Page 6 of Seeds of Christmas
Of course, Matthew and I had gotten back together a month later, and I’d buried the crush deep. But it had never quite gone away.
My brain spins out for a second, flickering through a rapid-fire montage of every interaction I’ve had with Carter Wolfe over the past three years.
Freshman year, Introduction to Earth Sciences. We’d been paired for a group project worth twenty percent of our grade. I’d been excited—ridiculously, embarrassingly excited—because Carter Wolfe was gorgeous and charming and I’d had the most pathetic crush on him.
Our first meeting: he’d shown up twenty minutes late with coffee and apologized so charmingly that I’d forgiven him instantly. “Sorry, I’m terrible with time. But I’m great with presentations if you want to handle the research?”
Our second meeting: he’d forgotten about it entirely. Texted me three hours after we were supposed to meet: shit sorry, frat thing ran late. tomorrow?
Our third meeting: never happened. He had “a family emergency” that I later saw on Instagram was actually a ski trip.
I’d done the entire project myself. The research, the analysis, the presentation, the works. Stayed up until 3 AM three nights in a row to get it done.
We got an A.
He’d caught me after class, that devastating smile in full force. “You’re amazing! I knew you’d nail it. Thanks so much for carrying us, uh...” He’d actually snapped his fingers, trying to remember my name.
“Rhiannon,” I’d said, my stomach sinking.
“Right! Rhiannon. Seriously, you’re a lifesaver.” He’d squeezed my shoulder like we were buddies and walked away, probably to meet up with his fraternity brothers or charm his way through some other girl’s life.
And that had been it. Three years of occasionally seeing him around campus—in the quad, at the coffee shop, in the one other class we’d had together where he’d sat in the back and I’d sat in the front and we’d never made eye contact once.
I’d told myself I was over the crush. That I’d learned my lesson about charming guys who couldn’t be bothered to remember your name.
But every time I saw him, my stupid heart still beat a little faster.
Especially this semester, when I’d seen him around campus looking... different. Tired. Something behind his eyes that wasn’t there before. Still gorgeous—God, was he gorgeous, with his dark hair and those green eyes and the way he moved like he owned every space he walked into—but somehow more real. More human.
And now Professor Bam is telling me I’m going to spend days in a remote cabin with him.
“Rhi?” Professor Bam is watching me with concern. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” My voice comes out higher than normal. “I just—Carter Wolfe? Really?”
“You do know him then?”
“We had a class together freshman year. We were lab partners once.”
“Perfect! So you’ve already worked together.”
Worked together is a generous interpretation of what happened, but I don’t correct her.
“The thing is,” I say carefully, “Carter doesn’t really... I mean, he’s not the most reliable person. He misses a lot of classes. And I need this data to be good, Professor. I need this extra credit.”
“I know you do. And I promise you, Carter’s committed to this trip. Ijustmet with him yesterday—gave him quite the talking-to, actually—and he’s taking it seriously. He needs this just as much as you do.”
Somehow, I doubt that. Carter Wolfe has probably never needed anything in his life, except a mirror.
I ask carefully. “What about my authorship?”
Because I need to know. Need to hear her say it.
“Your authorship isn’t in jeopardy, Rhi.” Professor Bam’s voice is firm, definitive. “You’ve done the work. Two years of fieldwork, data collection, literature reviews. This data is yours as much as mine. You’ve earned co-authorship, and that won’t change.”
Relief floods through me, followed immediately by guilt. Carter’s fighting to stay in school, and I’m worried about my byline.
But also—I’ve worked so hard. Given up weekends, holidays, sleep. Spent hours in the field in terrible weather, calibrating temperamental equipment, reviewing data until my eyes blurred. I’veearnedthis paper. This is my ticket to grad school, to a real career, to the USGS or a volcano observatory.
