“Do you specialize in something? Or is that later?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Youth justice, maybe. Adolescents get punished for brains that aren’t finished developing yet.” He shrugs. “Or addiction. Most addicts need treatment, not prison.” He pauses.
“Restorative justice can’t fix everything, but the core idea matters.”
I watch him while he talks.
“I was so mad when I found out you studied something this important,” I admit.
“Mad?”
“I was trying so hard not to like you, and everything you did had the opposite effect.”
“That sounds exhausting,” he says.
“It was,” I say. “Deeply unfair of you to be so perfect.”
He laughs like I was joking. I wasn’t.
He reaches for my hand, switching the focus.
“What about you? Any particular area of history you want to specialize in?”
“Marginalized groups,” I say instantly. Then I groan. “Also European colonization, the fall of the Roman Empire, Viking studies. Lately, the Soviet Union.”
“You like to take it easy, then,” he says dryly.
“It would be amazing to research a topic and always include the marginalized aspect,” I say dreamily. “But that’s not going to happen. I’ll be lucky if I get a teaching job.”
“Why wouldn’t that happen?”
“Um, money, Caspian,” I reply carefully. “I have a scholarship, but it barely covers anything. I’ll be paying off student loans forever. And there aren’t exactly a lot of positions for historians who want to research instead of just teach.”
Caspian opens his mouth.
“No,” I say—gentle but firm.
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to offer me money.”
“Yes. Because I—”
I walk back around the table and sit on his lap again, wrapping my arms around his neck. His ears are already pink.
“I don’t want your money,” I say softly.
“I know, but—”
“I want you.”
His mouth opens, but I kiss away whatever he was about to say.
CHAPTER 57 – CASPIAN
The doorbell rings, interrupting our kissing.
“Who on earth?”
