Chapter Twenty-One
Ashish
My right arm is completely numb and I have no intention of doing anything about it. Somehow, I’m still in Bernie’s apartment, holding her while she sleeps next to me on the couch. Despite her edict that we were ‘just friends,’ she’s laid down with me after dinner.
“Do friends cuddle?” she asked shyly, and I tried to keep a straight face as I propped a pillow under my head and opened my arms.
“Of course, they do,” I assured her, not sure why we were playing this game.
She made me boxed macaroni and cheese with peas and I ate every single mediocre bite of it. I knew she’d seen the cake when she got the drinks, but she didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to push her. I don’t know what made her knock on my door, but I wasn’t going to question it. I was here . And this certainly felt like progress.
I have no idea what time it is. Amber light is filtering in from the street, and I let my eyes roam over the dark prints on her wall. They’re like pieces of the Bernadette puzzle. Some pieces are happy splashes of color while others are dark and complex; such a good reflection of the woman I’m coming to know.
I run my hand up her back, savoring the closeness. If I had known everything was going to blow up in my face, I don’t think I would have fallen asleep that night in the hotel. I would have touched her more, fucked her more. Done whatever I could to imprint myself on her so she would feel the same pull.
I grasp the end of her braid and work the tie off, slowly unraveling the hair with my fingers until it lays in a curtain across my arm. Bernie nuzzles her face into my chest and I hug her to me.
She’s giving me a second chance.
I want to be with Bernadette Murphy. There’s something about this woman that makes me pay attention. Makes me think about what’s next in a way that has nothing to do with work. But I also haven’t been completely honest with her. She doesn’t know that I knew who she was before I approached her at the bar. That her work was part of why I was here in the first place. I don’t know what happened with her ex, but he messed her up and I’m worried she won’t be able to see that the things I’ve done were just out of admiration.
I look back at the prints on her wall, trying to relax into the couch cushions. I could fall in love with Bernadette Murphy. Hell, I’m probably already there. My eyes drift closed, and I run my fingers through her silky hair. Savoring every moment of it.
***
The softest sweep of skin along my collarbone wakes me. I think I’m too old to sleep on a couch. My back is telling me we didn’t move and I shift restlessly, trying to relieve the pressure in my hips. Bernie’s leg slides between mine, and then there’s another skim of fingers on my skin.
“Morning,” I whisper, keeping my eyes closed.
“When did we fall asleep?” she asks, tracing the collar of my shirt. I want her to slide her hand under my fabric and touch my chest. I shift slightly trying to avoid pressing my dick into her stomach.
“After Mexico week.”
Bernie snorts. “That was a shit show. Do British people really say guacamole like that?”
“Mexican food isn’t as abundant there as in the US.”
“But the ponchos?”
“The ponchos were bad,” I agree, sliding my hand down her back, testing. When she doesn’t say anything, I slide my fingers under the edge of her shirt so I can press my hand against her skin.
“Hmm,” she says, scooting a little closer to me, her nose replacing her fingers at my throat. This close, it’s impossible to angle my hips away. I slide my hand up her spine, digging my fingers under the strap of her bra.
“Thanks for asking me to come over,” I say, spreading my fingers. I touch the curves of her shoulder blades.
“Of course,” she whispers. “I want to be a good friend to you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the best of friends.”
Everything in me stills when I feel her lips brush my neck. “I see.” I grit my teeth when she rocks her hips forward, coming into full contact with my dick. She trails hot open mouth kisses on my neck, and I push her chest into me with my fingertips. Bernie hums against my ear before sucking the lobe into her mouth, her leg sliding from between mine to hook over my hip. Pressure from her inner thigh urges me to scoot to the center of the couch so she can straddle me.
I groan when she grinds down, kissing along my jaw to my lips. Cupping her ass, I rock her against me when she finally takes my mouth.
“I want you.” The breathy quality of her voice steals my own as she pushes against my chest to sit up. I slip my hand under her shirt to cup her through her thin sports bra, pinching her nipple. All I want to do is drag off her clothes, sink into her wet heat, and lose myself. Show her with every thrust of my body that we belong to each other. I run my fingers along her inner thigh, slipping my hand under the hem of her shorts until I hook a finger under her panties.
“Yes,” she moans, making room for my hand. I slide a finger into her slippery heat, grinding the heel of my palm into her clit. Gripping her shirt, I tug her back down to me; I want her mouth when I touch her. She whimpers, riding my finger and attacking my lips.
“Bernie.” I bite her lip before lying back. She’s fucking beautiful, flushed, and mussed from sleep. Her wild curls are hanging over her shoulders and down her back.
“I need you, Ash,” she pants, picking up the pace of her hips. I can feel her pulling at my finger, her body wanting more.
“Bernie,” I repeat desperately. God, I want her. I want her so fucking bad that my dick aches. But I don’t want to fuck her unless she’s mine . I don’t want possibilities anymore; I want a promise.
I brush my lips against hers before slowly withdrawing my hand from her shorts. She clasps my wrist, trying to hold me to her, and I stretch my hand out, cupping her.
“Why?” she pants.
“Because I don’t fuck my friends, sunshine. I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be your everything. I want all of you.” I slide my hand out of her shorts and sit up, wrapping my arms around her. I graze my nose against hers. I love how it’s a little long and that she has a soft slope on the bridge.
“What if I just want to be friends?” she says slowly, brushing down her shorts so they lay flat on her thigh.
“If you just want to be friends, then I’ll do my best, but I’ll need some boundaries.”
“No cuddles?” she asks.
I shake my head slowly, rubbing the tips of our noses together. “No cuddles.”
“Why?” Her eyes search mine. I’m a little surprised she doesn’t look hurt. Her eyes are solemn, and I know she’s taking this seriously.
“Because I want to be with you, Bernie.”
She scrunches her nose imperceptibly. “But why ? Why me?”
Her question makes my chest tight. How could she be blind to how wonderful she is? If there was ever a moment to come clean it’s this one. “Can I tell you something?”
Her eyes search mine before she nods.
I cup her shoulders from behind, hugging her into my chest. “Let me finish okay? Don’t freak out.”
“Okay,” she whispers, sliding her hands over my shoulders to stroke my hair.
“Promise?”
“You’re kind of freaking me out now.”
I bite my lip, thinking about how to start. “I knew who you were when I approached you at the bar.”
Her body stiffens. but she doesn’t try to jerk out of my arms.
I take a deep breath. “Two years ago, do you remember participating in a panel for emerging scholars? At the same conference?”
“Yes…”
“I went to the panel. And you were—you were brilliant, Bernie. You challenged the moderator and pushed back with your colleagues. You gave detailed examples and perfectly explained what I was trying to figure out since I’d been stuck at home. Firms and universities don’t work together, we work against each other, each of us creating something without feedback from the other. Our design is broken.”
“Okay…I don’t understand,” she says cautiously.
I take a deep breath and push my face into her neck. “Your work inspired me to write this grant and I…I may have picked West Lafayette as one of the sites because I wanted to meet you.” I don’t add that I picked Seattle State as well. Honestly, it was a little complicated. I don’t want to look like a complete fucking stalker.
“I was in a relationship when I did that panel,” she says quietly. The reminder that she loved someone else is not what I want to hear.
“I didn’t know.”
“How would you?”
“I looked for you on social media, but there wasn’t anything personal. Hell, we’re even connected on LinkedIn.”
“So, you came up to me at the bar because you recognized me?”
I consider her words. I don’t want to come off as a stalker, but I need her to know. “Yes, it was like fate.” I squeeze her. “I had just given the keynote you missed and was so fucking disappointed because I didn’t see you in the audience. I thought I would have to wait until I came here to meet you. I was meeting Ravi for drinks to tell him about it, and then there you were. Like fate delivered you to me. I didn’t want to freak you out, but then we started talking, and suddenly our similarities felt more like strikes against me versus things in common.”
“That’s crazy, Ash.” Her hands tighten in my hair.
“You know, when we were younger, my dad would tell my brother and I that when he saw my mom, he just knew. He knew he had to know her.”
Her body stiffens. “Oh?”
I rub my palm down her back. “Yeah, my dad had gone to the university to visit one of his professors. He’d graduated the year before. He said he saw my mom from a distance and just knew. He followed her around all day. She’d been in the UK for nine months and was leaving in a few weeks. He didn’t even hesitate to get a job in the US so he could follow her. They got married a couple of months later, right before she started her PhD.”
“Okay, are you saying…”
“I’m not saying it’s love at first sight, but I believe in fate. I believe I was supposed to meet you then instead of in August. Even with how complicated everything got.” I’m not sure if I totally believe my words, but Bernie sighs against me, relaxing deeper into my arms. She’s not ready to hear how I feel.
“That must have been nice, growing up with that story.”
I remember the little about her own parent's history she shared with me, and I can admit it had been nice. I never doubted my parent’s love for one another. If my mom was the load-bearing structure of our family, their love was every single joining material.
“It was—it is.”
“My parents got divorced when I was little. I don’t really know my dad.”
I nod, running my hands down her back, and spreading my fingers over her ribcage. I can feel her heart beating, slow and steady.
“I guess it’s not a surprise that I’m single.”
“I’m sorry you got hurt.” But I’m not sorry she’s here with me. I keep that bit to myself.
“It was a secret, you know. My relationship. So, when it fell apart, it felt like I couldn’t really talk to anyone but my mom and Pru.”
I tense under her. What the fuck does she mean by a secret? “What do you mean a secret?”
“You know my ex is someone I worked with, right?” she whispers. “I met him when I was collecting data for my dissertation because the university provided me with data. And then we started seeing each other after I started my postdoc. It wasn’t serious; he was older and it was kind of exciting. I guess I was flattered that someone so successful and handsome was interested in me. But then COVID happened and everything was being shut down. Everyone was so scared. And he wanted me to move in with him so we could be together. Remember it was more serious in Washington than other states at first because of the cruise ships?”
She shifts like she’s going to move away, so I tighten my arms. “Yeah,” I prod.
Bernie clears her throat but her voice stays strained when she continues. “So, I moved in. And suddenly someone I had been dating casually was someone I was living with. And it, God Ash, I don’t know how it happened, but it went from this exciting thing that was kind of breaking the rules to my whole fucking life being controlled.”
None of what she said is making sense. “I don’t understand,” I admit. I know a lot of people that made rash decisions during the pandemic but I’m not quite following. Is she saying he was abusive?
A watery sigh escapes her. “So, umm, we worked together, but he was—you know older, above me at the university. And it probably would have looked bad that we were in a relationship because he was supervising my research and in a leadership position. So, he told me we just needed to wait until I was done with my postdoc. But it…it didn’t really work out that way, and things got really complicated with my job.”
I try to hold my body still, my mind racing.
What the fuck .
“Wait, so he was your boss? In your postdoc?” I ask, trying to keep my tone even and supportive, but I am freaking the fuck out. I know people get together at work and the whole teacher/professor thing sounds kind of hot in theory, but the power of a supervisor in academia is immense. There’s a reason why people joke that professors have a god complex.
When you’re getting your degree, the chair of your committee, your supervisor, owns you. Everything you do during and after graduation is linked to them, and I’ve seen some people abuse those powers.
The problem is everything is so specialized that if they’re a big deal, they could blacklist you. Something like what Bernie does probably has a couple of hundred people max who study it and maybe fifty people who are considered experts and work at highly-ranked research universities. Those people tend to clump together, so there are maybe ten schools that she would look to get hired at. I slowly ease my chest away from her so I can see her face, a growing sense of worry building in my chest.
She wipes away tears with the back of her hand, sniffling.
“I know, it’s so bad. And there’s more, but–”
“Were you forced?” I ask through gritted teeth, my control slipping. Is she saying she was coerced? I’ve heard about all kinds of crazy shit like that happening in academia through my mom.
“No, no, look, the relationship was consensual.”
But was it? I think about how hard it was to tell my research supervisor no. More tears escape, and I wipe them away with my fingers.
“But, umm, isn’t that against your university’s policy? To date someone you supervise? Especially a postdoc, I–”
Bernie’s face crumbles and I stop talking. I can’t fix this, it’s already happened, so I need to shut up.
“That’s why it was a secret,” she whispers, looking so damn ashamed. And I have a sinking feeling that I know exactly who her boss was. And that she has no idea we’re connected.
I hug her back to my chest. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“Me too.”
“What happened with your job?”
“He wanted something I had and he took it. It’s–it’s really complicated, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. I promise I didn’t try to trick you or mess with you when I approached you at the conference. I just wanted to get to know you, and then I was near you and I was so attracted to you. I made some poor choices, Bernie. But I promise, everything else aside, I want you for you. I’m loving getting to know you.”
She wipes her face again. “I liked you too, and I like spending time with you, but I am a fucking mess, Ash. I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
“I’m into you, Bernie. You inspired me to do different things in my job. I think you’re brilliant and sexy and smart. I don’t care that you’re a mess. I like it, puking on the side of the road and all.”
She laughs and places her hands on my shoulders. “Okay.”
I brace myself because it sounds like a big but is coming. I don’t want it. I want her to throw herself in my arms and say she’s in.
“But, I–I’m really scared to date someone I work with. You’re a consultant, but everything is at risk for me. I’ve already lost so many opportunities, and I’m scared that if we do this and it goes south, I’m the one that’s going to get hurt again. Because at the end of the day, I’m disposable.” The hope that had started to unfurl in my chest gets smaller as she squeezes my shoulders. “Are you okay if I think about it?”
I guess it’s not a no. I nod before kissing her cheek.
“Okay, good.” She starts to wiggle off of me. “I’m sorry, but I really have to pee.” She flushes when I laugh. “Umm, do you want to hang out today? Or do you need space to think?” She shifts off me to stand beside the couch.
“I can hang out. I’m going to go to my apartment and shower, then I can come back and we can get breakfast?”
Her eyebrows raise, and the right side of her mouth tips up. I don’t know why she’s surprised. I feel like I just got invited for the job interview of my life and I am going to nail it because we are absolutely worth the risk.
I know it.