Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“Did you order for me, or do I have to live off your backwash like a baby bird?”
The pretty blonde pauses at the doorframe for punctuation, then hurls herself into a chair like a human cannonball, legs folded pretzel-style and face already pink from the walk across campus. She clocks Liam, and—this is new—gives him a high-key, non-ironic smile.
“Hey, Professor T.” It’s more of a nickname now than a title, and the teasing isn’t hostile. “You surviving the Simone tornado?”
He deadpans. “Barely. She keeps me on my toes.”
“Good,” Andie says, then shoots me a look that says, You better not let him get boring now that he’s domesticated.
I slide her a tea I ordered in anticipation. “Chamomile, half a bag of raw sugar. Just how you like it.”
She grins, takes an enormous slurp, and sighs with happiness. “God, you’re an angel.” She turns to Liam. “You ever see her first thing in the morning? Like, before she puts her face on?”
He smiles at me. “I think she’s beautiful at all hours.”
I flush so hard my earlobes burn. “Gross. Stop.”
Andie laughs—actually laughs at one of his jokes, which is unprecedented—and then asks, “So what’s the plan for the evening? You two hitting up the poetry reading, or are you just going to make out in every empty building on campus?”
Liam leans in, all mock conspiratorial. “We were planning on making out in the library, but I hear security’s stepped up patrols since the, ah, incident.”
Andie almost chokes on her drink, then stabs a finger at him. “You told her about that?”
I feign innocence. “Told me what?”
She glares, but it melts immediately. “If anyone asks, I was with you at Chipotle that night.”
Liam lifts his hands. “Your secret’s safe. Academic confidentiality.”
I snort and feel the world slide into its new alignment: the three of us, not as a crisis unit, but as a lopsided family. It’s a little surreal.
We chat—about nothing, about everything. Andie is working two jobs this summer, one at the pool (lifeguard, obviously, because she adores shirtless men) and one dog-sitting for some guy who travels so much that the dog now whines if left alone for more than four minutes. She says she’s thinking of going into veterinary medicine, or maybe running away to join a circus.
Liam talks about his seminar, how half his students can’t stand confessional poetry and the other half are addicted to it. He admits that a kid named Wyatt is already twice the poet he ever was at twenty-one, but that it’s “ennobling, not threatening,” which Andie immediately makes fun of: “Ennobling. My god, do you just walk around talking like that all the time?”
He says, “I try to keep it under control, but your friend makes me relapse.”
They bicker, but it’s friendly now, the tension gone. I watch them and feel, for the first time, that maybe I really can have both—a life with him, and a life with her. That the whole world doesn’t have to be an either/or.
At some point, Liam’s phone buzzes. He checks it, frowns, then says, “Excuse me for a minute. The department chair wants a word about adjunct contracts.” He leans over, kisses my temple, and stands, leaving us in the booth with his half-finished tea.
Andie watches him go, then turns on me with the full force of her laser focus. “You’re happy,” she says, not even a question.
I nod. “I really am.”
She looks at her hands, flexes them, then shakes her head. “I owe you an apology.”
I blink. “For what?”
She bites her lip, and for a second I see her as she was in our first year—scared, fragile, hiding behind hair and bravado. “For not being happy for you sooner. For acting like you were doomed, or I was going to lose you. I was just…” She trails off, then finishes with a shrug.
I put my hand over hers. “You were protecting me.”
She nods, silent.
I squeeze her fingers. “You’re my family. Even if we get boyfriends. Even if we move to different coasts.”
She laughs, but there’s water in her eyes. “We’re so predictable.”
I grin. “Maybe. But we’re alive.”
A silence, companionable. I sense she wants to confide something, so I wait.
She leans forward, voice dropping. “So, I have to tell you something, but you can’t freak out.”
“Uh-oh.”
“It’s not a bad thing. It’s just… I think I have a crush.”
I let out a dramatic gasp. “On whom?”
She hushes me. “Not so loud! Jesus.”
I giggle, but I’m burning to know. “Is it someone I know?”
She nods, lip caught between her teeth. “Not a student. Not a professor. I swear. But older. Like, way older.”
“How much older?” I demand, already running through a mental Rolodex of possible suspects.
She giggles, blushing. “Old enough to be my dad. Older than your boyfriend, even. But, like, super hot. Silver fox.”
I nearly spit my coffee. “Stop. Who?”