I still love her in that giant way I did when I was twenty, but it’s not really like college.
Not at all.
Sloan tips her head. “We have to leave for therapy in forty-five minutes.”
My eyes cut to the time displayed across the corner of my computer screen. “Shit, okay. I didn’t notice the time. I’ll be out in a second.”
She presses her mouth to mine again, fingers twirling in the hair at the nape of my neck before she pulls back, hops off my lap, and holds her hand up in goodbye.
Talon waves, a bit manically, craning his neck until he notices the door close. “Therapy? I thought you guys both just went? I keep tabs on your schedules, you know.”
He does. They’re taped to his fridge.
I shrug a shoulder. “Yeah. We did. But we’re going to couples once a month.”
“Everything okay?” Concern darkens Jay’s eyes, visible even through the screen.
I nod. “All good.”
“Seat belts are on, though?” Talon knocks his fist against his desk. “I can fly down at a moment’s notice, you know. I miss your couch. It’s comfortable.”
“Seat belts are on.” I resist rolling my eyes at the dumb phrase he coined to make sure Sloan and I were each taking care of our mental health—meds, therapy, communication. “Tia’s coming up this weekend. Your services won’t be needed, thanks though.”
Talon nods in approval before holding his arms open. “If that’s the case, this first meeting ofThe Only Podcast to Ever Existis officially adjourned.”
I think I hear Jay saying that can’t possibly be the name when I hang up and follow after Sloan.
She sits, propped up on the kitchen counter, legs swinging so her feet bump against the cupboards. She raises her eyebrows at me, words catching on barely suppressed laughter. “I can’t believe he convinced you to start a podcast.”
“I think he’s bored,” I tell her, coming to stand between her legs, palms lying flat against her thighs.
“Why, because he’s a kept man now that he’s with someone who makes more money as a professional golfer than he ever did playing hockey in Sweden?” She rolls her eyes, looking a bit more beautiful than she should when she’s being ornery.
I grin, gripping her chin and tilting her head up so I can get a better look at the freckles painted across her cheek. Still the brightest stars in any sky. “I don’t think anyone can reallykeepTalon Valdez.”
“You can keep me, if you want.” She blinks up at me.
“Yeah?” I ask, and she nods with a tiny smile that I lean down to kiss. “I think I will.”
Sloan
Six Months Later
I think my favourite thing about getting to spend four weeks watching students dig in the dirt—supervised by professionals, obviously—isn’t even the fact that I got my own hands dirty.
It’s not that it’s this thing I got to do all for myself, and I got to spend hours and days learning and having interesting conversations about all sorts of anthropological theories.
It’s not even that I worried significantly less than usual while I was gone.
It’s coming home to a quiet house with a quiet brain. But it’s not the kind of silence that used to scare me.
Bohdan’s eyes flick up when I knock softly on the doorframe. A smile spreads across his face, and he tosses the folded paperback in his hands haphazardly onto the nightstand beside the bed where it skids to a stop, teetering on the edge. “How was it?”
I practically sprint across the floor so I can sit in bed beside him, bouncing onto my side with a childlike exuberance I don’t think I possessed even back then. “Really good. I think the students had a lot of fun.”
“Did anyone find anything?” He rests his head in one hand propped up against the headboard, arm stretching behind him, the muscles along his biceps and triceps tugging taut.
“No.” I frown, crossing my arms.
