“Loser pays.”
“Actually, I should go,” Dee said. “I have to get the girls off to school tomorrow.”
“Poor Cinderella,” Reeti said.
“I’ll take you,” Tim said.
Sam finished his beer in one smooth swallow. “I’ll do it. Have to get up myself in the morning.”
Dee and Reeti exchanged glances, messaging each other in that mysterious way girls did.
“You can take me home,” Reeti said to Tim. “Since we live in the same building and all.”
So Sam left with Dee. It felt like another win.
Rain spangled the pavement. Dee walked like a tourist, looking about her, not checking her phone or her reflection in the shop windows as they passed. They did not hold hands.
“I hope you had a good time tonight,” she said finally. A sideways look. “Especially since you’re not a Shivery Tales fan.”
“Maybe you’ve converted me. I might even pick up one of his books now. For Aoife,” he added.
Dee laughed. “Sophie loves them.”
“You should have brought her, then.”
“I’d already asked you.” Hard to tell in the light of the streetlamps, but he thought she blushed. “Besides, it’s my night off.”
He didn’t get why she was working at all. She must have money. She couldn’t afford to be here otherwise. Trinity didn’t lavish financial aid on foreign graduate students.
“You said you were just helping out your professor.”
“I was. At first. But I needed a place to stay and Glenda—Glenda Norton—needed someone to take care of the girls after school, so this seemed like a good solution for everyone.”
“I hope the pay is good.”
“It’s fine.”
Which meant it was shit. “So, it’s really only a good deal for her.”
“No, I like the girls. Her home is lovely. And working for Glenda... It’s sort of a protection in the program.”
“You make it sound like the Mafia. Lots of criminal violence in academic circles, is there?”
“You’d be surprised,” Dee said ruefully. “I got pretty roughed up on my last critique. That quote we were talking about? That’s my workshop instructor.”
“Dr.Ward.”
“You know her?”
He shook off the memory of his father’s funeral. “I had a class with her once. She’s your dragon that needs defeating?”
“I don’t... Maybe? I meant the quote about how bad artists copy. She thinks I’m copying another writer.”
He couldn’t imagine why she was telling him this. Unless she wasn’t worried about trying to impress him. “Plagiarism.”
That was serious. Academic misconduct. You could be disciplined for that, although hardly anyone was. But Sam wrote—notebooks full of entries that no one ever saw, fragments of ideas, snatches of dialogue, observations about his family, descriptions of characters who came into the shop. The thought of someone using them as their own made him slightly sick.
Dee winced. “Not plagiarism. More like a depressing lack of originality. She thinks I’m copying his style.”
