“Sare it, Nicky,” Hannah parroted as she often did, using the name she’d had for him since she started talking.
Nick opened the candy bar and held it out again, eyebrows raised, until Mia took it and broke off a piece.
“Nicky?” Mia’s eyebrows shot up, and her quick grin brought a sharp tug to his gut. Something of his old nineteen-year-old self simmered. It felt good.
And so he sat, with a juice box and half a Snickers, next to the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.
Chapter 3
“YOU HAVE AN ACCENT,” Nick said the next time he sat with Mia on the Knoll. It was slight, and he couldn’t quite place it.
“Do I?”
“I think so.” He pulled a spiral notebook with kittens on the front from his backpack and opened it to a blank page for Hannah.
“I’m from Boston. Lived there all my life.”
“Hmm… I don’t know. That’s not it.”
“Really?” Mia grinned and leaned over next to Hannah, who sat between them. She held out the crayons for her choosing so they didn’t get lost in the grass. “You don’t think I’m from Boston?”
Nick smiled and shrugged, watching her watch Hannah.
“My parents are Bosnian,” she said after a moment.
“Really? So you speak Bosnian?”
“I do, and don’t—”
“Say something.”
“—ask me to say something.”
“Come on. Why not?”
Ignoring him, she pulled a book from her backpack, but he could see she was smiling.
“Mia from Boston, who speaks Bosnian,” he said, looking straight ahead at campus. “Or at least she says she does.”
She tossed a crayon at him, then followed his gaze. It really was a beautiful campus. Red-brick buildings set on gently rolling hills. She sighed. “My parents weren’t too happy with me coming to school here. Still aren’t.”
“Why not?”
“Too far away. Plus, I had some other scholarship offers.”
“Like what? Yale? Harvard?” He was half joking.
“Yes.” She looked at him as if daring him to crack a joke or say no way.
He did neither. “Wow. Pre-med at Harvard?”
She nodded slowly. “I promised I’d come closer to home for med school.”
“Is that what you want?”
“To be closer or to be a doctor?”
“Either. Both.”
“My parents are… old-fashioned, set in their ways. But I love them. I owe them a lot. I’m their only child.”
That didn’t answer his question. “So being a doctor is more what they want?”
“No. Not at all.” She looked at him then. “I mean, they do want it, but I want it, too. I’m going to be a surgeon. That’s been my dream as long as I can remember. I like the idea of putting people back together, you know? The challenge of it. Every case is different.”
“But you still came here.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I’ve always done what was expected. I don’t know, I guess I wanted to step outside the box for once. Do something crazy.”
He studied her, brows raised. “Going to college at UVA is crazy?”
She grinned. “It’s about as crazy as I get. Disappointed?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Intrigued, fascinated… never disappointed.
“What about you? What’s your crazy? You seem pretty straight and narrow to me.”
“I guess. First born and all that. I’ve stayed on the line.”
Mia brushed her fingers through Hannah’s hair, and his sister’s sleepy eyes drifted shut. “And what have you wanted to be for as long as you can remember?”
He hesitated, it seemed so far fetched.
“Come on. I told you.”
“I’ve always wanted to join the FBI.”
She didn’t react, just waited, serious and interested.
“My dad’s brother was FBI. He was killed when he was pretty young, not on duty, snow-skiing accident. My dad always got a kick out of me wanting to follow Uncle Bo. They were tight.” Nick glanced at Hannah. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It was an idea. I’m not sure anymore.”
“Your dad wouldn’t want you to give it up.”
“You’re right. He wouldn’t.”
“So you’ll find a way, and you’ll do it.”
His eyes met hers. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes. Just like that.”
And again, when Mia said it, he could almost believe it.
She lay down on her side, chin in her palm. “I think my parents are mostly afraid I’ll come down here, meet a Southern boy, and get distracted.”