Chapter 15
I glance up at the clock above my office door.
That means Marissa Bishop and Jessica Delgado have been sitting across from me dissecting every requirement for their arbitration analysis assignment for forty-nine minutes.
No one told me that a major part of the job of a teaching assistant is to double as a therapist. We listen, particularly in the beginning, when first-year law students are eager and overwhelmed, when even the smartest ones find themselves second-guessing their efforts.
I did it, too; after spending three straight days awake studying for my Civil Procedure final, I had stumbled into my TA’s office convinced that I would fail, and did she happen to have any information about joining an art commune somewhere?
She talked to me for almost an hour, and I left with clear instructions to drink some tea, take a nap, and calm the fuck down.
It was the best advice of my life, and I try to keep it in mind every time a student knocks on my door, needing someone to listen.
Except for right now. Because right now it’s blatantly clear that Marissa and Jessica don’t need anything other than intel about Nathan Asher.
“Does Professor Asher ever stop by campus on days other than Tuesday?” Jessica wonders.
It’s the third time she’s asked, and I’ve already told her no twice, so all I can muster now is, “Why don’t you just ask him on Tuesday, okay?”
“Is he doing office hours this week?” Marissa interjects. She’s biting back a smile, and I know her question has nothing to do with the case study.
“He has a day job, Marissa.”
“Oh, I know,” she says, resting an elbow on my desk. “I would get married just so I could hire him when I get divorced.”
Jessica’s eyes light up. “Then we’d get to see him in those suits, like, all the time.”
Marissa nods. “With his tie loosened just a little bit—”
“Okay, my office hours are officially done,” I say, hoping it distracts from the sudden flush in my cheeks.
“You have two weeks before your papers are due, so you can come back if you have more questions, okay? And, Marissa, if I hear that you started another betting pool over who Nathan calls on first in class again, I’m taking a letter off your grade. I’m serious.”
Marissa mumbles something as she picks up her bag and walks to the door.
Jessica follows close behind, and I can already hear them whispering between themselves as they start down the hall.
I want to tell myself that they’re reviewing my stellar advice about the assignment, but I suspect they’re still contemplating Nathan’s tie.
I close my laptop and glance back up at the clock.
5:01 p.m.
Damn it . I try to mentally calculate the commute to the Safe Harbor Benefit.
If the A train is running on time, I can make it home by five thirty, but I still need to shower and change and do something with my hair—and what was the address of this place again?
I’d have to look that up. But first I have to get out of my office before any more students show up.
I grab my laptop, then shove my arms into my coat. A moment later I’m at the door, digging through my bag for the keys to lock it.
“Where’s the fire?”
Blake’s voice drawls behind me and I close my eyes, willing my patience to stay intact for the next sixty seconds.
“Home. I have plans tonight,” I say, turning around to find him leaning against the wall beside me, his attention on his phone as always.
“Yeah. I know.”
I pause. “What?”
“You and Nathan Asher. The Yale Club thing.”
My back straightens as if I’ve been spotted without my camouflage for the very first time. “How do you know about that?”
“Not by choice, trust me.” Blake sighs. “Can you tell him that you share that voicemail with other people? He left a message that was like two minutes long, talking about harbors or something, and it took up all the space. Or, better yet, you could actually check the voicemail once in a while.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why didn’t he just text me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe take your phone off silent after you leave class.”
“Oh, right,” I say, suddenly remembering how my phone was buzzing from the bowels of my bag during Marissa and Jessica’s visit.
He hums, finally looking up from his screen to give me a sly smile. “What’s going on there, anyway?”
“Going on where?”
His glare becomes pointed. “You and Nathan.”
“It’s nothing. He’s…” My voice fades as I try to pinpoint my next words.
“He’s what?”
The question lands like a lead weight in my brain.
Who is Nathan Asher to me, anyway? My colleague?
That feels too thin. My former friend’s divorce attorney?
Even as that label forms, it dissolves, leaving an odd chill in its wake.
No, he isn’t that. He hasn’t been that for a while.
So, is he just the guy I made out with once?
It’s objectively true, but also seems laughable now.
These are all facts, yes, but they’re also facets of something else, something greater that’s formed without me even realizing it.
Nathan Asher is my friend.
How the hell did that happen?
I blink and realize Blake is staring at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.
“He’s temporary,” I reply.
Blake hums. “All the good ones are.”
I roll my eyes and push past him. “Go away, Blake.”
Then I head down the hall.
I walk through my front door at 5:42.
Not horrible, I rationalize as I frantically strip before jumping in my lukewarm shower.
I already laid my clothes out for tonight, and I can probably get away with minimal makeup.
All I have to do is get ready as quickly as possible and mentally review all the research I’ve done about Marcie Land and her firm. No problem.
Except that when I dry off and start getting dressed, Blake’s inquiry still sits in the center of my brain.
I shouldn’t let it get under my skin. Blake is a gossip; he lives for finding out secrets before anyone else, which means he probably goes looking for secrets that aren’t even there to begin with, especially about the dating life of new, seemingly available professors.
Except that Blake hadn’t asked if Nathan was seeing anyone. He asked about Nathan and me. That could easily lead to assumptions, rumors being whispered by any student who walks by Frank’s office and sees us together. Maybe they had already.
The solution is obvious, of course: I should just stop meeting with him before class. We never discuss anything related to work anyway, so it would in no way hinder his ability to do his job. But the idea sends a shot of panic through my chest. Because I don’t want to stop.
When did I become so dependent on it? When did those afternoon conversations begin to actually mean something?
My pulse stutters as the next inevitable thought echoes past the others: what if it doesn’t for him?
I’m almost embarrassed that I haven’t thought about it before.
After all, I’m the one who shows up there week after week, too.
What if he only tolerates it? What if he’s humoring me?
I try to ignore the thought as I throw on my coat and rush to the door. Keep it professional , I remind myself. It’s the only thing that matters. It’s the only way to make it through this unscathed.
I pull my phone from my clutch as I emerge from the subway at Forty-Second Street and check the time.
8:12 p.m.
Shit . I’m twelve minutes late.
I quickly send him a text to tell him I’m close, then slip my phone back in my bag as I wait for the light to change. As soon as it turns green, I bolt across the crosswalk toward the club’s entrance on the corner.
Nathan might wait five minutes, maybe ten, but I can’t imagine that he’d stick around past that. I’m still practically sprinting as I approach the front of the Yale Club, though, holding on to the thread of hope that I’m wrong.
There’s a group of sharply dressed people congregating in front of the club, along with a steady stream of pedestrians walking by. My gaze slides over all of them, looking for Nathan’s imposing height, his familiar mussed hair.
I find him standing by the far window. His hands on his hips and a line of worry between his eyebrows as he looks down the street. The wind is sending his short hair in every direction, tousled and chaotic and in perfect opposition to the clean lines of his coat.
It’s hard to quantify my reaction. There’s relief, overwhelming relief that he’s here. That he waited. But there’s surprise, too, because he appears to be searching the crowd with the same anxiety that I felt tightening my chest just moments before.
Then he turns his head and meets my gaze. He smiles, and everything else in my mind bottoms out.
His lips have settled into a lopsided grin by the time I stop in front of him.
“You waited,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Did you think I would blow you off?” he asks, his voice low, like he’s trying to act offended.
“I was hoping you blew me off,” I reply, shifting my weight from one foot to the other and failing to dampen my own smile.
We stare at each other for a long moment, and I can almost feel something shift. A click of a new lens that changes the perspective ever so slightly. His gaze travels across my face, studying the light dusting of blush on my freckles, the subtle red tint on my lips. I suddenly feel self-conscious.
“I should have worn more makeup,” I blurt out.
His brow furrows, like he’s been snapped out of his train of thought, but I barrel on.
“It’s just impossible with freckles because if you wear too much it looks like you’re trying to cover them up and you can never really cover them up, so then you just look like you’re wearing too much makeup, you know? ”
“No.”
I roll my eyes and am about to reply with a cutting remark, but a gust of wind cuts me off. It sends a spike of cold down my spine.