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“Give me a sec, baby. This could be important.”
I nodded sleepily, the consequences of the dirty sock water evidently in full effect as I drifted out of consciousness. The door quietly closed, and I peeled my eyes open to see Broderick with a focus furrow carved deeply enough between his brows the fog cleared from my head.
“Babe?” I asked as unease brought my feet to the floor. He palmed his mouth, opening it twice only to close it before tugging at the back of his neck.
Broderick’s mouth was still parted, his eyes wild in what appeared to be disbelief, when I rushed over to him. My heart ratcheted up, convinced somebody must have died. Looking more than a little stunned, Broderick brought those rich brown eyes to mine and said, “I uh… I just got offered tenure.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
ELORA
Fear collapsed under a wave of relief, and I threw my arms around his neck. Evidently in some kind of shock, Broderick staggered a step before returning my embrace, wrapping those muscular arms around my back and tugging me close as he inhaled deeply into my hair.
“Babe, that’s incredible! You’re incredible,” I breathed, cupping the back of his head as we rocked in tight little motions together. Pulling back to look up at him, I grinned, and said, “Congratulations, Brod. That’s amazing.” He nodded yes, but the pinch in his brows adamantly disagreed with the motion. Quirking my head, I asked, “Why don’t you seem excited about that?”
“When they didn’t grant it in August, I—I didn’t think I got it. All that work. All the reviews. I…”
“You’re processing?” He nodded when I said it, but with the way his lip rolled between his teeth, conflict shadowing his eyes, it felt like more than that. “Brod, you gotta say something. You look like you saw a ghost.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. Haunted eyes fell to mine, that furrow never leaving his brow. “Baby girl,” he rasped, lowering his forehead to mine before brushing our lips together ever so gently. “My entire career has been building up to this point. I was about to give up—did, I guess. I guess they wanted to present it formally before the break and told me they hope I’m feeling better.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “The idea of starting over somewhere fresh didn’t bother me at all, because I didn’t think I’d get it. But…”
When his voice drifted off, icy, liquefied lead shot straight into my spinal column and down my legs, cementing my feet in place as my lips popped open in understanding. “You can’t leave Mistyvale.”
The weight of our additional complication settled in the air between us on the ride to the airport, and through security. He kept his hand in mine, but it didn’t seem like either of us could formulate a sentence, much less a solution. Hell, I’d forgotten all my people skills beyond basic grunts of acknowledgement, and I’d never been more grateful for being on the TSA pre-checklist than I was when I eyed the enormous line at airport security.
We both buzzed on through, that line between his brows evidently a permanent fixture on that beautiful face. Even serious, he was unfairly gorgeous. I never stood a damn chance. But why did it have to come down to our relationship or our careers? All my life, I was told that women could have it all. The job, the family, the love story worth immortalizing on countless dead trees, so it might lend hope to a young woman just beginning her journey.
Lies. All of it.
In the end, one of us would sacrifice the last decade of work to be with the other. Or…
My stomach churned, nausea threatening the deeply unsatisfying burrito I’d forced down once we’d found our gate. Broderick was still doing his best impression of a mime, shoulders curled where he slumped into the uncomfortable airport chair, his eyes trained on the runway beyond great panes of glass. The gray of winter cast soft light across his rich complexion, brightening the eyes I loved so much, even as they were weighed down with choices that were entirely unfair.
He wrapped one arm under the other like a pensive elbow shelf, the other braced atop it so he could cover his mouth.
I’d seen him retreat inside his head countless times over the years, but this was the first time I thought his silence might actually kill me.
“Say something,” I whispered after what felt like a lifetime of letting him stew, my gentle voice evidently yanking him back into the stiff seat. He turned to look at me, the weak smile on his cheeks miles away from reaching his eyes.
“I love you,” he said with such conviction it beguiled the ache in his voice.
“I love you, too.” My whispered echo seemed inadequate, but I needed to say it. Some part of me collapsed in on itself like a rotting pumpkin because I had a horrid feeling I wouldn’t get to say it enough. “We don’t have to solve everything right now, do we?” A nondescript turn of his head, and flexed muscle in his jaw, were his only responses. Rocking my weight forward onto the balls of my feet, I began nervously bouncing my leg before collapsing back into my seat in defeat. “I just want to pretend this is real. Just… until we leave Florida. Pretend we can both be happy.”
“Baby, this is real,” he rasped. “You’re the only part of my life I am certain of.”
“Then… why isn’t this easier? I thought a good relationship would actually make sense.” The speakers crackled to life as airline attendants called names and gave instructions for the flight before ours.
“The relationship, and the extenuating circumstances, are two very different things. Or so our predicament suggests.”
“You’re using your professor voice,” I pointed out. He made a noise I thought was supposed to be a laugh but sounded too forced and pained to be one. His eyes fell to his lap as he stretched his arm around my shoulders—the contact lending some semblance of ease where panic had shredded my sanity—and I nestled closer under the safety of his wing.
“I’m sorry. I’m—I guess I’m not used to having someone else to think about when my brain is trying to process. Explaining my emotions has never been my strong suit. I can handle logic, but this… not so much.” The confession felt raw, given the absolute pandemonium around us. Chicago’s O’Hare was certainly the last place I would have selected to have a heart-to-heart, with its bustling concourse and overflowing waiting areas as more and more flights were delayed because of inclement winter weather. Not sure how to respond, I glanced at the ticking screen, relieved that at least our flight to Tampa would still arrive on time.
“Can you try?” I finally asked, turning to weave my legs over his, irritated by the placement of the immovable arm rest. He finally dropped his hand away from his mouth, as though he’d been holding all the words inside.
“I don’t know the answers yet, El. I want to say it’s easy. Want to tell you it doesn’t change anything.”
“But it does,” I supplied, my throat aching as I swallowed down the unintentional injury the words inflicted.
