Even Elijah can tell something is off. His gaze darts between us, trying to identify the source of the tension.
The hostess leads us to a table on the porch in back, past all these people sharing wagyu beef and ahi tuna by candlelight, and I take small, shallow breaths the whole way, reaching up to massage the corner of my jaw.
I picture how much worse this could get, how I might wind up shunned because no one wants to piss off Thomas.
They’re probably all texting each other now, some kind of early detection system—Thomas Prescott broke up with Easton. Proceed with caution.
And if they are...how unbearable will it be around the lab? Could it extend to my funding?
I cannot unlock my jaw as we are seated. I open my napkin and spill my flatware onto the floor—already I’m reverting to that third in family of useless Walsh kids—try though we might, we never transcend our circumstances. We always end up getting hit with remotes, being dragged out of bed to help someone conceal a crime.
Jesus, pull it together, Easton.
“Sorry, it’s been a long day,” I say with a laugh that is bright and false. I start to lean over to retrieve it from the floor and Elijah’s hand lands on my thigh.
“I’ve got it,” he says. There’s a warning there—just hold still. Let me fix this.
It probably also saysWhat the hell is wrong with you? Why are you suddenly clumsy? What’s with that fake laugh?
He rises to go get me a new place setting, and Melissa’s gaze drifts over him appreciatively.
“Okay,” she whispers, leaning close. “I see why you were able to move on so quickly. Tell me what he does?”
“He has a construction company.”
She nods appreciatively. “A nice little blue-collar fling before you head back to school, huh?”
I bristle at the words, though I know she didn’t mean to offend me. “He has a master’s degree in engineering.”
I have no idea why I’m bothering to defend Elijah. It’s certainly not on behalf of my mission to make Thomas jealous. But no matter what Elijah did to me personally, I’m not going to let anyone call him ablue-collar fling. There’s a sort of casual snobbery in academia—a classist thing they don’t even knowthey’re doing. It’s the tone they use when they refer to vocational school or community college. The way they will be truly upset when a college student is harmed, but apathetic when it’s a high school dropout.
She elbows me. “I’m sorry. That was obnoxious. But...is it a fling? Or is it more?”
“I live in Boston and he lives in South Carolina and neither of us can move, so I’m not sure how it could be more. Anyway, are you gonna tell me the real reason your husband didn’t come?”
Her mouth opens—a small, shockedO. I think she’d like to lie about it, but she can’t come up with anything fast enough. “I’m so sorry,” she says, hitching a shoulder. “It wasn’t anything against you. He was just worried about it appearing as if he’d chosen sides.”
So maybe I wasn’t catastrophizing before. Maybe I was accurately predicting how this is going to go. No one can afford to offend the school’s golden boy. He has too much sway.
If Thomas and I don’t get back together, how many other people will distance themselves?
Maybe everyone.
Elijah returns with a new set of flatware for me. I thank him, my voice muted, and I leave the two of them to gamely carry on the conversation while I spin out, recalling a discussion Thomas and I had right after we started dating.
A few of his colleagues had been teasing him, saying I was only with him to get funding for my lab. It was a ridiculous conversation. I was a student...It wasn’t evenmylab.
“You should be more offended than I am,” I told him. “Do these idiots really think you can only get a date by letting someone use you?”
He shrugged. “I believe the prevailing thought is that you are too hot to ever be taken seriously in academia otherwise.”
It was grossly misogynistic, and I wasn’t surprised at all. “Are they also giving you credit for the fact that I got in here? That I already went through med school?”
“You know how people are. If you’re a big enough jackass to say a woman’s too hot for academia, you’re also a big enough jackass to assume she’d been using her looks to get stuff all along.”
I didn’t love the way he seemed to take all this in stride. “You correct them, yes?”
He shrugged. “Of course. And I’m not telling you this to upset you. I’m just warning you that in dating me, there is always gonna be someone who implies you got as far as you did because of it.”
