back into his lap and settled my back to his chest. There was no escaping being surrounded by them. Not that I had any interest in going anywhere. “We’re a team,” Jake stated, gaze locked on mine. “The five of us are here because we want to be here. I love you. They love you. And you love us.”
None of those were questions. “I do,” I confirmed anyway, even as the feeling tightened like a fist around my heart.
“Then we make the decisions together. We make the best one for all of us. One of those considerations is that we’re together. If that means we’re all in the same town but at different schools, fine, we’ll find a way to make it work. But understand this, Baby Girl, where you go, we go. That’s all there is to it.”
“Jake’s right,” Ian weighed in. “All of us agree with that. Coop, Arch, me, and him. We don’t want to be where you’re off somewhere else, and we don’t want you to be without us.”
I let out a little sigh and leaned my head against Ian’s shoulder. “I don’t want to go somewhere without all of you or even just one of you.”
“Then we’re agreed, so no more of this crap about not making decisions that don’t include you.” Eyes fixed on mine, Jake kept his grip on my chin firm and gentle. “Together. Or not at all.”
I licked my lips. “What if Ian gets that recording contract…”
“Then we make that work,” Ian promised. “We talk it out, we weigh the pros and cons, together. All of us. We make this something that the five of us agree on. Because it’s not just my life or your life.”
“It’s our lives.” Jake skated his thumb over my lower lip. “Dammit, Baby Girl, I thought you got how important this was to all of us. To me.”
Tears sparked at the back of my eyes for an entirely different reason, and guilt scraped through me. “Sometimes, it’s difficult to imagine that it’s not an imposition if you guys were to change something for me.” Maddy didn’t like rearranging her life for me. Fuck knows whenever she’d been forced, she threw it in my face.
“We’re not your mother,” Ian said in no less a firm voice than Jake used. “We’re not saying we’re giving up anything, but if we haven’t been clear, you’re more important than a school. We’ll get the education, the skills, the training, we can do that anywhere. Maybe it won’t be hoity toity and cost Archie a new wing on a hospital or something…”
A laugh escaped me, and it was a little wet but it was real, and Jake was still tracing the outline of my mouth, even as Ian kept his lips at my ear.
“You are more important to me than all of that. The guys are more important to me than that.”
“This family we’re building is more important than that,” Jake finished. “We’ll find a way to take care of that.”
I let out a shuddering breath and then nodded. “Okay.”
Relief seemed to sag Jake’s shoulders, and even Ian seemed to ease up as he rubbed his cheek against my hair. Jake flicked a look above me, and I had the sensation that he and Ian had locked gazes. Some wordless communication passed between them.
I kind of hated it when they did that.
I kind of loved it, too.
Yeah, I know, I was a little weird. But I loved that they were all still friends. Those friendships were so damn important to us.
Not just friends, I reminded myself. Family.
“I think we call the guys,” Ian suggested. “Tonight is family planning night. We talk about the schools everyone has heard from, and we work out contingency plans.”