But still, who else could this be?
I have played pranks on no one else. I haven’t taken anything from anyone, unless I count that one time I accidentally took the ceramic mug from my favorite coffee shop last year when I was distracted and forgot I hadn’t asked for a to-go cup. And I returned the mug the next day.
This has to be Max.
But . . .
Then I remember his speech. The whole point of his research. Soil is a living organism. A complex ecosystem full of thousands of tiny life forms. But pets?
Surely that’s a stretch.
Baffled and confused, I grab my purse and head for . . .
Where?
His house? His pristine, monochromatic McMansion? I can barely imagine the stuffed versions of my pets there, let alone the living, breathing, shedding, pooping versions.
But where else could he have brought them? Not his lab. That’s for sure.
Maybe his office?
I head for campus, but call Clarissa on the drive.
“Hey,” I say when she answers. “Do you know if Dr. Ramsey is in his office today?”
“Not that I know of.”
Which isn’t exactly a firm answer. “Is there anything . . . odd going on in the building today?”
Like, maybe a compulsive jerk filling his office up with my pets in some crazy act of . . . What?
What was he doing?
Was this revenge?
No, I don’t believe that. Because Max isn’t cruel.
“No,” Clarissa says slowly. “Wait a second. I think I got an email from him this morning.”
I am not fit to be operating a motor vehicle right now, so I pull off the road into the parking lot of a Sonic while I wait for Clarissa to find the email.
“Yep. Here it is. He’s taking a week of personal leave.”
What the . . .?
A week of personal leave?
In the middle of the semester?
Who does that?
Worse still, it was a week of personal leave, in the middle of the semester, thirty-six hours after meeting a beautiful heiress who’d been hanging all over him.
A knot starts to form in my stomach.
Because, for the love of pumpkin-spiced lattes, if I had spent all this time and effort just so Max could get laid by a socialite, I would legit lose my mind.
“Okay, thanks, Clarissa.”
