Page 5 of Something About September

He grinned. “Oh, we all know that. Lenore was so proud she practically took an ad out in the paper about you, her wunderkind granddaughter, defending her PhD successfully, a full year early.”

“I think I just like punishing myself. I worked at a breakneck pace. Wanted to get to the teaching part.”

“And? How are you liking that?”

She hesitated, looked down into her new glass of cider, then back up at him. “It’s been a bit strange, honestly,” she said, surprising herself. “It feels like I’m stuck in an endless loop. My colleagues love that feeling, of being a student forever. I’m actually not so sure, it turns out. My students always look so bored. I wonder if it’s me. If maybe I’m the problem, because, well, to be honest, I’m a little bored, too.” She looked up again. “I’ve never admitted that to anyone.”

“You’re the smartest person I know,” Cort said. “I’m sure you’ll get back on track.”

She sighed and tried to smile. “Tell me about you, instead. You’re busy restoring Bramley Hollow’s century homes, one at a time, right?”

“Feels like it. It’s interesting work, restoration rather than just new builds. Not sure how I fell into it, but I don’t mind, really. Although—” He stopped, bit his lip, shook his head. “I just think it’s funny, how easy it is to fix houses. Not so easy to fix things in life.”

She hesitated. “Are you talking about you and Melanie?” He nodded. “I heard you were separated.”

“Divorce was finalized last month, actually. And it’s okay, honestly. Divorce is always complicated, as I’ve learned—but it was the right thing for us. She met someone else…”

“I didn’t know.”

“Really, it’s okay. I don’t know if I can blame her. I wasn’t there, you know? When it came to being a good husband, I was a giant failure.”

“You didn’t fail,” Rebecca said.

His smile was rueful. “Technically, I did. So I’m trying to be the best ex-husband, and father, that I can. Mel deserves that, and so does Pip.” When he said his son’s name, his expression lightened. “And it’ll get easier, because time does that—fixes things all up. I feel like that’s a piece of advice your grannie would have given me, over a coffee and a force-fed slice of pie.” His crooked grin made her smile back.

“That does sound like her. And she would have been right.”

“So, how about you? Got a secret husband hidden in an attic in Toronto?”

“I live in an attic, actually. The top floor of a Victorian in the Annex, near campus. No husband, secret or otherwise. I was with someone for a while, but we’re just friends now. The only thing we had to sort out custody of was plants, and it seems I landed with that responsibility.” It was on the tip of her tongue, to admit how lonely she was sometimes—but she stopped herself from saying that. It was like he said: She’d be fine, with a little more time.

Cort was watching her closely, though. It was a familiar sensation—one of being read by him, like a book. “You used to do that in high school,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Just…that.” Rebecca laughed weakly as her heart rate accelerated under his gaze.

“Look at you like I’m trying to read your thoughts?”

She nodded, now too discombobulated to speak.

“It did become a habit of mine, back in high school,” he said with a slow smile. “Because of the way you’d just suddenly drift into deep thought, go to a place where no one could follow.” He paused. “I always wanted to know, at any given moment, exactly what Rebecca McIntosh was thinking. Still do.”

She couldn’t have looked away from him now even if she wanted to. The exhilarated feeling was back, as if she were at a cliff’s ledge but had suddenly discovered she was wearing a pair of wings.

“So, what are you thinking?” he asked her, his voice a low, slow burn. “Right now? Tell me, Becca.”

“That I’m glad to be here with you,” she said simply. “You made a tough day better, just by being you.”

His smile was wider now. He looked like someone who had been given a surprise gift, and it was exactly what he wanted. Their fingers, somehow, had tangled across the table. She wasn’t sure who had reached for whom and was afraid to draw attention to it, so she left her hand where it was. In the past, she would pull herself away from feeling like this; she would never have allowed her hand to stray toward his. It was far too dangerous. Cort Adams was not hers and never would be. But…wasn’t that an old story? Tonight, everything felt different. She waited for those warning bells that always sounded off in her brain when she got like this about Cort to pull her back from the edge. Nothing happened.

“I never imagined this would be how I’d spend tonight. Actually having fun. With you, Cort.” His name was like Autumn Festival cotton candy on her tongue, sweet and then dissolving. She wanted to say it again and again but managed to stop before she made a fool of herself.

“I feel the same,” he said. “This has been a tough year, with the divorce, being without Pip for half the week. This is the first time in a really long while that I’ve felt like I might be able to actually be myself again. So thanks, Becca. For including me. You didn’t have to.”

“Of course I did,” Rebecca said, and she meant it. “I didn’t have a lot of friends in high school.”

Now his expression had grown serious. His voice was so low, she had to lean close to hear the words. She could smell his subtle aftershave, the cedar sawdust from his clothes. “I had a lot of friends,” he said, “but sometimes I thought maybe you were the only person who really knew me.” The heat of his hand in hers intensified. He squeezed, then let go. Her hand felt cold, the sudden change in temperature flustering her.