“You’ve had some time,” he replied. “How much have you gotten figured out? How much straighter is your head back on?” He asked with genuine honesty, nothing antagonistic about it, but I almost would have preferred the latter because an honest question required an honest answer, and I’d rather give him about a million other answers than the honest one.

“Let’s just say I’ve only added more questions to the pile than I’ve wrangled out answers,” I said, clearing my throat. “And I can’t even remember where I left my head.”

My father took that in, sorting through it before answering. He was the kind of man that defined think before you speak. “So shutting yourself away and trying your hardest to pretend the world doesn’t exist hasn’t cured you of whatever this is?” he said, scrolling his eyes over me. I didn’t respond. I knew from decades of experience he wasn’t looking for one. “Only a fool would think that continuing down the exact same path would lead to a different result, and since neither of us are fools,”—he scrubbed his hand over his mouth threatening to pull up in the corners—“I’m sure one of us can come up with another option that is less dramatic and escapist to help the son I know you are come back to us.”

I hated that reverse psychology crap. I succumbed to the inevitability of where this little father/son chat was heading, and though I couldn’t pinpoint the exact direction he was going with it, I knew it would be all downhill from here. I slouched down onto the nearest piece of furniture, acting more my biological age than my true one, as was my style anyways, until I felt the mattress molding around my body. William and Bryn’s mattress . . .

My body wouldn’t have jolted harder than if I’d had power lines fitted over my head. Father ignored my insane reaction; at least, mostly ignored it. “What are you planning to do with your life next?”

Nothing like a loaded question to ease a cat on a hot tin roof down. “Well . . .” I began, rubbing the back of my head and searching the ceiling for an answer of the genius quality.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, interrupting my dead-end thoughts. “And since you’re perhaps too close to the situation to formulate a plan that will wield us a favorable result”—like running a Council meeting; after a century of dedication, it was hard for father to separate himself from the Chancellor role—“I’d like to suggest an option, something I imagine you’ll be rather eager to explore.”

He was building it up, whatever scheme he’d come up in that mind of his. Not a good sign.

“You’ve been a rock the entire time of your Immortality, carrying out your duties without a question, taking your calling seriously, becoming the most capable strength instructor in our Alliance. Everything has been done with the larger good considered, selflessness at its pinnacle.”

I coughed, looking away from my father going on about me being the Gandhi of Immortals. If there was a contest for that title, my name wouldn’t have been on the ballot. I wasn’t all selfish, but I wasn’t selfless either. That was a title reserved for my saints for brothers.

“All right, father,” I interrupted, not able to take it any longer. “Building me up before you bring me down isn’t exactly your thing. Come on, I can take it,” I encouraged, waving my hands in a bring-it-on gesture. “Throw the hammer down. I promise I won’t cry.” His brows raised and I grinned. “I won’t cry too hard.”

Gauging me a few more moments, he nodded, resolved. “Your brothers took a little time away from Immortality, either when they were in desperate need of something new or when their encroaching stations required it.”

“Yeah, but the only times they’ve done that,” I interjected, shuffling through the memory files that all had the same red flag warning tagged to them. Red alert, red alert, red alert. “Was when they left to go to college,” I all but grumbled.

“Precisely,” he answered.

“I’m not the college type,” I said, that streak of Hayward stubbornness that ran in all of us rising like the tide.

“That’s only because you’ve never tried,” he replied calmly. “Despite the view you like to hold of yourself, you are just as intelligent as your brothers.”

“Gee whiz, thanks for the compliment there,” I said, being difficult because that was what I did. “And thanks for the suggestion. Really,” I reiterated, crossing my arms. “But I’m just fine where I’m at. Whatever it is I’m going through, I’ll be fine in a few days time. I can feel the selfish, very un-college like me coming back already.” I plastered on an overdone smile, chancing a look at my father’s stoic face, remembering why it was useless arguing with him on anything. Charles Hayward’s word was law, father and Chancellor alike.

“You’re already enrolled,” he said, not even attempting to lighten the blow with an apologetic tone. “Fall semester starts in a couple of weeks.”

I groaned, the deep belly-rumbling kind. “Any chance of vetoing this ultimatum?” I asked needlessly.

My dad’s fisted hand covered his mouth, hiding his grin. “That’s the wonderful thing about ultimatums, son. They’re final.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you were going to say,” I said, feeling the respect and admiration I’d painstakingly gleaned in our Alliance running through my fingers when everyone heard I was so mental I had to be sent away to the kegs, frat houses, and textbooks of the land of Mortals. “So where are you sequestering me and for how long am I banish-ed?” I said in my most Shakespeare worthy voice.

“It takes the normal college student four years to get their degree,”—I choked on the time reference—“but since you’re anything but normal, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.” He turned to leave the room, judging I needed a serious moment alone to figure out the path of suck my life was heading down.

“So when I get in my car, which direction should I head until I find hell?” I called out after him, wondering if I tried hard enough, if I could kill myself. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

“I doubt you’ll need twenty guesses. You’ve got a whole family of alums, so there was no problem pulling a few strings and getting you enrolled.”

“Super,” I deadpanned. “Said college wouldn’t happen to begin with an S, be two syllables, and rhyme with man-I’m-already-bored, would it?”

My father responded with a laugh. Infuriating. “Try to enjoy it, Patrick. As much as you are capable at least.”

Yeah, that wasn’t happening.

CHAPTER THREE

One week into fall semester at one of the top-rated universities in the nation and I had to admit, father had been right. I capitol L-oved Stanford. It was right up my alley, I guess you could say. A gorgeous campus graced by the California sun everyday, decorated with girls that genetics had looked favorably on, and professors that didn’t take roll call. If ever there was a Utopia on this spherical mass, I’d found it. I’d even added a new piece to my real estate collection, so if I wasn’t enjoying the California girls—that were, by the way, everything they were cracked up to be—I was enjoying the view of the Pacific from my swanky as hell, four thousand square foot bachelor pad.

College life was the good life.

Another added bonus to paradise found, Bryn wasn’t at the forefront of my mind and on the tip of my tongue. Whether it was my new surroundings, or the sunshine, or the reinstitution of regular hygiene, I didn’t care because that heart ripped out of my chest feeling was beginning to dull. I could breathe, hypothetically, for the first time in weeks.

Hello, hello, my non-stop internal monologue interrupted as my baby blues detected the blur of a herd of scantily—more like barely—clad legs passing by. Incoming.

“Looking good, ladies, looking good,” I said, tilting my aviators down so there’d be no mistake who I was looking at. The leggiest of the leggy, the blonde one that had more than likely driven more than her fair share of men to insanity, noted my unblinking stare and smiled one of my favorite kinds, the anything but innocent one. God I loved that smile. “Keep up the good work. And when you decide that school is for fools, come find me. I’ll be here all year.”

Blondie tossed a wink my way and the look in those lidded eyes told me the bait I’d tossed out had caught the exact fish I wanted in record time. They didn’t call me the hook, line, and sinker man for no reason.

As I watched goldilocks and her co-eds hip-sway away, a shadow eclipsed my face. A clearing of the throat followed.

If I didn’t have justification to be irritated because I’d been interrupted in the middle of my hate to watch you go but love to watch you leave personal experience, I had absolute reason to be ticked my mid-day rays were being temporarily cut off. This is primo California sunshine you can’t put a price on.

“You know, I’ve passed you at least a dozen times this week, and if it wasn’t for your incessant cat calls that are about as creative as a paint by numbers, I’d have thought you were a statue,” the dark form casting a shadow on my morning said. Female voice, but that was about all I could identify. The way she was directly in front of the sun made her appear as a black paper cutout. “You haven’t moved from this patch of grass once.”

“Observant,” I muttered under my breath.

She continued, either not hearing or not caring I was trying to give her the brush off. “Just in case you missed the bulletin, this is a university. A pretty good one actually. Complete with classes, credits, and co-eds.”

“The co-eds I have most definitely noticed,” I said, shielding my hand over my eyes, trying to get a better look at the blacked-out woman in front of me.

“Good for you,” she replied, clapping her hands in a patronizing way. “Your parents must be so proud. You know, if you were going to do nothing but play hooky the four years of your one time chance at a college career, why didn’t you go to some state school or, better yet, a community college, and save yourself some money?”

Given this girl was a stranger and didn’t have a clue about what I’d been through and that I’d all but been forced to attend here because my certifiable genius brothers attended, it seemed she was being a little harsh.

“Let me save you the suspense, sugar,” I said, slipping my glasses back into place in hopes I’d be able to make out this fiery female wielding insult to add to my injury.

“There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that are the college sort and those that are not. I’d fill you in on where I fit in to those two categories, but given you’ve seen me a dozen times sun tanning during prime class time, I’m guessing you already know.”

Her head bobbed side to side, causing the sun to shoot like lasers into my eyes with every bob. “And let me save you the suspense,” she repeated. “You’ll never know unless you try.”