Page 84 of The Exception

The dress she’d worn today had a dip in the back low enough that she could reach the zipper without too much trouble. She pulled it down and let the fabric fall off of her shoulders and pool on the floor. She stepped out in just her panties and a strapless bra.

Trav’s jaw twitched. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “Well-played.”

“What? I always walk around my house in my underwear.”

“Sonya,” he growled.

She held out her hand. “Gimme the study guide.”

He dug through his backpack and pulled out a packet, slapping it into her palm.

“Thank you. Each question you get right, you get a kiss. Score a ninety or above, and you can take the rest off. Deal?”

His grin spread. “I already knew it, but for the record. You’re the best teacher I’ve ever had.”

Thirty-two

So maybe mixing sex with studying wasn’t Trav’s best idea. Not that he regretted a single minute of those study sessions, or the late nights that had followed, but besides not retaining much, this week, he was, admittedly, dragging ass.

And to top it off, that day he skipped class to hang out with Sonya, he’d missed a pop-quiz that he would have aced. If he’d aced that quiz, it would have boosted his grade enough to not be having this conversation.

“How you do here reflects on me. How many times do I have to tell you that, Benjamin?” Jack Travis puffed his chest and squared his shoulders in an attempt to throw around his stature, but after what Trav had been doing the last fourteen years, a middle-aged man in a suit wasn’t so intimidating anymore.

Though, it sure was infuriating.

“No one else saw my exam, Dad,” he said. “You pulled strings to see it, so don’t tell anyone, and your reputation remains intact.”

It pissed Trav off to no end that his father always found a way to be right on the heels of any misstep Trav made. And that he always found a way to blow it out of proportion. It was a bad grade on a test; no one was dying. So he’d spread himself a little thin lately. Overall, he was doing fine. But fine was never good enough for his father.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “If you fail out of this—”

“I’mnotgoing to fail.” He’d raised his voice louder than he meant to, and a nurse turned to look at them as she passed.

“Now you’re making a scene,” his father said.

Jesus. He was always running point with no one behind him these days. If it wasn’t for Sonya… “Look, tests aren’t my thing. They never have been. It doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do this job.”

“In medicine every interaction is a test, Ben. You’re already behind Elliot. You should want to be the best.”

“I want to graduate and get a job so I can help people. It doesn’t matter to my patients if I end up top of the class when I’m saving their life.”

His dad scoffed. “Top of the class for an associates degree. Yes, I suppose that doesn’t matter.” He straightened and pinched the French cuff of his dress shirt. He always did this—minimized whatever it was Trav was putting his energy into. It was a constant stream of “be the best”followed by a reminder that even if he was, it was at something that was beneath his potential. The goal posts always moved.

“Go ahead and play loose with this, Ben,” his father said, “but don’t come crying to me when you’ve squandered yet another opportunity. I’m out of life-lines to toss you.”

Jack turned on his heel, marching away, and Trav shoved his hands in his hair. Why he ever thought he could take roaming the same halls as his father for an entire semester was beyond him.

He looked at his watch and saw it was his dinner break.Thank fuck.Sonya would be in the breakroom waiting for him. Seeing her would lower his blood pressure before he had to finish his shift.

He rounded the corner to the nurses lounge, pausing in the doorway to watch her press buttons on the Keurig, that bottom lip of hers between her teeth as the machine did its thing. He would have laughed at himself for being so smitten, if he was in a laughing mood.

“Hey,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be in here.”

She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I do love making your dreams come true.”

Trav didn’t usually touch her at work. Maybe a quick peck on the lips in the parking garage after scouting the perimeter, and one time she’d slipped her fingers into his beneath the table after everyone had left a meeting, but that was it. They were extremely careful for obvious reasons, but after that conversation with his father, he was going to take just a little bit more.

With one more glance at the doorway, he leaned in and brushed his lips over the back of her neck.

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