Chapter 48
Gabrielle
“Imiss you, Cal. I need you here like yesterday.” I wanted to reach through the phone and yank him home by the sleeve.
“Twenty-four hours, love,” he replied. “I fly out in the morning, and, trust me, it’s not soon enough.”
“How are you holding up?”
“As you’d expect. Just glad it’s all over.
” Silence crackled on the line before he continued, “James wasted no time in shutting me out. The funeral had barely ended before he said, in no uncertain terms, that I’m never to darken his door again.
” Cal scoffed. “He literally kicked me out, so I’m staying in a London hotel tonight.
But I suppose I should thank him. Better room service and less chance of me missing my flight in the morning. ”
“Was he mad about the money and properties your father left you?”
“Livid. But Father sorted all that before he died, so there’s nothing James can do.” He drew a sharp breath. “I don’t particularly care about the assets. It wasn’t even that much. James still got the lion’s share. But watching him boil over made it all worth it.”
I surveyed Cal’s once-pristine living room, now lined with boxes of my belongings.
A Houston Astros tumbler full of sweet tea sweated onto a coaster on the coffee table.
My favorite hoodie slouched over the arm of the black leather sofa.
I’d tried to make myself at home, but it felt more like a child’s fort in a stranger’s parlor.
“This place feels weird without you,” I admitted.
Cal’s smile was audible through the transatlantic static. “You’re my fiancée. It’s your house too, love.”
Fiancée. The word had its own gravity—bending the whole room around it. I had never been anybody’s anything in such a permanent way.
I let the words settle. “Yeah, I know. It just…doesn’t feel real yet.” My phone beeped with another call. “Hang on, let me see who this is.” I checked the screen. Aunt Suzy. “Ugh, she’s relentless.” I sent the call to voicemail.
“Your aunt again?”
“Yeah. She’s been blowing up my phone the past couple of days. I can’t—” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to unknot the pressure in my chest. “I still can’t talk to her. I know she means well, but if it weren’t for her—”
“It’s all right, Gabrielle. You don’t have to explain.” His voice was a balm to my frazzled nerves, a pressure bandage over the bruise. “Talk to her when you’re ready. Not before.”
I propped my feet on a box labeled “WINTER CLOTHES” and picked at a loose thread on my leggings. “Maybe I won’t ever talk to her again,” I said, though we both knew it was a lie.
He didn’t call me on it.
The doorbell reverberated through the house. I nearly dropped my phone.
“Who’s there?” Cal asked.
“Not sure,” I answered, peering down the hall toward the front door. A vague figure loomed behind the frosted glass. “Probably a delivery.”
“What have you ordered now?”
“A few more books.”
He groaned. “More? And where do you plan to put them?”
I nudged a knee-high box with my heel—brimming with paperbacks, a few crammed spine-down into the gaps I’d packed too fast and carelessly. “I have a system.”
“You have a problem.”
“I’m curating a collection,” I said, feigning haughtiness. “Besides, you’ll appreciate my spicy new titles when you’re jet-lagged and desperate for…entertainment.”
He sighed, low and theatrical. “If I return home to find you in bed with a paperback…”
“Yes…”
“Let’s just say I’ll be forced to remind you of the superiority of hands-on research.” His voice, even disembodied, was enough to send a sweet shiver down my back.
“That’s bold talk coming from a theoretical physicist.”
“Who can rock your world in fourteen different dimensions.”
A hot flush crept from my neck to my ears. “Okay, you win.”
“Damn right.”
The doorbell rang again. I stood and walked down the hall. “Maybe I have to sign for it.”
A figure shifted behind the rippled glass—solid, broad-shouldered, familiar in a way that knotted my stomach.
I’d expected a delivery person, maybe a clipboard and a bored smile.
Instead, when I opened the door, the world exhaled a damp waft of cut grass and gasoline and Bill Watkins, standing awkwardly on the step holding a foil-covered Pyrex dish.
“Crap,” I said before I could help myself.
“Gabrielle?” Dr. Watkins’s voice was cautious and oddly formal for a man in a sweat-stained polo and white dad sneakers.
Cal’s voice crackled through the phone. “What is it?”
“I’ll call you back.” I hung up before he could argue. “Hello, Dr. Watkins.” My voice cracked in a register I didn’t know I had.
He blinked. “Didn’t expect to catch you here. Sorry. I just…” His eyes dropped to the casserole, like it might prompt his next line. “My wife made this. I thought Cal was back today.”
“He gets back tomorrow.” I was hyperaware of my bare feet, disheveled hair, and oversized T-shirt.
He paused, eyebrows narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“Housesitting,” I managed feebly.
His gaze darted over my shoulder into the house. “I didn’t realize housesitting involved so many boxes.”
I tried on a smile that didn’t quite fit. “I’ll be happy to put that in the fridge and let Dr. Hawthorne know you stopped by.”
He handed over the casserole but didn’t budge from the stoop. “I’m not here to judge, Gabrielle. What you two do is your business. But let’s not insult each other, okay?” He wiped his palms on the sides of his khaki cargo shorts. “May I come in?”
It was phrased as a question, but it was clearly anything but. I stepped aside. “Please excuse the mess.”
Dr. Watkins walked into the living room, his gaze snagging on the half-unpacked boxes and the nest of blankets on the couch.
I ferried the Pyrex to the kitchen, cheese and garlic wafting in its wake, and slid it onto the second shelf of the refrigerator. “Would you like something to drink? I made sweet tea,” I offered, trying to remember how normal people behaved.
He shook his head as he settled into the armchair. “Nothing for me, thanks.” He rubbed at the thinning spot on his scalp, as if starting a fire.
I perched on the edge of the sofa. My phone buzzed with a message from Cal.
Who was at the door?
I looked up at Dr. Watkins, who met my gaze with an unshakable, almost clinical, patience. “It’s Dr. Hawthorne,” I said, holding up the phone. “He wants to know who was at the door. Should I tell him?”
He mustered a smile. “Of course. Tell him it’s Bill. And that I come in peace.” The words were mild but carried a strange finality, as if they were the preface to a much longer, heavier soliloquy.
I typed out a reply, letting him know I had it under control, then set the phone face down on the coffee table. Dr. Watkins waited until the silence had outgrown its natural lifespan before clearing his throat.
“I won’t waste your time—or mine. You know as well as I do that Cal is in a heap of trouble.
” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and pinned me with a steady, unblinking gaze.
“Look, I’m not here to play gotcha. I’m here because I care about Cal, and, to be honest, I care about you too.
So I’ll ask straight: what the hell happened last spring? ”
I folded my hands into the hem of my shirt, hoping it read as poised rather than panicked. “Is this off the record?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Gabrielle, I’m not a cop. I’m not even your advisor anymore.” He glanced at the nearest box—my name scrawled in block marker—and softened. “If I were, I’d have brought a notepad.” He looked at me, then added, “But if you want to lawyer up, I’ll wait.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s just…” Was it the urge to confide, or the terror of what confession did to a secret? “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“He’s already there. I thought everything would blow over, but it’s only gotten worse. New complaints—some downright inventive. And now the Board of Trustees is involved.” He leaned in, pain etched across his face. “They’re going to make an example of him.”
I swallowed, my throat as dry and rough as sandpaper. “It’s all bullshit,” I said, then regretted the word, but he didn’t flinch.
“I know that. Or I thought I did. But apparently”—he nodded toward me—“there’s some truth to the talk.”
I said nothing.
“I promise I’m on your side. But I need the full picture.” He took a breath, let it out slowly, and looked up at me with pleading eyes. “Help me help my friend. Please.”
I traced a seam in the couch—rough stitching against smooth leather.
“You want the truth?” My voice rasped, older than I expected.
“All right. I was in Dr. Hawthorne’s class last spring—you know that.
We both knew the rules, and we tried not to…
” I glanced up. “We were careful. And it wasn’t the usual story.
There was no power play, no coercion, no favoritism.
I wasn’t some infatuated kid, and he wasn’t…
some creep with boundary issues. We were two people who connected at the worst possible time and tried—really tried—not to act on it. But…”
I let the silence settle, heavy as humidity.
Bill’s frown softened, like he was looking at an old photograph and suddenly recognized the face.
“I’ve known Cal since he was fresh off his post-doc—back when I had less gray and a higher tolerance for academic bullshit.
Cal’s never been reckless,” he said, voice measured.
“He’s not manipulative. He’s got integrity in spades, even if he can be a smug bastard about it. ”
I snickered at that.
“I can’t say I know you all that well. But I don’t think you’re the type to twist a situation for personal gain.
” He glanced down, and his gaze stalled on my left hand.
The ring caught a filament of sunlight and threw it across the room in a sharp, dancing glint.
Bill’s mouth folded into a line that said he’d expected this, dreaded it, and maybe—on some level—approved.
“So it’s the real thing, then,” he said, almost to himself.
“I thought as much.” His face—creased by sun and worry—settled into a look of deep, almost paternal, resignation.
“I’ve been married twenty-two years. The first time I saw my wife, I knew it was game over.
So I get it. And may you both be happy. But you need to understand—this happy ending won’t come easy. ”
I swallowed. For a second, the room tilted under me. “I know,” I said. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
He shook his head. “You misunderstand. Page is going to hang Cal out to dry. It’s his word against a mountain of student complaints. And the only person who can offer any truth in this situation is you.”
“But if I say anything, they’ll find him guilty.”
“They’ll find him guilty regardless. But by telling them what’s actually true, you can help the board separate fact from horseshit. And he might have a chance at redeeming his career. Not at Page, of course. But somewhere else.”
“You want me to speak to the review board? Cal wouldn’t allow that.”
“No, he’d never ask it of you. I know him well enough to know that. But I’m asking you. If there’s a chance for you to help him clear his name, this is it.”