Page 81 of Bachelor

I leaned into the touch, closing my eyes for a moment. This past week had been horrible. Between our situation and the countless lectures and study halls I’d overseen in preparation for midterms, I’d barely slept. Whitney’s touch against my skin was everything warm and comforting that I needed, but I also needed to stay alert. I had an even longer week ahead of me.

“When’s the last time you slept?” she asked, sitting down beside me.

I roped an arm around her shoulders and leaned my cheek against the top of her head, closing my eyes. “I don’t remember.”

The bookshop was uncharacteristically quiet without Bill’s strange music playing in the background. He’d gone to Jessica’s apartment tonight, giving Whitney and me the space we needed to talk.

“You need to sleep.”

“It’s Dead Week,” I whispered into her hair. “I know you’re not sleeping either.”

“I’m doing better than most.” She chuckled, but her laugh faded and was replaced by a sucking silence that suffocated the air around us.

“Whitney, I’m going to tell the administration about us next week. I have an appointment after I sit in on my last class before Spring Break.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. I should be there.”

“No, I need to do this alone.”

“Rhys—”

I turned her to face me and kissed her, cutting off whatever she meant to say next. “It’s going to be fine.” And it would be fine, but before I spoke to the administration, there was something I had to do first.

And I couldn’t tell her about it. Not yet.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Whitney

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DEAD WEEK WAS EXACTLYwhat it sounded like. From Monday to Thursday, a dark cloud of stress and anxiety descended on campus and didn’t let up until the last classes on Thursday were dismissed and a communal sigh of relief could be heard through each hallway and shadowed passage on campus.

I was prepared. I knew my stuff. I was acing all of my classes. I’d gone to each study hall my professors and their teacher assistants had scheduled and took advantage of several late night study sessions in the library.

What free time I had was used solely on finishing my thesis. Early. I’d done it, written the very last sentence and slammed my laptop shut with a feeling of such accomplishment I wasn’t sure what to do with myself afterward.

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