I placed my hands on her calves, stilling her movement. “But…I’m sorry,” I said, trying to convey my feelings of regret that we couldn’t be public. That I couldn’t publicly let the Bribury campus know that I was crazy about Syd O’Brien.
A student. And my employee.
She placed her sock-clad feet on my knees. “It’s okay, I know the score,” she said.
“Yeah, but…”
“Would I have loved to go to the party with you tonight? Yes. Would I like for my friends to know you’re my—” She stopped, and chewed a little on her bottom lip, a mannerism she produced when she felt a little insecure. Yeah, I knew herthatwell.
“Valentine?” I finished for her. I was happy for her to call me anything she wanted, but of course she couldn’t. At least not to anybody else.
“Exactly. That you’re my Valentine.” She smiled and I moved my hands up and down her calves. “But,” she continued, “there is something kind of hot about the secret lover thing.”
“Nah, it’s just us. There’s something kind of hot aboutus,” I joked, but the teasing tone in my voice quickly died as she looked at me with those huge brown eyes.
Just as I was about to move her foot higher up my leg, she pulled away. “Unh-uh. I need to get some work done…first.”
Happy to know there would be a “second,” I let her go and watched as she returned to the couch.
I couldn’t tell anybody how I felt about Syd. And, to be truthful, my feelings for her scared the shit out of me. I hadn’t felt like this about anybody since Diandra. And what was especially scary, I was pretty sure I hadn’t felt as deeply about Diandra in the several years we’d been together as I did about Syd after only months.
No, I couldn’t publicly announce my feelings for Syd. And, because I couldn’t articulate them myself (some writer!) I couldn’t even tell her privately how I felt.
Or maybe I could…
I put my hands on my keyboard and pressed the space bar, waking up my laptop to theDown in Flamesdoc I’d been working on when Nora called.
“Hey,” I said, and Syd looked up with a question in her eyes. “How would you like to read something I’m working on? I’d like your thoughts.”
I could tell she was trying to temper her reaction, to act cool about my offer, and I think I fell a little in love with her right then.
She put down the stuff she was working on and did a nonchalant stretch of her arms over her head, like she was getting ready to read just another box of my existential meanderings on paper. “Sure. Whatever. This pile can wait.”
Yeah. Definitely a little in love. Maybe even a lot.
“Cool,” I said, trying to match her nonchalance.
But my hand trembled as I did a keyboard command I hadn’t done for anything original in…shit, I didn’t know how long.
Print.
Chapter24
Montrose
When I got backwith breakfast, she was still reading, though she’d moved back to the couch from the desk where I’d left her. I put a coffee on the floor next to her, noticing the pile of pages she’d already read was considerably higher than when I had left a couple of hours before to go back to my apartment and shower, then pick up some food for us.
Syd had been up all night readingDown in Flames. I’d tried to distract her with kisses and a neck massage, but she wasn’t having it. She woke me up when I’d dozed off in my office chair, my eyes tired of looking at my laptop screen. I thought she was ready for a little round of nooky, or to even go home and get some sleep, but she only told me to move to the couch, then she’d taken up my spot at the desk and kept on reading while I slept.
It was Saturday morning, and though there had been a long line at the diner off campus, Snyder Hall was deserted. There might have been some department members in the offices upstairs, but the first floor was quiet. No students. Just Syd and me. And Esel, of course.
“Take a break,” I said, as I unloaded my booty from the bags and spread it out on my desk. She held up a finger, like she’d be there in a second, but she made no move to wrap up. She did take a sip of coffee, and I waited for her to look at me, but she kept her eyes on the page the entire time, almost spilling the cup as she set it back on the floor.
It’s what every author wants of course—to have a reader not be able to put the book down, to stay up all night reading. One of the best emails I ever received was from a reader berating me for making them lose sleep and call in sick because they couldn’t stop readingFolly.
I ate my breakfast while it was warm, checked my emails, started reading students’ papers, but stopped, realizing I wasn’t giving them the attention they deserved.
Because all I could think about was what Syd was thinking. What part was she at? What did that clearing of her throat mean? Was it a piece of shit? And would she be able to tell me if it was?
