To fuck you until I can’t remember my own name, much less my CREOG score.
“To bed.”
Afterward, she wilts against me, hot and sweaty. “You are so good at that.”
My fingers thread through her hair. “You make it easy.”Because I love you.
She yawns. “I’m glad we’re doing this, Julian.”
“What? Fucking or dating?”Say it.
Her soft laugh tickles the hair on my chest. “Both.”
A small silence stretches before I decide to stab myself in my own heart. “Why?”
She lifts her head to look in my eyes. A little notch appears between her eyebrows. “Why what?”
“Why are you glad we’re doing this?”
A tiny smile appears on her pretty lips, the freckle drawing my attention. “Because I’m happy. Aren’t you?”
Studying her face, I find no recalcitrance, no secrets. I nod and pull her closer. She snuggles into my side.
After several minutes, her breathing slows. I hold her as she sleeps, ignoring the sensation that I’m standing on the firing line, that every beat of my heart is numbered.
What the hell have I done? I can’t undo this. I can’t unlove her. I can’t escape it.
Why hasn’t she said it back?
What are you hiding, Grace?
* * *
I swing open the door to the GME office a week later, and Alesha jerks to a halt on the other side. Her deer-in-the-headlights expression gives me pause.
She presses a hand to her chest. “Wh-What are you doing here?”
I hold open the door, taking in her new teal hair and street clothes. “I’m picking up a reimbursement check. What are you doing?”
“Oh.” Her shoulders relax. “Same.”
My gaze drops to her empty hands. She has no purse. No pockets. No check. “You are?”
“Yeah. It—um—it wasn’t ready.”
I laugh, skeptical. Definitely not a reimbursement check. Is she in trouble? Did she cross her work-hour limit or get some sort of complaint from staff? Whatever it is, she clearly doesn’t want me to know, so I don’t press.
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll pretend I believe you.” I move aside so she can pass. “Go ahead.”
She glances at her phone, then shrugs. “It’s almost five. I’m off for the day. I’ll come with you.”
We head into the office, and I turn toward the registrar’s desk.
“Haven’t talked to you much lately.” She tosses out a knowing smile, her previous unease gone.
“Busy.”
“Whatever could be keeping you so busy, Juju?”