“Heading back to Philly in time for New Year.”
Daisy turned toward Lily. “Ooh, New Year. How are we celebrating this year? We should go out for it, Lily. I’ll find you someone to kiss at midnight.”
Lily could think of nothing worse. Clubs and bars were always packed to heaving, sweaty strangers grinding everywhere she looked.
“No, thank you. I’ve already made one bad kissing mistake this holiday—I don’t need to add another to the list.” Lily said it without thinking, and only realized what she’d said when Daisy turned to her with wide eyes, looking like Christmas had come again.
“What? Who have you been kissing?”
“I knew you had a secret girlfriend,” Jack said, triumphant, and Lily wanted to go and grab the shovel leaning against the side of the garage and dig herself a hole to hide in.
“Secret girlfriend?” Daisy looked between the two of them. “What?”
Lily groaned. “I don’t have a secret girlfriend.”
“But you’ve been kissing someone.”
“Now seems like a good time for me to bow out,” Jack said, looking delighted. “See ya back inside.” He ducked into the kitchen, and Lily stared after him longingly.
“Details.”
“It was nothing, okay? I made out with someone when I went out for the work Christmas thing.” Lily knew she wouldn’t get away with brushing Daisy off, but she didn’t have to tell her all the details, either. She sure as hell wasn’t going to say it was someone from work.
She’d never hear the end of it.
“It was dumb and it was a mistake and I’d rather forget about it, all right?”
“Touchy!” Daisy blinked at her, eyes dark in the moonlight. “Was it that bad?”
Lily tried not to think about how it was the best kiss she’d had in her entire life.
“Awful.”
Awful, because she’d yet to stop thinking about it. Awful, because she had no idea how she could possibly look Eva in the eye once school started up again. Awful, because she’d been so stupid, and she wished she could take it back.
“So why not go out on New Year and make some better memories?” Daisy said, wiggling her eyebrows, and Lily sighed, stepping toward the kitchen door—somehow, her family‘s antics seemed preferable to Daisy’s third degree.
“Not going to happen.”
* * *
As much as Eva enjoyed being off work, it didn’t take long for her to be climbing the walls.
She’d never been good at being idle. Being a professor had been great for that, because even when she’d finished grading papers and prepping lectures, she had meetings with her grad students, grants to write, projects to design and research to do. Her mind never truly shut off, and while she knew some of her colleagues had struggled to cope, Eva had reveled in it.
Now, within the first week of her vacation, Eva had: cleaned the entire house from top to bottom (twice); caught up with all her grading; planned her lessons for the first month back; figured out what activities she’d be doing in her next two science and STEM club sessions; and finished all the little niggling departmental jobs Alisha had assigned her.
She still had a week left, and Eva was bored out of her mind. The dinging of her phone was a welcome distraction while she waited for the bread she’d spent the better part of the morning making to bake.
Got anything exciting planned for today?
Unlike Eva, Molly seemed to be enjoying her time away from work. Whenever Eva asked, she was out with family or friends—she’d never mentioned being bored once.
Might go for a long run later,Eva replied. She needed something to fill the day—she’d been up for five hours and it wasn’t even noon yet.
You do understand that the purpose of a vacation is to relax, right?
I do, Eva typed, smile pulling at the edges of her lips.But I’ve never been good at that.
