Chapter 14
Gray
The undergrad sitting across from me Monday morning scrunches his face in confusion. I’ve been explaining statistical p-values and confidence intervals to him for the last five minutes, and he’s still not getting it.
The Communication program at this university is a quantitative one, which means stats are part of the curriculum. Unfortunately, not all the students know that coming in, and the realization they’ll have to work with numbers in order to graduate is a rude awakening for some.
I look up when I hear the knock at my door, and Melinda, my department chair, pokes her head inside.
“Can I see you when you’re done?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say. “It should just be another couple minutes.”
That’s an underestimate. It’s another fifteen minutes before my student grasps the concepts well enough that he’ll be able to answer the question about them on the next exam.
“Hey,” I stop the guy before he heads out the door. “Did you get your last in-class quiz back from me?”
He frowns. “I think so. Why?”
“This isn’t yours then?” I ask. I hold up a paper with no name on it, my finger covering the failing grade.
The guy steps closer, looks at the paper, and shakes his head. “Nope. Not my writing.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say as he heads out the door.
Every now and then I give an old-school quiz where I pass out a sheet with questions that only need relatively quick responses.
The problem is that sometimes, like now, a student forgets to put their name on the paper, and in a class of three hundred students, finding the owner can be difficult.
There are about eighteen students who don’t have grades for that quiz, and I haven’t been able to track them all down.
It’s probably a moot point. The owner of the quiz barely scraped together thirty points out of a hundred.
They spent half the time waxing poetic about the importance of communication in making connections and building relationships, rather than answering the questions on the quiz directly.
I cobbled together what points I could give the student, but it wasn’t much.
Hell, I couldn’t even give them points for remembering to put their name on the paper.
I close up my office, and head down the hall to see Melinda. I knock, and she tells me to come in.
“What’s up?” I ask.
She gestures for me to have a seat, and I do.
“How’s everything going with the hockey player?” she asks.
I shrug. “Well enough, given that I don’t have a validated intervention I can use on him. It’s mostly trial and error, but we’ve made progress.”
She nods. “And how are the two of you getting along?”
I frown at the question. “Fine. Why?”
“Is there anything I should know about you two?” she presses.
My frown deepens. “Like what?”
“Look,” Melinda says, leaning forward in her chair to put her elbows on the desk. “Normally this would be none of my business, but given the amount of funding at stake, I have to ask. Is there anything going on between you and the hockey player that could come back to bite us?”
My mouth falls open. “What? No. Why would you ask that?” But there’s a sudden chill tickling up my spine.
Melinda clicks her mouse, and a picture pops up on her computer screen.
She turns it toward me so I can see it better, and I feel the color drain from my face.
It’s a grainy cell phone pic of me and Ash on the dance floor of the club Saturday night.
My ass is pushed back against his groin while his hands splay across my stomach and chest. My eyes are closed, and I look enraptured as he leans his face down close to my neck.
I knew we’d gotten too close on the dance floor, but this picture makes it look like we’re one step away from heading up to a hotel room for the night. I’m mortified as color rushes back to my face.
“Oh my god. Where did you get that?” I ask.
“It’s making the rounds on the celebrity gossip sites,” Melinda says. “They haven’t identified you yet, but my wife sent it to me. She remembered meeting you last year at David’s retirement party.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. The media may not have identified me yet, but I have a COMM class full of three hundred students who’ve probably all seen the photo by now. Hell, the student I saw at the club that night might have taken it. I hope TMZ at least gave him a good price for it.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say quickly.
“No?” Melinda says. “Because it looks like you put yourself in a very questionable position with a man whose boss is paying you and this university a shitload of money to have you help him. I know he’s not technically your student, and you’re not his psychologist, but you’re close enough to both those things that this is concerning. ”
“I know,” I say quickly, “and I shouldn’t have let it happen, but I swear there’s nothing going on between us.
” Except a lot of kissing and caressing I haven’t been able to get out of my mind.
“Ash invited me to come hang out that night with the players, and I figured it was a good research opportunity.”
Melinda raises a dubious brow, but I hurry on.
“My ex-boyfriend was there that night, and apparently the guys have this thing they do when someone’s ex is there that involves making the person the center of attention, and things like that. Ash was trying to help me make Drew jealous. It was all for show.”
Melinda eyes the picture again, and I know she’s not buying it.
I go cold again as I wonder if Ash has seen the picture and what he thinks of it. I pull my phone out of my pocket and swipe it open. I have fifteen notifications. There are three texts from Ash and two calls.
Yup. He’s seen the pic.
Of course he has. The Hydra have a public relations manager whose job it is to know when these things happen. The guy probably knew about the picture minutes after it hit the media.
I look at the rest of the notifications. Most are from Celena – four texts and five calls, plus one call from my mother. As a rule, my mother doesn’t do celebrity gossip, but one of her friends probably called her and told her about the picture.
I open the texts from Ash. The first one starts with, “Don’t panic.”
Never have the words ‘don’t panic’ kept anyone from panicking, and now is no different.
“Gray?” Melinda says, calling my attention back to her.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I have texts and calls from Ash. I’m sure the Hydra’s people are on this, but I should call him back and find out what the game plan is for…managing this.”
The picture is humiliating, but I’m more worried for Ash. He wanted to keep my work with him quiet, and that won’t be possible once they identify me.
Melinda waves a hand. “Fine, go. Just keep me in the loop on everything. I need to call the university’s communications office so they’re prepared in case they get inquiries about this, which they will.”
“Yes, of course,” I say. I’m already halfway out her door and dialing Ash. The phone rings twice, then goes to voicemail, and I frown as I pull it away from my ear.
No need to jump to conclusions. He’s probably in a meeting with the PR manager right now. I look at the other two texts he sent.
Ash
Someone took a pic of us the other night. It’s all over the media.
Ash
God damn you look hot in that dress.
My stomach cartwheels at the compliment. I’d almost smile if I wasn’t so horrified by the whole situation.
This is the first I’ve heard from Ash since Saturday night.
I spent all yesterday with a knot in my chest, wondering if he regretted kissing me.
If he was mad at me for making him stop.
If he felt like I rejected him. If I would come to work this morning to find an email from Mr. Kaladin saying he was terminating his contract with me.
I look quickly at the texts from Celena.
Celena
Call me!
Celena
Call me now!
Celena
Why aren’t you calling me??
Celena
Why aren’t you answering your phone?????
I don’t bother listening to the messages. I just lock myself back in my office and call Celena.
“It’s about fucking time!” she says upon answering the phone.
“I was in office hours with students,” I say. “I only just found out about the picture. Melinda called me into her office to ask me if anything was going on with me and Ash.”
There’s a pause. “Can she do that?”
“If there’s enough funding involved, apparently yes.”
“So is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Is it true you’re dating Ash Gunnarsson? Did you spend the night in his hotel room? Are you pregnant with his love child?” Celena fires off. “Jesus, Gray! Take your pick of the rumors. Are any of them true?”
She can’t see me roll my eyes, but I do it anyway. “You know I would’ve called you if any of them were true,” I say.
“I assumed you would’ve called me if you ended up grinding on the dance floor with a hot-as-fuck hockey player too, but here we are,” she shoots back.
Fair enough.
“I’m sorry. It’s just been a busy couple days, and it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.”
Lies. Blatant, boldfaced lies. It was a huge deal, but for some reason I didn’t tell Celena about it when she texted yesterday. I told her the outing went fine and that I’d fill her in later.
The truth is I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. It was too raw, too close to what I’d experienced with Drew, and I just couldn’t revisit it yesterday. I planned to call her tonight, but I needed a day to process.
“Spill it,” she says. “All of it.”
I sigh and fill her in. When I’m done, there’s a long pause.
“He called you ‘baby?’” Celena asks finally.
“Twice. The first time was for Drew’s benefit. The second time I think he was just drunk.”
“But he put his hand up your dress after you saw Drew, gyrated against you on the dance floor, spent the night feeling you up, then walked you to your car and kissed the shit out of you?”
I consider, wanting to correct her summary, but I can’t find any real flaws with it. “Yes,” I confirm.
“Gray,” she says, and there’s light reproach in her voice.
“What?” I say defensively.
“The guy wants you.”
I scoff. “No, he doesn’t. He just-”
“Occam’s Razor,” she interrupts.
“Excuse me?”
“Before you twist yourself in knots to give me a convoluted explanation that dismisses everything Ash did Saturday night, I just want to remind you of Occam’s Razor, which says…” She trails off, inviting me to fill in the blank.
“The simplest explanation of something is the most likely,” I supply.
“And the simplest explanation in this case is what?” she presses.
“That Ash wants me,” I say with resignation.
“And why don’t you want to believe that?” she asks in frustration.
I wrack my brain for whatever explanation she’s looking for.
“Because you’re afraid of being hurt again,” she says a few seconds later when I come up short.
“Right,” I say doubtfully. Occam’s Razor aside, I’m not convinced the simplest explanation is that Ash wants me.
“Gray, I can hear you overthinking this,” Celena accuses.
“I should call Ash,” I say as an excuse to end the conversation. “He left me two messages.”
“You haven’t called him back yet? Yes, call him, find out what’s going on, then call me back right away.”
“I will,” I lie, then hang up.
I pull up the two voicemails from Ash and listen to the first. Hearing his voice helps calm me. He doesn’t sound upset, and I dare to hope things haven’t gone to complete shit.
“Hey there,” he says in the first message. “Thanks for coming out the other night. I hope you had a good time. I wasn’t sure if I should bother you yesterday or not, so I didn’t call or text. Anyway, not sure if you saw the news but, uh…someone apparently took a video of us dancing.”
God dammit. There’s a fucking video? The pic Melinda showed me must have been a still from it.
“Anyway,” the message continues, “it’s nothing to worry about. Just give me a call when you get a chance.”
Nothing to worry about. Right.
I click on the second voicemail. It’s shorter but more concerning.
“Hey, it’s Ash again. I just got called in to see Kaladin. I’m on my way there now. I’ll let you know what he says after we meet.”
That’s why he wasn’t picking up. He’s already in with Mr. Kaladin.
I put my phone down and rest my head in my hands with my elbows on the desk. Patience is not one of my virtues, nor is trusting my future in someone else’s hands. It will be absolute agony until I hear from Ash.
I’m not a religious person, but I start praying I haven’t completely screwed everything up.