“Thanks for saving my scone. And me. Again.” I point my thumb behind me. “I should go.”
He nods and keeps walking—toward me, then past. “Going to the lab?” He doesn’t stop.
“Uh, no. I have a question for my thesis.” I fall into step next to him. If there’s a godly committee up there, I blame them for their twisted sense of humour.
He looks at me from the corner of his eyes, hands in his pockets. One stride of his is three of mine, but I refuse to slow down and fall behind.
“Maybe I can help?”
I snort, then slap a hand over my mouth when he frowns. “Sorry. I mean—thanks, but no thanks. It’s just that Dr. Kymbert is a biologist and, well, you’re not. Also, you don’t like cephalopods.”
His frown stays. “I took marine biology for years, Coralie.” Gosh I hate the way he says my name, with a perfectly rolled r. “And I never said I hated your invertebrates.”
“I’m pretty sure you did. And you studystorms.” I don’t know why it comes out like an insult; I’m mostly hoping he’ll stretch that impossible pace so I can stop matching it and put some distance between us. He doesn’t.
He shakes his head and doesn’t bother answering. So I do what any logical person would do in my situation, I think, and take him in—dark blue jeans, black T-shirt that does unfair things to his shoulders, the same metal watch he seems married to—and look away fast enough to notice I’m not the only one tracking him. A freshman straightens as we pass by; someone drops a Hydro Flask; two girls elbow each other and forget to whisper. Half the faces are wary, the other half have intentions that are… less than holy.
“You, um… areyougoing to the lab?”
He gives me the Holden version of puzzled. “No. It’s my office hours.”
Right. I never checked his schedule, because voluntarily sitting in a small room with him felt like playing with voltage, andbecause I’ve made it this far without using anyone’s open door policy, especially his.
We reach the building and he steps ahead to hold the door. Some feral corner of my brain where trust issues originate from braces for a last-second slam in my face or a finger pinch for sport, but he just waits, steady, the heat of him intoxicating as I pass.
Maybe he isn’t as hostile as I decided. Current evidence is annoyingly clear: he didn’t let me drown, he threw a misogynistic jerk out of his lab, he saved my scone. We aren’t about to be friends, I know that; I’m still fairly sure I top his list of irritating students. But a civil semester? It’s now a possibility. Then again, who knows. Maybe it’s just basic decency and a soft spot for pastries.
“Holden, why is it that every time I land in a pickle, you’re there?”
“A pickle?”
“A proverbial pickle.”
He almost smiles. “I’m not omnipresent, Coralie.” Again, my stomach does this weird, twisty thing. Would I feel the same if my name was Gertrude? If he inhaled helium? “Are you telling me you only get in trouble when I’m around?”
We head down the hallway toward the offices. I scoff because deflection is free. “I’d hardly call it trouble.”
“You almost got taken out by the Pacific. I think youaretrouble.”
“It was a tiny wave. I was admiring the seafloor.”
“Right.” His mouth goes flat, the kind of deadpan that says he watched me disappear underwater and didn’t breathe until I did.
We reach the neat procession of heavy mahogany doors, each crowned with a bronze nameplate. I rap on Dr. Kymbert’s and listen for the papery shuffle or the clickity-clack of her keyboard. Nothing. I give it a beat and try again. Still nothing—just the building’s hum.
I turn and, for reasons known only to him, Holden hasn’t left. He’s angled against the wall like it was designed to fit his back.
“Um, do you know what her office hours are? I kind of skipped the step of looking at them before coming here.”
“You came here without checking if she was available?”
I narrow my eyes because,yes, that is precisely what I just said. “Do you know?”
He sighs, fishes his phone from his back pocket, unlocks, and scrolls through what looks like his inbox. “She’s usually in, but she sent an email this morning—last-minute meetings. You’re in the thread.”
Right. Three hours of sleep and Maya’s calamari threat apparently overrode my remaining executive function.
“Shoot.” I worry at my lower lip, running contingencies: hunt down Kai for his input, draft a clean email to Dr. Kymbert, try again later, stare at a wall until my neurons stop buzzing.
