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Her hand shackling Allison’s wrist, Sophie tried to pull her to her feet. “My whole office does happy hour at The Cutter downtown. Janie, Brooks, and Sarah will be there. Plus all the hot interns.” She wagged her eyebrows salaciously.
Allison scrabbled for her books as if they might save her. “I have like four hundred pages of reading to do. I don’t have time for hot interns.” Or hangovers. Or staying out too late with Sophie’s work friends, who would complain about their co-workers the whole time, making Allison feel more out of the loop the more they tried to include her. Nothing killed gossip like needing to fill in a stranger on ten minutes of backstory.
“Those books have been around over two centuries. They’ll survive one more night.” Using both hands this time, Sophie hauled Allison out of her chair. “You’ve barely dated since Colin.” From the lookon her face, his name might as well have been a large pill she had to swallow dry. “We need to wipe your slate clean.”
Allison crossed her arms, a frustrated huff billowing over her lips. “My slate is plenty clean.” This was exactly why she could not tell Sophie about Colin being at Claymore. Even as a hypothetical, her hackles rose at the sound of his name like Monty’s did when he thought he’d heard an intruder.
Disbelief creased her friend’s features. “That’s why you find something wrong with every guy that looks at you? Because you’re so ready to date?” Shaking her head, Sophie leaned against the deck’s rail. Her voice softened as she watched Monty attack a leaf dancing over her feet. “I hate that he hurt you so much you’re afraid to let anyone else in.”
Allison sputtered. “What? I’m not… he’s not… oh my god, Soph, this has nothing to do with fear. I’ve got so much going on that I don’t have time to date. That’s all. At Brown I was focused on getting into grad school. And now that I’m here, I have to excel. It’s the only way to ensure I can find a job when I’m done. I can’t be distracted by guys and drama and all that.”
It was the truth, even if Allison had molded it into a different shape for Sophie’s sake.
There’d be plenty of time for dating in a few years, when she wasProfessorAvery. Until then, she didn’t plan to let anyone get in the way of her goals. That started with avoiding Sophie’s hot interns and any more talk of Colin.
Allison cleared her throat. “What if we have drinks here instead? We could order truffle fries and lettuce wraps and pot stickers from Gatsby’s and make our favorite fruity drinks and watch too much of that witches show you love.”
Sophie’s eyes lit up, happy hour forgotten. Nothing grabbed her attention like sapphic witches. “Can we rewatch the episode where Raven and Natalya make out?”
“Obviously.”
Sophie was already listing more episodes as Allison followed her inside. Unlike her original plan,thiswould be a perfect night.
Just like their college days—good food, comfy clothes, and no co-workers or hot interns or Colin Benjamin to force more space between them.
Chapter 3
Nothing summoned graduate students quite like free food.
Which was why Allison, Link, Ethan, and Mandy were crammed around a table in Haber Hall’s reading room at nine thirty in the morning.
On the third Tuesday of every month, the English department attempted to entice an audience to their faculty work-in-progress event with the promise of a potluck breakfast, and neither Allison nor her peers had any intention of missing out on home-baked treats.
As they waited for a creative writing professor to begin a presentation on her new book, Allison glanced around, absorbing the room’s ambiance. Wood-paneled walls in a soft honey brown framed a mismatched collection of armchairs and sofas. At the back, where she sat, a line of sturdy oak tables boasted green-shaded reading lamps that threw off a soft light the perfect intensity for studying. It was the kind of space where profound ideas were hatched and developed. Where books read a million times became new again.
Mei, the English department’s administrator, smiled in greeting as she placed a tray of pastries in front of Allison. Thanks to Allison’s slight obsession with properly filling out paperwork, the two of them had talked enough since April to feel like friends.
“You’re defending your dissertation next month, right?” Allison asked.
Mei crossed two fingers and waved them in the air. “Here’s hoping.” During one of their many calls, she’d told Allison about her own experiences at Claymore, pursuing a Ph.D. with two children under the age of three. She’d completed her coursework at half-pace and so her funding had run out as she was starting her dissertation. She’d taken the admin job for more stability (and money) than adjunct teaching could offer.
Allison shook her head. “I have no idea how you manage it all.”
“Many calendar apps and very little sleep,” Mei quipped.
If she had anything else to add, it never got past her lips because at that moment Colin burst into the room. He made an incredible amount of noise dropping his messenger bag to the floor and pulling out the chair nearest Allison. Its feet screeched against the floor as he sat down.
In the commotion, Mei disappeared to finish setting up. Allison wished she could join her. He’d been here two seconds, and already she’d had more than her fill of Colin Benjamin for the day.
“Oof, it’s hot out there,” he huffed, fanning himself with the corner of his blue-striped cardigan. He was close enough that his knee knocked against Allison’s as he shifted.
And stayed there.
She tensed but refused to pull away. Why should she? Colin had encroached onherspace. “Maybe don’t wear a sweater on a sixty-degree day.”
“Cardigans are my look.”
Truly. Rare was the day he did not don one. When they’d dated, he’d even sometimes shrugged a sweater on after sex, shuffling around the room naked under its cable knit like it was a bathrobe. He’d admitted once that they made him feel protected. “The world can’t touch me,” he’d said. “It can’t leave a mark.” As if wool could be a titanium shield.
