With a bark of alarm, both dogs exploded into flight, their paws slipping across the floorboards in their wild bid to flee. He sat up and watched them go, mordantly amused, and then reached for his phone and pulled up the day’s schedule.
It was blank. Whole blocks of nothing stared up at him, marked only by each empty hour. He refreshed the page, certain he’d missed something. The schedule remained blank. Clicking over to his messages, he pulled up Vivienne’s number.
Thomas
There’s nothing on the schedule today.
As an afterthought, he added:
Thomas
Let me know if you need anything.
Her response was immediate, marked by adingthat reverberated absurdly in his solar plexus.
Vivienne
don’t text me.
“You got it, princess,” he said to his phone, before tossing it back onto the bed.
He couldn’t stay put all day, waiting in his room like a kenneled dog. Not without going stark raving mad. Rolling out of bed, he pulled on a pair of gym shorts and a mostly clean T-shirt and headed out in search of a place to burn off steam.
He didn’t make it far. Philip poked his head out of the door to his office just as Thomas ambled past.
“There you are,” he said, shaking his watch loose from his sleeve. “I was hoping I’d run into you. Amelia tells me Vivienne gave you the slip yesterday morning.”
“Oh,” said Thomas. He hadn’t realized they’d been watched. The thought made him uneasy. “Yeah, she found another ride to the studio.”
“Is that right?” Philip’s smile was veneer straight. “She’s a spitfire, isn’t she?”
“Uh,” said Thomas, who wasn’t sure how to answer.
“She’s testing your limits, seeing where you fall in the pecking order. Back in my days at Phi Epsilon Nu, we called that a good old-fashioned hazing. It’s nothing to lose sleep over.”
“Understood,” said Thomas.
Philip leaned in conspiratorially, peering down the hall as if he expected Vivienne to appear at any moment. “A little friendly advice—fire needs to be fed. Without oxygen, it starves and dies. Vivienne’s oxygen is attention. Don’t give her any, and you’ll be square. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Excellent.” Philip clapped him hard on the shoulder. “Now, have you given any thought to my offer to bankroll some summer courses?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Make sure you give it due consideration. A smart boy like yourself ought to have some sort of direction in life. What are your interests? Your aspirations? Where do you see yourself five years from now? Ten?”
“Uh.” Dully, Thomas wondered if maybe he should lie. He thought of the ignored emails from the Priory’s president, the mediocre grades, and the unfinished credits. In the end, he settled on a half-truth. “I’d love to be where my uncle is. He’s his own boss.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” boomed Philip, and clapped his shoulder a second time. “You’re in good hands—the Farrow name opens a whole lot of doors, and I take care of my own. Understand?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Fantastic.” He lifted a steaming mug of coffee off a nearby file cabinet and raised it in a toast. “Now, if you’re looking to get a workout in, we had a state-of-the-art fitness center installed just last winter.”
“Nice,” said Thomas. “No one will mind if I use it?”
Philip’s smile stretched as wide as a wolf’s. “Our home is your home, son. So long as you work under my roof, the world is at your feet.”
