“Something wrong?”
Tom jumped and yanked out his earbuds, surprised to find Finn hovering at the opposite end of the table, arms stiff at her sides. While he’d been staring at his screen, the rest of the apartment had grown dark beyond the pool of light from the overhead fixture. She stood at the edge of the illumination, her unbraided hair a curtain of midnight around her tense shoulders.
His laidback chill had always acted as a counterweight to her tightly-wound in high school. Assuming things hadn’t changedthatmuch, he slipped into role of extremely relaxed guy and prayed it would get her to stop moving around the apartment like she was strapped to a board. “Yes, actually. Can you make heads or tails of this?” He pointed out the illegible note, and she moved around the table, her forehead wrinkling as she examined the red ink.
Even in comfy clothes, she looked carefully put together, exactly the way he remembered her. Her family had skirted the poverty line when she was growing up, but she’d always carried herself as if her meticulously cleaned and pressed thrift-store clothing washaute couture. And here she was now in an immaculate white sweater and soft, expensive-looking pants, with suede slippers on her feet. Good for her.
“Be sludge turtle Jay?”She squinted at the page. “I don’t know anything about graduate-level economics. Does that make any sense to you?”
He shrugged helplessly. “It’s the newest member on my dissertation committee. She replaced a professor who stepped away for family reasons last week, and I haven’t figured out her handwriting yet.”
She glanced at it again. “Oof. Brutal. Is that pretty common?”
“Bad handwriting? Yes. New committee members in the defense stage? Definitely not.” Anxiety over the in-flux state of his dissertation committee reared its head, but Tom shoved it aside and reached for nonchalance. “That’s actually my second replacement this semester, out of five. Number one had green card issues, and now number two’s in California taking care of her father after he fell and broke his hip, so it’s been a lot of catching new people up. My luck strikes again.”
“Oh man, the Tom Castle bad luck!” He saw the memories fire in her synapses. “What did you always used to say? ‘Expect the worst. Prepare for the worst. It’s always the worst’?”
He nodded and tried not to be flattered that she remembered. “I’m still pretty much an optimism-free zone.”
“Let’s see…” She tipped her head toward the ceiling in thought. “You got a flat tire on prom night and almost missed the dance. Yours was the only flooded locker when the high school roof leaked. Oh, and then there was the ostrich that charged at you and only you during our trip to the Brookfield Zoo.”
“That ostrich thought I was a sexy beast.” He smirked to cover for the fact that those were minor speed bumps compared to the true disappointments of his life. When you spend years watching your best friend kiss the girl you’re crazy about, you start to doubt that things will ever break your way.
Enough of that though. He leaned back in his chair and felt his spine protest. “I’ve been sitting for too long.” He groaned and stretched, and when Finn moved to the countertop and took the lid off the slow cooker sitting there, he choked back a different kind of groan. Now that he’d pulled his mind off research, his hunger came roaring up to meet the spicy smell filling the kitchen.
Seconds later he was standing at her side, using his six-inch height advantage to peer over her head at the concoction she was stirring. “What is it?”
She laughed at the awe in his voice. “It’s chili. You did say you weren’t a vegan, right?”
“You’re willing to share?” The idea hadn’t even occurred to him.
She looked up with a frown. “Did you really think I’d let you starve?”
He shrugged and took a step back. “I didn’t want to assume, and I don’t want to impose.” Plus, six hours ago, he’d have bet all the cash in his wallet that if fierce little Finn Carey ever put food in front of him, it’d be poisoned.
She grabbed two blue bowls from the cabinet and picked up a ladle. “If I don’t feed you, you’ll die of hunger in my living room rather than of exposure in a snowbank fifteen feet from my front door. Both would be my fault, but your dying in my apartment would be way more inconvenient for me. Ergo, I’ll share.”
What a day. She’d kicked him out, rescued him, warmed him, dressed him, and now was going to feed him. “This is literally saving my life. The last thing I ate was a ham sandwich in the TA lounge yesterday afternoon.”
“Then maybe you should’ve had dinner last night instead of hitting on strange women at bars.” She shoved two full bowls into his hands harder than was strictly necessary, and despite her obvious irritation, his stomach growled loudly.
“Apparently so. That’s what we researchers call independent confirmation.” He returned to the table as she pulled sour cream and shredded cheese out of the fridge and joined him.
“Ha.” She accepted the bowl he slid across to her. “It’s not fancy, but at least it’s warm. If Josie were here…”
Her roommate’s name landed like a grenade in the space between them, and discomfort crept along Tom’s spine. He leaned forward. “Hey. About that—”
“Yeah, I don’t need an explanation.” She reached for the sour cream, her eyes locked on the container.
Tom pushed ahead because no way in hell was he lettingthissituation pass without her hearing his side. “Look, Josie and I ended up in the same bar at closing time, and I volunteered to make sure she got home okay. When I’m out, I try to notice if someone looks like they might run into trouble on their own.”
Finn’s shoulders were tense as she stirred her chili, and Tom sighed, not wanting to wade too close to their uncomfortable history. “Long story short, she insisted I come in because it had started snowing, and then, honestly, I passed out. I’d been up for two days straight grading papers, so those shots of whiskey did me in. It… wasn’t my proudest moment.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair in embarrassment. The previous night was one big, loud blur in his mind.
Finn cut her eyes up at him, then back down. “I told you, it doesn’t matter to me what you guys did.”
“What wedidn’tdo,” he said, anxious to jostle her out of that reserved politeness.
After a beat, she inclined her head in acknowledgment, the movement stiff. “Makes sense. Only someone who’d had a hell of a night wouldn’t immediately know I wasn’t Josie.”
