Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters, #3)

by Talia Hibbert

Diaries were horribly organized and awfully prescriptive. They involved dates and plans and regular entries and the suffocating weight of commitment. Journals, on the other hand, were deliciously wild and lawless things. One could abandon a journal for weeks, then crack it open one Saturday evening under the influence of wine and marshmallows without an ounce of guilt.

More about people in general—about how her friends never liked her quite as much as she liked them. How they dropped her as soon as someone better came along, or pushed her to the edge of the circle when space was tight, or generally treated her as optional rather than vital. She had a little scar on her heart from all those tiny, vicious prods, and Jacob walking out abruptly this morning had left that scar sore and aching.

Enjoyment was something Eve rarely considered, when it came to the world of work. Work was something you did to try and feel useful—until you fucked it up. Work was something you did to help the people around you until you weren’t needed anymore. Work was not something you enjoyed in and of itself, because that would only make the situation worse when everything collapsed.

“Look,” he said, the word a rasp. “There are many ways to fail—” “Trust me, I’m aware.” “And very few of them are actually controllable. Life has too many moving parts.” He managed to sound resentful of the very nature of human existence, which Eve found impressive despite herself. “So when it comes to this job, and failing, or succeeding, there’s really only one thing you can promise me. And,” he added sharply, “you will promise.” “What?” His response couldn’t be more surprising if he’d delivered it while butt naked and standing on his head. “Try for me, Eve. That’s all. Just try.”

Sometimes, being convenient instead of real was exhausting. So maybe, from now on, she’d stop.

But only children whined when they were left, and only children waited, night after night, for the ones they loved to change their minds. Jacob was not a child anymore. Nor was he some pathetic thing to be abandoned and beg for an explanation. He wasn’t pathetic at all.

But Jacob knew how holding on ended. It ended with the other party letting go and pushing him firmly—embarrassingly—away. He was thirty years old and he knew what he needed.