Epilogue
Four Months Later
The sign on Hazel’s office door was flipped to CLOSED. Beside it, a schedule clearly listed her available hours, which Ash knew was exactly the allotment she was required to offer and not a minute more. She didn’t see students on Fridays at all because that was the day she conducted interviews at the women’s prison for Dr. Tate’s lab. “Boundaries” was a new mantra for them both these days.
He rapped one knuckle against the door, nudging it open so he could see her, face bent over a book, loose curls freed from her usual bun and tumbling down over one shoulder. She’d expanded her wardrobe to include this new gray vest she liked to wear over a white button-down. He wasn’t sure why the more buttoned-up she was, the hotter he found it, but the effect was undeniable.
“My office hours are over,” she murmured, head still bent.
“Please? It’s important.”
He’d caught the twist of her lips, an irritated tic at the interruption, before she recognized his voice. When she looked up, though, her face was deliberately impassive, playing along. “Is it, though? Let’s hear it.”
He bit his own smile back. Which way to play this? He wanted to know what she was wearing under that desk, but a quick scan of the book in her hands and the others stacked beside her sent him in a different direction. “Piaget,” he said.
One eyebrow arched up. “You have a question about Jean Piaget?”
“More of a comment than a question.”
He nearly got a laugh, but she schooled her face. “Go on.”
“I find his work on developmental stages fascinating. The concept of schemas. Assimilation. Equilibration.” He was just saying terms he’d seen on student papers she’d been grading this week, but he could tell from the tilt of her face she was mildly impressed he recalled them. “The Zone of Proximal Development.”
She tsked. “So close. That one’s Lev Vygotsky.”
“Gesundheit.”
This finally broke her, and she laughed, shaking her head at him. “What are you doing here, Asher?”
“Had to meet with my new advisor about summer classes. Thought I’d walk you out, steal you for a study date.”
“I can’t go to your apartment,” she said reluctantly. “We don’t get any work done there.”
He couldn’t help his wolfish grin, and she rolled her eyes.
This might have been a good time for the question he was intending to ask her tonight—if she had a plan for when the lease at her place ended soon, if she would officially move in with him. He would have asked her weeks ago, but it seemed too soon. Not that it felt too soon. It felt like he’d been waiting for Hazel for years, not mere months. But he had a plan. It was best to stick to the plan.
“Luckily for you, I meant the café, although we are going to my place after.”
“You’re very sure of yourself.”
“Optimistic,” he corrected.
“Haven’t you been at the café all afternoon?”
“Yes. But I know you have work to finish today, and I’m going to require your undivided attention later.”
“More optimism?” she teased.
“Always.”
She packed up her books and papers. He let his eyes drift down to see she’d chosen the wraparound skirt today, the one that looked like it would unwind with a simple tug. A solid choice. She was saying something about her dad, and he forced his brain back online. “He’s at the station this evening, so I need to call him early.”
Ash checked his watch. “You can call while we walk.”
“You sure?”
He motioned for her to go ahead and moved her bag from her shoulder to his own.
“Oh, and I sent you the hotel information for August,” she said.
As they walked leisurely to the parking lot and Hazel gushed about her research to her dad, Ash found an email with their hotel reservation on his phone. They were going to her old friend Franny’s wedding in August—another road trip, this one to Oklahoma City and hopefully less eventful, though if a hailstorm or tornado made them stop another night somewhere, he wouldn’t complain.
Sorry, she mouthed a few minutes later, phone still pressed to her ear, when he opened the passenger door to his Altima for her. He waved her off. He was glad she was sticking to their weekly call, that she and Dan seemed to be making progress.
As Ash rounded the car to the driver’s side, he passed by the custom sticker Hazel had snuck onto the back bumper that said I VIBE TO PSYCHEDELIC SPACE TRANCE. “For old times’ sake,” she’d reasoned.
It wasn’t really like old times, though, and he was glad. Now, she rode in the front seat beside him. Now, he got to hold her hand, trace lazy designs on her thigh, lean over to kiss her at red lights. He got to hear all about her day.
Over the past four months, she’d gotten so comfortable in his car, he had her black hair ties in the cup holder, one of her reusable water bottles rolling around on the passenger floorboard, a sweatshirt—one of his own that she’d claimed—in his back seat, and a poster she’d made to cheer him on in the intramural softball league he’d joined. Though he usually kept his car pretty neat, even when his car had been such a clunker, her mess, the way she just sprawled through his space like she belonged there, didn’t bother him at all.
It’d be nice to have her belongings strewn about his place—their place—too.
She hung up as he pulled into the café parking lot.
Jade was on shift tonight. She was helping a customer, so they bypassed the counter and headed straight for Hazel’s chair. He’d swapped the table with one of the larger ones, the rickety wooden chair with a sturdier one, and now they could both sit there comfortably. Sometimes he kicked himself for not making those changes sooner, sharing the space with her last semester, but he couldn’t regret the way anything had worked out.
Per their deal, she still got the chair for the rest of the semester, but they both knew it was hers forever at this point. In fact, he was just glad he’d managed to keep it under wraps that the chair was terrible for his back. His only real interest in it had ever been about flirting with her.
“Everything good with your dad?”
“Apparently, he’s joined TikTok,” Hazel said, pulling her laptop from her bag. “He asked me what a thirst trap is, so honestly, I’m glad I can farm some things out to Lucy.”
Cami meandered over with a carafe. “When did you two get here?”
“Just now,” he said. He looked to the counter, where Jade’s customer was leaving. He rose, but Cami pushed his shoulder back down.
“Stay. I’ll get your drinks.”
Ash drummed his fingers on the table. He was nervous. He shouldn’t be. Hazel already basically lived with him. But it wasn’t nothing, asking her. She was better about talking through what scared her, letting him be on the same side with her instead of shutting him out, but this was still big.
Hazel slid one palm over his tapping fingers. She squeezed his hand, glanced over her laptop with an amused grin, and went back to her work.
With a steadying breath, he pulled out his own laptop, doing his best to put the little wooden box inside his messenger bag out of his mind. He would wait until she didn’t need to focus on her work, and then he’d ask her, and everything would be fine.
Two mugs clunked down on the table. They thanked Cami, each of them distracted, until Hazel drew hers up to her mouth and huffed in mock exasperation. The mugs were the sickeningly cutesy pair with the brushstroke lettering that said Wifey and Hubby. “Still hilarious,” she called to Cami’s retreating back.
Cami pulled this little joke every few weeks. To be honest, it didn’t bother Ash. In fact, he probably liked it—the idea of marrying Hazel someday—a little too much.
Hazel set the mug down next to his and caught his eye for a long, loaded moment before pink washed over her cheeks. She glanced away.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Her fingers tapped lightly across her keyboard, not actually typing, though her eyes were laser focused on her screen. She did this when she was looking for the right words, this erratic non-typing. He assumed she’d leave it at that, but she closed her laptop and fixed him with an intense stare. “Actually, not nothing.”
Ash’s heart rate spiked. Did she know he was thinking of some way-distant, though maybe not that distant, future when he asked her to marry him? Christ, he was nervous enough as it was, carrying around a box containing an apartment key. He’d probably develop an ulcer with a ring in there.
She tucked her hair nervously behind her ear. Then, she lifted her chin confidently, looked him straight in the eyes, and said, “I want to move in with you when my lease is up.”
His insides swooped. Was this what zero gravity felt like? What fucking swooning felt like? He needed a damn fainting couch. “Haze,” he said with a slightly agonized groan. For all his nerves, he’d wanted to ask her. He’d planned it all out.
“Oh. Is that a no?” She shook her head quickly, waved a hand in the air as if to wipe away what she’d said. “Never mind. It’s stupid. It’s too soon. It’s crazy.”
“No,” he said firmly, reaching for his bag and the box inside it. “Don’t take it back. Just—”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks, embarrassed. “It’s fine. It’s fine.”
He set the box on the table between them. “Why don’t you just open that?”
She eyed him warily as she held the box close to her chest. “Why do you have a box?”
He laughed again. “Don’t panic. It’s not a ring.”
It wasn’t as small as a ring box, and if she’d given it the tiniest shake, she would have heard the key sliding around. She carefully lifted the top and peeked inside. A little frown. She was confused. Then, she turned it on its side and dumped the contents into her palm. The key was connected to a miniature green wingback chair, identical to the one she was sitting in.
“I wanted to wait until you were finished working, but you beat me to it.”
“It’s my chair.”
“And a key,” he said, turning it over in her palm. “Just in case you missed that part. I’m asking you to move in with me.”
She blinked across the table, eyes shining. She gave a little shrug that turned into a vigorous nod. “You were right to be optimistic earlier.”
“About what?”
She began packing up her things, pausing only to gesture impatiently for him to do the same.
“You barely got any work done,” he pointed out.
She stood and pulled him up out of his chair, planted a firm kiss to his mouth. “I’m ready to give you my undivided attention. At home.”
“At home,” he repeated, a slow smile tugging at his lips. “So…that’s a yes?”
“Technically, I asked you first.”
“Technically, you didn’t ask. You declared.”
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s a yes,” he said, pulling her back for another kiss.
Hazel’s mouth, soft and electric, dragged to the shell of his ear, and she whispered, “Then take me home.”