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“Wait, aren’t you supposed to be at Hollis’s still?”
Kate poured some more whiskey for herself. “I was there and after we had breakfast this morning, her husband came home. Three days early.”
“Shit.” Lexi grimaced. “What happened?” She took a sip of whiskey, throwing her arm over the back of the couch as she got comfortable.
“Lex, you are not going to believe this,” Kate said, her voice shaking slightly. Her hand trembled as she took another mouthful. “Hollis made some excuse about me working with her or something. I don’t even remember. I was too shocked to.”
“Why?”
Kate lifted her head to look at Lexi. “Her husband is Professor Clarke.”
Lexi’s jaw dropped. “What?” She blinked a few times. Then she knocked back her drink. “Pour me another. Fuck. What the actual fuck, Kate?”
“And then he followed me out to my car, because he obviously knew that I don’t want to be an interior designer.”
“What did he say?”
“To stay away from her.”
“So he knew,” Lexi said.
“Yeah. He knew I was gay somehow. I don’t know.”
“He has some balls saying that considering what he’s been up to for however many years,” Lexi said as she took another sip.
“Yeah, I pointed that out, to which he countered that I can’t graduate if I don’t pass his class.”
“Kate…” Lexi stared at her.
“It’s just a few more months. I already did seven,” she said, her voice betraying her as she took another drink.
“There has to be a way.”
A tear streaked down Kate’s cheek, and she reached up to wipe it away.
Kate shrugged. “Hollis says she has proof that he’s been cheating, but I couldn’t tell him that. I’d be showing her hand. I don’t know what to do. Hollis has called me twice already since I got off work. I don’t know what to say to her.”
Lexi took Kate’s glass from her and left both of them down, wrapping her arms around her in a long hug. “We’ll figure it out.” She ran her hand up and down Kate’s back.
Kate squeezed her eyes shut as she hugged her best friend back. She really didn’t want to start crying, because she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to stop.
“I’m going to call Ash,” Lexi said as she pulled away.
“No. Don’t. Go to the concert.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine. Trust me.” Kate ran a hand through her hair. “Go.”
A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. No one really knocked on their door except Ash or Hollis, and Lexi was going to Ash’s now.
“I’ll get it,” Lexi said, and Kate wiped under her eyes, sure that her makeup was a mess.
Kate closed her eyes when she heard Hollis’s voice. “Hi. Is Kate home?”
She took a deep breath as she heard Lexi say that she was and that she was on her way out.
Her heart thudded against her ribs. She wasn’t ready to see her. She didn’t have a plan, and she had no idea how she was going to stop seeing Hollis, but she also knew that she’d worked too hard not to graduate.
