“Your Ph.D.,” Harlow interrupted. “You can start with your doctorate.”
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Thinking out loud?”
“Yes, but also getting distracted by a bright, shiny thing. Lou, you’re going to have years where you can write all the books, okay?” Harlow said. “You can write a whole book on polyamory, if you want, or anything else for that matter, but you’re supposed to be working on your dissertation first; youknow, that thing you have to defend if you ever want to be called a doctor, like Aggie.”
“It was just a comment. I’m not going to let it distract me. Here are your waffles.” She handed Harlow two waffles in a paper towel. “And your lunch. Coffee is in the travel cup already by the door. I used the hazelnut creamer for you.”
“Thank you,” Harlow replied and smiled at her. “I’ll pick you up later?”
“Can you meet me there? I’m on campus today.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“You act like I never work on my damn paper.” Larissa shook her head and laughed a little. “I’m meeting Aggie for lunch, but I’m going to be in the library for the first part of the day, and I have work after that, so I’ll just meet you there. The owner wants to have a meeting, so I don’t know what’s going on, but it might be late. I’ll still leave on time to get to the interview, though.”
“Janine?”
“She’s still there. Or, she was the other day, at least,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t knowwhatthe owner wants to talk about. She could be letting usallgo and just running the place herself. It’s hardly ever busy enough to require two people. I do the stocking in between the few customers we get, and we don’t have a fancy café or anything to keep people there long, so they usually just buy something and leave, or, more likely, walk around and peruse but buy nothing.”
“Did you just sayperuse?” Harlow teased.
“Yes, I did. Problem?”
“No. Just such a fancy word to use when you could’ve said ‘look around’ or ‘browse.’”
“I was in a peruse kind of mood.”
“I guess so,” Harlow said with a laugh. “Thanks for all this. I’ll see you later.”
“Have a good day at work, b–” Larissa stopped herself and looked away. “Just have a good day.”
“Yeah, okay. You too.”
Larissa had almost told Harlow to have a good day at work and used ‘babe’ at the end of her sentence.
“God, what is happening?” she asked no one after she heard the front door close behind Harlow.
???
“What do you mean, what’s happening? You two are in love with each other. I told you that already. You coming? I want to get out of here before another student finds me to ask a question. I’m starving.”
Agatha practically shoved Larissa out of her office and into the hallway, shutting the office door behind them and locking it.
“We are not in love with each other,” she argued.
“I’m sorry. You show up atmydoor, telling me that you two slept together, and–”
“What? No. I said we slept on the couch. We fell asleep on the couch together. That is not the same thing. And don’t say that so loudly. We’re on campus. I don’t need everyone here thinking I slept with my best friend.”
“Maybe if you did already, we wouldn’t have to keep talking about this.”
“This is our second-ever conversation about this. And what is the point of having an older sister if she can’t help me with this stuff?”
“Well, you’re not twenty-one, having your first crush on a girl. You’re almost thirty-six years old, should be a doctor twice over already, and Harlow might technically be your first love, but under these circumstances, I don’t know that that counts.”Aggie nodded for her to press the elevator button. “What happened? Tell me now that I’m actually listening.”
