He glanced up from the textbook he had open, but the annoyed spark to his eyes faded the longer he assessed me. “You okay?”
“I had a run-in with a sadistic trainer who only knows how to threaten at high volume and throws beanbags at his victims.”
He leaned back in his seat while lazily flicking his pen in one hand. “Jericho’s class, right?”
Slowly, carefully, delicately, I lowered myself onto the chair. “Yeah, that’s him. How’d you know?”
“Daya takes that class. Her first time, I don’t think she could bend her knees for a week.”
My lip curl was stifled just in time. Of course Daya took this class and of course she and her knees were mentioned within two minutes of sitting down with Spence. Like I do in all times of stress, I reached for—
Shit.
“I forgot to get the coffee,” I said, moaning more to myself than to Spence.
“I’ll at least save you there,” Spence said. He lowered his laptop lid, and hidden behind it like the treasure gems they were, were two cups of coffee.
“Omigod, I love you right now.” I held out both hands. “Gimme. Please.”
Laughing, he handed one over and took a sip of his. “So you also revert into a childlike state when deprived of caffeine for more than an hour. Looks like we have one thing in common.”
I lifted the cup to my lips, avoiding any reply because I wasn’t sure if he was flirting with me or not when he smiled like that. We were just talking about Daya, so it couldn’t be true, most especially after my chat with Becca. Never had I felt so inept and inexperienced as I did sitting across from my tutor I was one hundred percent sexually attracted to. This realization, made over an harmless offer of coffee, was a difficult one to accept. But it was there, just like his scent, which beckoned to me like the allure and sparkle of a lost diamond.
I swigged back a large gulp—and choked. “Agh—” A cloying sweetness coated my mouth unlike any liquid that had come before. “What is—what?”
“Oh dear me, you don’t enjoy peppermint with your coffee?” Spence asked, palming a hand to his chest.
“Bleh—guh.” I placed the coffee on the table, then inched it farther away.
Mischief quirked his expression. “I only wanted to return the flavor.”
“Your pun and revenge plot has been received,” I said, still pursing my lips. “I’ll never again dare to give you anything but black coffee.”
“Best six bucks I ever spent,” he said, laughing at my disgusted expression. “Here, a peace offering.” He handed me his own cup. “This is my fourth, I think, so it’s probably high time I switch to stuff my body can actually use.”
I accepted the cup while lecturing myself not to act like a middle schooler and enjoy the fact that his lips touched the same rim that mine would. After a careful sip (because, like fine wines, everyone has their coffee preference, many worse than others), I said, “Lots of milk, no sugar. Exactly how I take it.”
His eyes met mine, we had another moment, and I shied away like the middle schooler I was. “Okay. So. What does Dante have to enlighten me with today?”
The moment was lost and Spence was back in tutor mode. “Pull out the paperback and go to page sixty-five, I’ve underlined a few points we can draw from for your make-up…”
And on he went. I focused less on his words than on his face, and the spheres of his stare, then had to shake myself out of it because scholarship. Grades. Success. As beautiful as I found Spence to be, I could not start drooling in my junior year of college. Trev gave me butterflies and wowed me in the ways a top lacrosse player going after the pretty, quiet girl could. I was swooped and swooned and convinced I was in love, but I wasn’t always looking to find Trev in a crowded party or feel his hand in mine. I didn’t sense him come into a room before I could see him. I loved his company and the way we confided in each other. I loved his body and his laugh. We were perfect together and for each other. Everybody thought so, including me.
So how did it take sitting across from a stranger to notice the fractures in such an epic relationship?
“Emme? You got that?”
Spence went from a blur to high definition. “Yes. The cantos. Got it.”
He didn’t appear convinced. “Are you hurting too much to study?”
My gaze widened. There was no way he could see that deeply into my emotions so soon.
Spence must’ve taken my surprised expression as confusion, because he followed up with, “From your boot camp. Should you be lying down with some frozen peas right now?”
Ah. “No really, I’m fine. Took a bunch of ibuprofen and currently have one of those disposable hot packs on my back. I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be.”
Spence took another pause of assessment, and in that period I physically felt each part of my face his gaze landed on. Tiny brushes and tingles, each one more pleasurable than the last. “How about I take it easy on you today. Read that passage in front of you while I write down a few questions.”
Nodding, I cast a finger down the page to the spot he pointed out, from then on ready to concentrate on Hell and Hell only, and a forty minutes of success passed before it all went to shit.
“Hey.”
The presence of someone else shadowed our table. I glanced up and immediately wished I hadn’t. “Trev. What are you doing here?”
The question got Spence’s attention.
Trevor stood at the end of the table, hands shoved in his jeans, shoulders sloped. Strands of his black hair tousled against his forehead like he’d been sleeping restlessly for weeks. Which I damn well hoped he had.
“I stopped by your place, spoke to Becca. She said you were here.”
I narrowed in on Becca’s name. My best friend, no fan of Trev, would’ve been deliberate with her instructions on where I was. Probably so Trev could see me laughing and flirting my ass off with Spence—or, in Becca’s imagination, humping him in plain view on top of our study notes.
“I’m pretty busy.” I gestured over to Spence. “We’re in the middle of an assignment, so would you mind—”
“Fuck.” The sharp sound drew the attention of other studiers around us. “Yes, Emme, I mind.”
“Hey.” Spence’s biceps tensed. “If you’re gonna be like that, take it outside. Without her.”
Trev pulled his fists out of his pockets. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“The guy that’s standing between you and your ex-girlfriend.” Spence stood at his full height.
“Okay,” I said, standing with them. “Trev, you have to leave.”
His brown eyes, the color of which I used to lovingly attribute to melted milk chocolate, took on a plaintive gleam. “Can’t you at least talk to me before moving on to some douchebag?”
Spence drew back with a sour smile. “I’m pretty sure she ditched the douchebag some time ago.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions,” I said to Trev before he could retort. “And this isn’t the place. Please. Go.”
“You’re ignoring everything I’m trying to say to you. Like that I’m sorry, I’m a huge asshole, and I don’t deserve you but hell, I love you so much, Emme. I need you to forgive me,” Trev said.
I shook my head, my arms becoming dead at my sides. “You lost me.”
“It was one mistake. It was a stupid text thing that got out of control but I swear, Em, I never slept with Laurie—”
“You’re not hearing me,” I said, and instinctively, habitually, moved toward him. “You lost me years ago. I didn’t see it—didn’t want to—but I’ve been so devoted to making our relationship work that I didn’t calculate the distance between us. You have to admit it, Trev, we haven’t been good since we came to New York. I was so determined to try with you that I’ve been sacrificing pieces of my happiness in order to do it.”
Trev said, “That is so completely unfair. You’re saying our relationship made you less of a person?”
“You weren’t happy!” I said
, and despite my efforts, my voice cracked. “You were never content with whatever I did. You had me jumping through hoops for you, you know that? Trev doesn’t like this, what else can I do to keep him satisfied? Trev doesn’t think my cooking is good enough, what recipe shows can I watch to make him enjoy the hours I spent in front of a stovetop again? Trev doesn’t think I could cut it as an entrepreneur, what if I tried a business major instead to prove to him I’m smart? Trev thinks women look better with D-cups, should I look into surgery or will he walk away? Trev this, Trev that—never me!” I smacked a palm to my chest. “I was lost. And the whole time I was looking for someone who never wanted to find me in return.”
Trev, stricken, backed away. Spence remained still and unmoving in my peripheral vision, but I sensed his eyes on me. By this time, all the surrounding study-goers’ were riveted and the librarian on duty was making swift strides our way.
“I’m not saying it’s your fault,” I said, softer.
“Could’ve fuckin’ fooled me,” he said.
“I don’t want to go back to that endless place of pleasing again, so Trev, let me go.”
Trev was halfway through a headshake of denial by the time the librarian reached us. “You three better take your issues outside this instant. You’re disturbing the entire floor.”
“Very sorry, Miss Ives,” Spence said. “We’re leaving.”
He started to pack up his stuff, and I followed. Trev remained frozen, clearly desperate to put up the good fight. I paused in my clean-up and used everything in my internal arsenal to convey to him how much he needed to leave me be. For good.
Trev didn’t move and before I could open my mouth and regain more of Miss Ives’s ire, Spence moved between us, his physical presence a reassuring buffer. His arm brushed against mine a few times and at one point we shared a glance, his reassuring, mine embarrassed.
“You’re making a mistake with him,” Trev said.
By the time Spence straightened, Trev was gone.
Spence cupped my elbow as we made our way to the elevator and met my stiff and careful strides with patience. Adrenaline helped to forget the strain on my body but the crash that followed made me into a robot.
“I’ll walk you home,” Spence said as the elevator doors opened.
“You don’t have to do that.” Head down, I stepped in.
“I want to,” he said, and left it at that.
We rode the three floors in silence, but I was conscious of his hand still on my arm. Every now and again he squeezed, as if to remind me he was there.
When we reached the street, he stayed close, though the sidewalks were relatively empty at this time of night—or as clear as New York City streets ever get, which is to say there was still a trickling river of pedestrians heading south.
As we stopped at an intersection, Spence finally ventured, “How long were you guys dating?”
I couldn’t expect Spence to leave it alone. No one, after witnessing that kind of display, would want to turn their back and ignore it. At least, not someone who cared.
“Since ninth grade,” I said, but spoke to the curb below our feet.
Spence let out a whistle. “I think…yep, that’s more years than the pet I had as a kid.”
I snorted, and at last, he drew my gaze.
“I had a hamster,” he said with a shrug. “Also known as the longest relationship I’ve ever been committed to.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” I said through a laugh.
“And I’m sorry for yours,” he said in all seriousness.
I sobered. “It needed to happen.”
“Hearing what I did up there…” He laid a hand on my shoulder, his fingers soothing gently. “I don’t think you’re wrong about that.”
“In a way, it’s a good thing. It’s like I’ve found this hidden knowledge about myself that’s always been there, I just didn’t know how to look for it. But there it is. And here I am. Flawed. Wounded. But man, I hope so much smarter.”
“Nobody comes out of a six-year relationship dumber,” he said. Then, leaning in, he added, “You’re taking kickboxing classes. That’s a start.”
While I laughed as his hand dropped away, I was somewhat disappointed. Was he flirting with me or simply being nice? He took our connection from one second being so tangible the heat between us could redden our cheeks, to smirking and making some comment that would chill us into the friend zone.
“I wish you better luck with Daya,” I said as the light changed and we headed onto the road.
“Daya?” His brows rose. “Oh. No, she’s not my girlfriend. We hang out sometimes.”
Damn it. There it was again. That spark of hope that had to be firmly smashed. “I didn’t mean to presume.”
“You didn’t. I’m glad you asked.”
I dared a quizzical glance his way, but didn’t push it. We’d reached the entrance to my apartment and now had to endure that awkward moment of saying good-bye after he’d involuntarily witnessed the baring of my soul.
“Thank you for walking me home,” I said, stomping my feet against the cold. “How much do I owe you for the session?”
“Don’t sweat it,” he said, and it was accompanied by his now familiar side-curve of a smile. “This one can be on the house.”
“I can’t ask that of you—”
“You didn’t. I want to.”
“Really. I don’t need any favors.”
“It’s not,” he said. “We’d only got forty minutes into a two hour session. It wouldn’t be fair to charge you, or even pro-rate you. My perfectionism won’t allow it—we barely got anything done.”
I relented. “I appreciate it. Next time, I promise no interruptions,” I said, then fished for the keys in my tote.
“I know a way to ensure it. Let’s do it at my place next time.”
Keys nearly hit pavement. “Your place?”
“Sure. I promise I’m not a serial killer. I have a roommate who could be a solid chaperone—he’s training to be a cop.” Spence shifted uncomfortably under my silence before quipping, “Nor will I throw beanbags at you.”
I laughed, but it was hollow. Nervous. “Sure—of course. That sounds great.”
“I’ll see you Thursday, then? I have a study group and moot court tomorrow.” He took a step back and lifted his hand in a wave.
“I’ll make it work. And Spence,” I said as he turned to leave. “Thank you.”
His gaze softened. “I’m not sure what for, since you stood up for yourself and did all the work. But you’re welcome.”
I held onto that reminder of strength all the way up the flights of my apartment building, and well into my dreams.
When Wednesday night came around, I started to get really nervous. It wasn’t like there was a ton of pressure to have a hot and heavy evening tutorial session at Spence’s home tomorrow—probably because I conveniently left out that tidbit when I met Jade and Becca for margaritas. Not that I should feel any guilt, because I told them everything else, which mostly meant I told them about Trev’s visit and Spence’s brief moment of knighthood.
“I should make you retake my Medieval Culture midterm for what you did,” I said to Becca, who responded with round-eyed innocence before sucking on the straw in her margarita. A tipped over Corona bottle served as garnish.
“Trev’s relentless,” Jade said beside Becca, nursing a diet coke.
“Trev’s poor-puppy dedication astounds me,” Becca said once she swallowed. “What does he think he’s going to gain? I figured I’d point him to where you’re clearly moving on so he’d get the hint. Did he?” she asked me.
I drummed my fingers on the stem of my stupidly huge frozen marg. “I thought he got the hint at our dinner last week.”
“Are you being firm?” Jade asked. “Sometimes it takes being harsh for someone to really understand it’s over.”
“How much tougher can I get after saying ‘it’s over. Let me go’ and ‘I’m going to find better sex without yo
u?’”
“Ouch,” Becca said. “Second one’s a bullet.”
“That he keeps dodging,” I muttered into my drink.
“Maybe this time it’s done,” Jade said. “For all of our sakes. I’m not sure how many more late-night knocks I can take.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said.
“It still keeps my interest. My drama is stagnant,” Becca said and saluted Jade with her drink. I pretended deep preoccupation in the pink slush of my cocktail.
“Hah. Because when it comes it arrives as a tsunami. I gotta go or I’m gonna be late for my study group. ‘Bye guys.” Jade collected her things, stood, and pushed in her chair. She blew a kiss over her shoulder as she turned.
“So, Spence protected you, huh?” Becca said to me once Jade was gone, grinning with the straw between her teeth.
“Hey, I defended myself, thank you very much. He was merely a back-up terrier.”
“Who cared enough to stand up for your honor. You know, the Spence you keep talking about to me sounds nothing like the Spence heard ‘round campus. I’m not even sure we’re talking about the same guy anymore.”
I set my drink down. “Probably because I’m talking about my platonic time with him, the type of association that doesn’t tend to be discussed ‘’round campus.’”
“Mm-hmm.” Becca’s denial was accompanied by a mouthful of strawberry-tequila ice. “It’s more than that. He’s attentive toward you—like walking you home—and wants to get to know you, and is cute and flirty. All things he doesn’t have to do to bag the next girl. They come flocking to him. He barely has to summon the strength to crook a finger. Ugh,” she said. “The more I talk about this the less I feel about myself as a person. I can’t believe I pursued him so hard.”
“Speaking of the chase,” I said through the plastic of my straw. Becca’s secret love life was a topic of extreme interest. Such fear of judgment could never come from her—or at least, that was what I’d always thought of the buoyant, huge-hearted woman I called my best friend. To think she was suffering in any way, there was no possibility of keeping it quiet, not between us.
From This Day Forward Page 6
