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“What?”
“I have a Master’s in Public Administration,” Jameson says, slower this time, and splits another piece of wood. “And I got my JD at the same time. A Juris Doctor is—”
“Jameson!” The squeak lends some hysteria to his name. “Jameson.Jameson.I know what a Juris Doctor is. What are you even—what are yousaying?You have to be joking. You have to be—you didn’t—you—but if you did all that, then why didn’t you take the Bar?”
He shrugs. “I was doing other stuff.”
“Those are graduate level degrees.” Maybe what happened is that I stepped into an alternate universe when I jumped off the roof of my grandfather’s house. Or maybe I madeone jokeabout Jameson being a secret genius and he turned into one right in front of me. Or maybe he always has been, and I didn’t think about it, because I was too caught up in the way he was an obvious genius at making me hot enough to come twelve thousand times in two days. “That means you needed a bachelor’s, too.”
“Yep.”
Yep,he says, as if going to college and getting two graduate-level degrees at the same time is incredibly normal and average.
“So…” I gesture with the lemonade can, my brain still struggling to catch up. “What was your undergraduate degree?”
Jameson splits the last chunk of wood, then sets the axe aside and bends down to gather and stack the remnants. He brushes off his hands, smooths down his hair, and looks out over the lake.
“Uh…” It’s one of those distant moments again, when I’m not sure what he’s thinking of. After a few beats, he blinks. “I got a B.A. with a concentration in environmental studies with a minor in business.”
I just.
Don’t have the words to respond.
Jameson stands under leafy, swaying branches, shadows shifting over his skin, hair beginning to escape from his bun and forming curls around his face from the heat.
He looks hot.
He literally looks like he’s warm from chopping wood,andhe looks hot. He looks so hot my mouth waters.
And he just announced that my secret genius joke wasn’t a joke after all.
“How—” I lift both hands, helpless. “How did you do all that? I can’t even—I couldneverhave done that. School was—” Tears swim into my eyes out of nowhere. I’m not jealous of him. I never thought about dual degrees or double majors or anything like that. Law school was the only thing on my mind. “School was sohard.”
He slips his hands into his pockets, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Yeah. It was.”
“Not foryou, obviously.”
“Angel,” he says, just as my chin dimples. That’s not going to happen. I’m not going to cry because a man I happen to think is hot has more degrees than me and probably always will.
“Don’t feel bad for me!” I rattle the lemonade can at him. “I have a degree, too, so—” So we’re even. “So there.”
“Oh, yeah?” His eyebrows go up, and his green eyes get wide, and he is pretending to be interested. It makes me laugh anyway. “What did you get?”
“A B.A. in—” It sounds like nothing compared to Jameson’s list. “Politics. I have a bachelor’s in politics.”
“That’s cool.”
I drag my non-lemonade hand over my eyes. “I’m serious. How did you do all that? It must have taken you forever.”
“It took five and a half years.”
I make an unattractive choking sound. “That’s impossible. That’s too many credit hours to fit in five and a half years. You’d have to give up sleeping.”
“That’s how I did it.” Jameson has zero traces of humor in his face. “I’d already given up sleeping by then.”
Another high, weird sound comes out of my mouth. “People can’t give up sleeping. There’s a reason sleep deprivation violates the Geneva Convention.”
Jameson nods.
