Page 28 of Bachelor

Chapter Ten

Rhys

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IWAS GETTING USEDto the heavy chlorine scent in the sports center. I found the place oddly calming, especially on nights when it was totally empty save for myself. I spent hours working out, far more than I needed to, but I didn’t stop until my head was clear enough to be able to sit down on the bleachers near the pool, two stories down, and read the book Jessica had chosen for book club this week.

Mafia romance was a trip, to say the least.

I turned a page, narrowing my eyes at the events unraveling across the text. The protagonist’s problems in her love life made my own seem trivial, and even stupid, in comparison.

“What’d you think?” Tyler said as he approached. I lifted my head and gave him a tight smile.

“I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“It’s the pool. Sucks all the sound right out of the room,” he replied, sitting down next to me. “I was just working out upstairs, thought it was weird I didn’t run into you, then I looked down here and there you were.” He eyed the book for a moment. “Where are you at?”

“Chapter seventeen.”

“Chapter twenty-one... Woof, Jessica will have some explaining to do about why she is making us guys read this, I’ll tell you what.”

I laughed. I’d already skimmed through the chapters enough to know what was coming. “I think it’s kind of fun. It’s a total departure from reality.”

“I take it you don’t read fiction very often.”

“No, I really don’t. I was big intoLord of the Ringsand Harry Potter growing up, but that fizzled out once I started university. I honestly haven’t had this much free time on my hands in... over a decade?”

“You’re not really selling this archeology thing,” he mused, crossing his ankles on the bleacher below us.

“It’s a demanding profession, both mentally and physically.” I glanced at him, noticing his gaze settled absently on the pool in front of us. “You’re cut out for it. I don’t doubt that at all.”

“How old were you when you got your doctorate and went on your first real expedition?”

“Twenty-five. I spent a year in Scotland excavating Viking burial sites. Up until a year ago, I spent most of my time in the Middle East, and then the island nations in the Pacific. I bounced around every few months.”

“Did you have roots anywhere?”

I smiled wistfully. “Just my parents and brothers. I didn’t own a house or have a flat, or even a car for that matter, but I lived an adventure every day.”

“What discovery stuck with you the most?”

It was a very poignant and hard to answer question. I mulled it over for a moment, then said, “Easter Island during my graduate program. I went there to research for my graduate thesis, criticizing the ecocide theory. No other place I’ve been to in my life has compared to seeing Easter Island for the first time.”

I told him about the expedition and the research I did while there. Then I told him all I could about my life between finishing my doctorate degree and now.

“I just wanted a break. I wanted to be able to go home to a bed at night and wake up in the morning and not have to worry about my socks being full of sand or where on my body I was sunburned, or whether I had enough water to get me through the day, or what scholar across the sea was criticizing my latest research. So when I got an offer from Gatlington to teach here for a year, I took it without hesitation.”

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