Page 44 of After Hours Lectures
Or he could bethe one.
In the last couple of months we’d been having our little secret affair, Tyler had started to consume me. I had an idea of how to make us work, but it all hinged on him and if he really wanted to move back to San Diego. But I wasn’t going to ask just yet. We still had some time to see where our relationship went before we needed to make any decisions. After all, he was eleven years younger and had his entire life ahead of him.
We were so caught up in our kiss that I barely heard the knock on the door. We pulled apart just in time to see Charlotte step inside.
“Hayden, are you—Oh, sorry. I didn’t …” She paused, her head tilting slightly as she took in our appearance.
I glanced at Tyler, his mouth a little red from our make-out session.Fuck.“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were with astudent.” She said the last word in a way that told me she knew he was the one I’d mentioned to her before.Double fuck.
I rubbed the back of my neck nervously. “We’re just about to go over his last assignment. Something I can help you with?”
“I was just delivering this.” She held out a white envelope, and I took it from her. “Invitation to my wedding.”
I beamed. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Great. And”— her eyes cut to Tyler—“let me know if you’re bringing a date.”
“Will do.”
Charlotte turned and closed the door behind her, leaving me and Tyler alone again.
“She knows,” I stated, my palms becoming sweaty.
“It didn’t seem like she cared. She practically invited me to her wedding.”
“Fuck, she knows,” I repeated and paced in a circle the best I could in my ten-by-ten office.
“Can you talk to her?”
“Yeah.” I sighed and glanced at the clock. “I need to, but we also have to head to class.”
Tyler moved toward me and placed his hands on my shoulders, pulling my focus back to him. “Let’s not freak out until after you talk to her. It seems like you two are close since she invited you to her wedding.”
“We are,” I confirmed.
“When’s the wedding?”
“This summer,” I responded. I had it marked on my calendar already because Charlotte had given me a Save the Date card, but I hadn’t opened the invitation yet and didn’t recall the actual day off the top of my head.
“Oh.” Tyler’s shoulders sagged.
“Why? You wanna be my date?” I leaned against my desk, my arms and legs crossed.
“Well … maybe.” He lifted a shoulder. “That is after graduation.”
“It is, but you’ll probably be in California, right?”
He nodded with a tight smile.
I pulled him to me. I uncrossed my legs and he moved to stand between them. “Maybe you can fly in for the weekend. We’ll see what happens.”
“Right.”
I kissed him softly. “What are you doing for Spring Break? We can go—”
“I’m going home for my sister’s sixteenth birthday.”
