Alex sucked in a breath. They’d alternated staying over at each other’s apartments not quite every night, but it wasn’t far off.
“Yeah.”
“See you later,” Emily said.
“You’re not staying to dance?”
“With someone else?” Emily shook her head. “I only want to dance with you.”
Alex couldn’t stop herself from smiling like a complete idiot as she went back to work, and Emily went home.
13
Emily pushed open the glass doors to the modern building where most of her lectures would be held, her office on the top floor. The halls were quiet with just a few staff coming and going, classes not starting for another week yet, but Emily wanted to get a feel for the place. She was nervous enough about starting a new job after only ever studying and then working on one campus up to this point. The last thing she needed was to get lost or be late for a lecture because she wasn’t sure where she was going.
She also wanted to see what her office was like. She’d gotten a virtual tour of the campus a few weeks ago, but it was good to finally be here. While the last three weeks had been more than she’d ever hoped for when she’d arrived in Miami, she’d been in full-on vacation mode between going to the beach, visiting the salsa club several nights a week, and Alex.
Emily took the elevator up to the top floor and scanned the doorways until she found the one with her name on it. She felt her stomach drop as she read the nameplate.
Dr. West
Yeah, she’d have to get that fixed. She’d applied for the job before the divorce had officially been finalized. Now she was using her maiden name again. She was Dr. Emily Grayden and seeing her old name on the door left her feeling uneasy, a reminder of the part of her life she was trying to put behind her.
And Emily actually hadn’t thought about any of that in days. Usually, a song or a commercial or something small like that would remind her of Melissa and a happier time, and that would lead her into thinking about what Melissa had done, how she’d thought she could get away with cheating on her with a student.
But Emily could safely say that the frequency of those thought spirals were on the decline. Maybe it was being somewhere new. Maybe it was the sunny weather. More than likely it was Alex.
Emily took in her tiny office. It accommodated a simple black desk with a monitor and a stand for her laptop. The chair looked okay, but when she sat down it was surprisingly comfortable.
It wasn’t a closet, but it was probably one of the smallest office’s she’d ever been in. That was probably to be expected when she was just filling in for someone who’d taken a sabbatical. A part of her had hoped that she’d get their office while they were gone, but she’d had no such luck.
Emily got up and stood at the windows behind her desk, the ocean visible in the distance. That was an unexpected bonus.
It didn’t take much to get her thinking about Alex, but as she watched the sun glisten off the water, she thought about that night they’d walked along the beach. The night she’d kissed Alex for the first time, right after she’d said that she wasn’t in a place to start something serious.
Although, to probably just anyone else, what they were doing was very clearly dating. They just hadn’t put that label on it. They saw each other three or four, sometimes five days a week. They went out to dinner. They stayed over at each other’s apartments.
They were dating.
And Emily either had to face that fact or put some distance between them, and right now, not only did she think she wouldn’t be able to do that, what was the point? They were having a great time. Why stop?
The sensible part of her brain jumped in and reminded her that she wasn’t staying in Miami, and that the longer they kept seeing each other, the harder it was going to be to say goodbye in the summer.
And the only answer Emily had for that was to deal with it when the time came, because she was happier than she’d been in years, and it had everything to do with being with Alex.
14
Alex fell into the steady stream of students moving through the halls, a mixture of anxiety and excitement in the air. For her, starting her final year of college, it was mostly relief. She’d never been the most academic student. Not because she wasn’t able, but because her time and energy were always spent on the things she was passionate about like dancing and skateboarding when she was a kid. Now, surfing was what she wanted to focus on in her free time.
Well, the free time that she wasn’t already spending with Emily. Not that Alex would want it any other way.
In the three weeks since Alex had seen her, on what was Emily’s first night in Miami, something she’d only discovered two days ago, Alex saw Emily four or five days a week.
Even when Alex had been working and they couldn’t spend their evenings together, she still ended up at Emily’s place after her shift finished.
The last three weeks had been nothing short of magic. The only thing holding Alex back from completely falling for this woman was the fact that Emily had said she wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. And Alex got that, because technically she wasn’t either.
They both had said that they weren’t in a place to date, except that they kind of were dating, and Alex had no idea how to approach the subject without scaring Emily off, although surely, she realized that’s what they were doing too.
