“Thought you weren’t going to answer,” Kate said when Eva picked up. “This a bad time?”
Every time was a bad time since Eva had found out that Molly was Lily.“No. Just catching up on some grading.”
“Do you ever stop working?”
“Doesn’t feel like it, sometimes.” Eva stretched her arms above her head and leaned back in her desk chair. “How are you? How are things with Dan?”
Kate sucked in a breath. “We…we’re getting a divorce.”
“Shit, Kate, I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” Her voice was sad, and Eva wished she could be there to offer some comfort. “But it wasn’t working. I think all couple’s therapy did was make us realize that. He moved back in with his parents last week.”
“How are you holding up?”
“Not too bad. It helps that it’s been building for a while. And I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve got a full teaching schedule this semester.”
Eva’s busiest semester had always been in the fall, guiding freshmen through foundations of biology. She’d been chosen for the job as the most no-nonsense of the department—she could weed out those who weren’t serious about the subject, and nurture the ones who were—but her favorite classes had been those in junior or senior year. Eva liked the smaller groups, liked diving into the details of cell division and cancer biology, liked sharing the knowledge she’d cultivated over the years.
“I’m mentoring three students in the RISE program, too.”
“I bet they’re keeping you busy.” Eva had loved the program, which gave students their first taste of a real research project in their final year, but it had been exhausting. They were like babies when they walked into the lab for the first time, terrified of touching any of the expensive equipment, but they made up for it with enthusiasm and a willingness to learn—even if they did need to be near-constantly supervised.
Kate groaned. “Don’t. One of them broke the centrifuge the other day. We’ve had to shell out a grand for a new one.”
“What did they do?”
“Fuck knows. But they aren’t allowed to touch the new one unless someone else is around.”
“It’s going well, then?”
“Oh, swimmingly. So long as none of them want a job working in a laboratory ever again.”
Eva snorted, bending down to scratch Franklin under the chin when he pressed a cold nose to her knee.
“How are things with you?”
A question Eva didn’t want to answer. “More of the same. Teaching is keeping me busy.”
“Too busy to chat up eligible women on a certain dating app I forced you to download?”
Eva tensed. She’d been hoping Kate might have forgotten all about it. “I deleted it.” Not a lie. It had been off her phone for weeks, and she wasn’t planning on ever re-downloading it.
It had caused her enough trouble.
Where would Eva be, if Kate hadn’t meddled? Eva supposed she couldn’t blame her for all of it. She’d fucked Lily not knowing she was Molly. But what would have happened in that parking lot if Lily hadn’t seen her screensaver?
“Did you at least talk to someone before you deleted it?”
“I did.”
Kate sucked in a breath. “And?”
“It didn’t end well.” Something of an understatement. “But that’s not a story for now.” It would only spill out of her when she was very, very drunk.
“Well, how about you tell me when you come and see me at Georgetown in May?” Kate said, and Eva’s lips curved into a smile.
“We can have the labs?”
