Page 38 of Not Your Valentine
“But it was the right decision for you, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. My supervisor was a nightmare. The project had appealed to me, though, and I’d talked to a couple of his students before I applied. I guess my error was in only talking to the white guys, who had a rather different experience from me.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
I shove a bite of cake in my mouth. “He was way more cruel to me than anyone else. And yes, I could have tried something different after I quit, but I also decided that being a prof wouldn’t suit me, even if I did manage to find a job. You can’t just decide, ‘oh, I want to stay in Toronto,’ and get a tenure-track position here without a problem, plus, I didn’t want to spend so much time answering emails and writing grant proposals. I had a bunch of reasons, and it was the best choice, but I still feel weird about it sometimes. I don’t like being a quitter.”
I’m the child of immigrants. I was supposed to take the advantages I was given and go far in life. My parents never told me I was a disappointment, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like it at times. I know they would have loved bragging about me being a professor.
“Sometimes quitting is the bravest thing you can do,” Taylor says.
I shrug and eat some more of my cake.
“I mean it.”
“I know.” It’s just awkward to hear him say it to me in that earnest voice.
For a minute, we eat our dessert in companionable silence. Me and my fake boyfriend, aka the guy who brought chocolate cake to my door. When he reaches up to swipe some buttercream off his lip, my gaze zeroes in on his mouth.
I need to think about something else.
“The heart shape makes no sense,” I say. This has no relevance to what we were just talking about, but Taylor doesn’t question me. “It doesn’t look like a human heart at all. I wonder how someone came up with it.”
“No idea. But would you want a cake shaped like an actual human heart?”
“Yes! Yes, I would.”
“You might be the only one.”
In annoyance, I set down my cake and kiss him. That’ll shut him up.
Then I realize what the hell I’m doing. I start to pull back, but when he wraps his arms around me, I keep my mouth on his. He tastes of chocolate and everything sweet. I slip my hand into his hair, as I’ve been longing to do, and pull just a little; he makes an odd sound, but I’m quite sure it’s one of pleasure.
He puts his cake on the coffee table before dragging me onto his lap. This is the great thing about being indoors, on a couch: I can do things I couldn’t do last weekend.
One part of me is relieved. He must not have thought our make-out sessions were a mistake if he’s enthusiastically participating now. But another part of me is wondering what’s going on.
And most of me is just happy to touch him and kiss him again.
His hands slip under my hoodie and T-shirt, and I never knew that someone stroking my side could be so arousing, but it is. I gasp.
Next, I slide my hands under his clothes, up his bare back.
That also makes me gasp.
I kiss him hungrily, as though he’s even better tasting than the finest chocolate cake and I want to devour him. I squirm in his lap, press myself against him, and his inarticulate sounds make me feel powerful.
Then he pulls away with a muttered curse and reaches for his cake. “Perhaps you should take some time to figure out…what you want.”
I’m about to protest, but maybe his words are an excuse. Maybe he wants time to think about it, but he finds it easier to frame it this way.
And to be fair, I should think more about it, too.
“Uh, okay,” I say.
“I can’t see you this weekend,” he says, and I feel far more disappointed than I should. He’s spent lots of time with me lately, and he has many other friends; he should get the chance to hang out with them. “The weekend after that, a friend offered me his cabin, if you’re interested.”
A whole weekend with Taylor.
