“I’m certain you’re right.” She chuckled.
“No, I mean it. Look.”
Samantha nodded toward Larissa.
Harlow turned to see Larissa walking toward her with a wide smile on her face, and just seeing that smile had her smiling back because Larissa’s smile always did that to her.
“They said they’ll stay another hour to keep talking to me, so I need to reserve the room for longer.” Larissa looked at Samantha. “Is that okay?”
“I’ll book it for you,” Samantha said.
“Thank you,” Larissa replied and proceeded to wrap her arms around Harlow’s shoulders unexpectedly.
Harlow had been standing facing Samantha, so Larissa was at her side, and she was so very close now. Then, Larissa leaned in and kissed Harlow’s cheek.
“This is going so well. Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said.
“Yes, you did, and you know it. I’m going to get back. You coming?”
“Um…” She moved out of Larissa’s embrace, pushed the bottles of water toward her, and said, “You go ahead. I think I’m going to go out. I’ll get an Uber and meet you at home. I mean, at your place.”
Harlow handed Larissa her car keys and turned her head to Samantha, who rolled her eyes at her without looking up from the computer in front of her.
“You’re leaving?” Larissa asked.
“Yeah, I’m going to get a drink. I think I get in your way in there sometimes, and it’s going well without me, it sounds like, so just take the other hour, and I’ll see you at the house.”
“You’re not in my way. I like it when you–”
“Samantha, is she good for the room?” Harlow interrupted.
“Yeah, all good,” Samantha told her. “Not really that popular at night, so no one had it reserved anyway.”
“Thank you,” Larissa said and turned back to Harlow. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you later.”
“Okay,” Larissa replied. “I can bring dinner home.”
“No, don’t worry about it. I’ll just get something while I’m out. Have a good rest of the interview. Don’t keep them waiting. They might decide to leave.”
Harlow then walked until she got to the door, pushed it open, and hit the cool night air.
CHAPTER 9
“So, she said that the stress of falling in love with a student prevented her from acting as quickly as she wanted but that the feelings were there all along,” Larissa shared.
“Yeah. What’s new there?” Aggie replied and took a sip of her iced tea. “The stress hormones wouldn’tpreventher from falling in love.”
“No, but at minimum, they prevented her from taking the actions she wanted to take.”
“They’re there as a defense mechanism. Someone could put a gun to your head, and your body wants to run, but the cortisol tells you to stay put because running won’t do anything; it could just get you killed faster.”
“Yes, but what if thestressof falling in love prevents us from really falling in love in the first place? What if the hormones enter the equation earlier?”
“Explain,” Aggie said.
