“Maybe not.”
“There’s no maybe about it.”
She laughs. “Crocheting and reality TV and wine.”
The conversational left turn has my brows dragging together. “What?”
“The more important things.”
I get it then and I chuckle. “Well, considering I’ve seen what you call crocheting, I don’t think that can reasonably be blamed for the lack of grading.”
“Hey!” She glares at me. “Who’s being the bratty sibling now?”
I want to kiss that frown off her face.
The urge is so strong, so all-encompassing I almost do exactly that.
But she’s not ready.
So, I just stand. “Come on.”
The glare gives way to confusion. “What?”
I start down the hill.
“Colt?” she calls. “Where are you going?”
My lips twitch as I glance over my shoulder at her.
“To grade some papers.”
Thirteen
Ky
“Tell me that ChatGPT was used without telling me that ChatGPT was used,” Colt says on a groan, tossing the essay aside and reclining back on my couch. “How do you deal with this shit?”
I laugh and toss my own paper aside. “I don’t,” I say, sweeping my hand out at the stack that’s barely gone down in size, even though we’ve been at it for what feels like hours.
(But it is really only thirty minutes).
“Should we give them all As?” he asks, leaning forward and picking up the essay again.
“Even the ChatGPT one?”
His expression is so disgruntled, I can’t help but laugh again. “You really don’t have to do this, you know that, right?”
He sobers then slowly lifts his free hand.
It’s tentative, cautious.
Part of me hates it with an intensity that makes me want to overturn the coffee table, to launch my wineglass against the wall, painting it red with the chardonnay.
But that would be a waste of perfectly good wine.
And it would ignore the other part of me, the bigger part.
The part that’s warmed by his actions, soothed by the way he wants to take care of me, healed that he’s seen the broken pieces and he’s still here…
