“I know.”
“And crowded.”
“I can handle it.” Was he arguing with her on purpose?
“I grew up in Berkeley.”
She turned in her seat to look at him, shock coursing through her veins. “You did?”
He nodded, never taking his gaze off the road. “My parents both work at the university.”
“Shut up. UC Berkeley?” She hadn’t said those words in a long time, and they felt foreign, almost like they tripped off her tongue and fell into the atmosphere.
Levi had gone to UC Berkeley. He’d dumped her to have the full college experience, as he’d phrased it to her that night. She’d heard enough rumors to know he’d maxed out the college living too. Joining a frat, partying hard, and nearly flunking out.
“Yeah. I was their biggest disappointment.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t get in.”
“Shut. Up.” She started to laugh. “Me either!”
“You wanted to go to Cal?” He sounded shocked.
Should she tell him the real reason she tried to get in there? So she could flaunt herself in front of Levi and remind him of what he’d lost? No, she sounded pitiful even in her own head. “I applied all over California but specifically targeted colleges close to the Bay Area.”
“Did you get into any of them?”
“No.” This was the painful part. “I got into Fullerton and Fresno State but couldn’t get enough scholarship money to pay for it all.”
“Not even grant money? Student loans?”
“I was a dependent on my parents’ tax returns. They made too much money for me to qualify for much of anything, and they really couldn’t afford to pay for my tuition. So I went to the local community college and got my associate’s degree.” Lame. It embarrassed her that she didn’t graduate college. Harper had. Delilah hadn’t, but she owned her own bu
siness. Wren may have invested in Delilah’s studio, but she wasn’t a full partner yet.
She wasn’t much of anything yet, and that stung. More than she cared to admit, especially to herself.
“What about you? Were your parents really disappointed you couldn’t get in?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.
“They knew deep down I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t cut out for school. Not college at least. I could hold my own and my grades were decent, but I wasn’t a brainiac like them. I preferred being outdoors, playing sports, working hard. I hated living in the city. I would’ve given anything to grow up in a town like this.”
How funny. She would’ve given anything to get out of this town. “Always wanting what you can’t have?”
He shot her a glance. “Something like that.”
“But you finally got your wish. Now you live here.”
“I love it, too. Wildwood is a great town. I love my job. I feel lucky.”
“More like hard work got you here, I’m thinking.”
“Says the battalion chief’s daughter.”
Ugh. Her father always had to come back into it. “My father’s retired.”
“You know what it’s like though, living with a firefighter. How they’re always gone, especially in the summer.”
“Sometimes working, sometimes not,” she muttered under her breath. God, she really didn’t want to stroll down memory lane and reminisce about her father’s affairs. Didn’t Tate know the background story about Wayne Gallagher? Hadn’t someone filled him in by now?
She knew this—she didn’t want to be the one to have to tell the story.