The smile was back, but still so tentative. “No, not New York. They’re moving my stuff to my new office upstairs.”
I still wasn’t getting it. “Seems like a stupid time to assign you to a new office, right before the end of the semester.” He shrugged. “Why don’t they just wait until you go back to New York? Less to move, if they still want the furniture and stuff upstairs.”
He took another step to me, standing right in front of me, only an arm’s length away. I ached to be this close to him and still not be able to touch him. “Because I’m not going back to New York, Syd. I’m staying here at Bribury. I’m going to teach next year too. I’m going to stay for a while. I just agreed to an offer from the dean yesterday.”
“Wow, you’re sure getting the deals lately,” I said. My mind was already whirring with thoughts of how I’d need to map out my classes next year so I could avoid seeing Billy around campus. I’d thought I’d just needed to get through a couple more weeks of knowing the man I loved was on my little campus, and yet so, so far away from me.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Actually, I first approached the dean about me staying on, but he was very receptive to the idea.”
“Of course he was, you’re a great catch for Bribury,” I said. I didn’t add that he was a great catch for anybody.
“Thanks.” He just stared down at me, not saying anything, causing an incredibly awkward silence. At least it seemed awkward to me.
“So, okay. I guess if you don’t need me to proofread I’ll head out. Congrats on the book again. And, good luck here at Bribury…”
“Wait, Syd.” As I walked past him he reached out and took my arm just above my hand, his touch cool on my flushed skin. “Christ, I am totally messing this up,” he said. He chuckled. “I should havewrittenwhat I wanted to say.”
I held very still, not daring to guess what he’d planned to say. But hoping. I couldn’t stop the hoping. “What did you want to say, Billy?” I said softly.
“I’m staying because of you, Syd. Yes, I found I really loved teaching, but I could do it anywhere.You’reat Bribury. SoI’mstaying at Bribury.” Another deep breath from him, his exhale shaky. “And I’m going to fight like hell to get you back, Sydney O’Brien.”
I slid my arm up, still in his hold, until our hands met and I laced my fingers with his. “That’s going to be a pretty short battle,” I said, squeezing his hand.
He tugged me to him and I fell into his arms. His mouth was on mine and I returned his kiss, two months of pent up frustration finally bursting free.
His arms around me, his taste, the soft breaths he took… All so sweet, all so familiar, all so…mine.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and moved my body closer into his, feeling his already growing erection against me.
He broke away. “Before we go further—and let me just say that we’re definitely going to be using the last forty-five minutes we’ve got with that couch very wisely—I need to tell you something.”
“You named your main character after me. You’re staying at Bribury. And you’ve got me back in your arms. What more could you possibly have to tell me?”
He smiled. The smile that had been in the photo I’d printed at the library, and the smile in the picture on his desk, now packed away. The smile I’d loved for years before I ever saw it in person. The smile I would love forever.
“I love you, Syd,” he said.
“I love you too, Billy.” I ran my hands across his shoulders and buried them in his hair. Yep, my knuckles brushed against the bottom of his neck. Dead-on.
He kissed me again and then broke away, placed his forehead against mine and said, “I’m a writer, I probably should have come up with something more original than just ‘I love you, Syd,’ right?”
I shook my head. “Don’t mess with the classics.”
Epilogue
Syd
It wasour job to bring the pizza, so Billy and I were the last to show up at Lucas’s apartment for New Year’s Eve. Jane, Lily and I had talked about going out, but had ended up wanting to spend the evening together—all of us—where we could just hang out and eat, drink and be merry.
We still lived together for our sophomore year, though in an off-campus apartment instead of the dorms, but with our classes, work, and…relationships, we didn’t see each other all that much, so had made a point of doing New Year’s Eve together.
I was sure the evening would break up right after midnight, knowing each of the couples would want to be alone to truly ring in the new year together. Because our apartment was only two bedrooms (Lily and Jane shared, since they were used to each other), we’d figured it would make more sense to start at one of the guys’ apartments and then split up, instead of at our place.
We couldn’t go to Billy’s place, being underage students who would be drinking. Which was fine with me. We could do the countdown thing and take off. Go back to his place to be alone, not having to wait for everyone to clear out like Lucas and Lily would. Although, Stick’s apartment was in the same building, just down the hall, so he and Jane wouldn’t have much of a journey home.
I guessed the apartment we were partying in tonight used to belong to a friend of Stick’s who had been pregnant. When she got married to the baby’s father, she’d moved out and Lucas had moved in, his mother well enough to be able to take care of his little brother on her own.
That meant that our apartment would be available later tonight, but I hadn’t offered it up to Billy when he’d picked me up. I loved staying at his place, being surrounded by his book collection (even though he mostly read on an ereader), seeing his notes all over the place, even slipping back into my old ways and organizing them for him from time to time. But it wasn’t years’ worth this time, only a day or two. And they weren’t from different scattered ideas, but all pertaining to his current work in progress.
