Chapter 5
Present Day
I open the door to Old Main, and a whoosh of icy air-conditioning blasts me in the face.
Goose bumps and nostalgia skitter across my skin.
I close my eyes with my hand still on the open door, fighting the wave of nausea that swells in my throat.
It’s the first weekend in March, and half the country is under a freeze warning, but not Tucson.
Almost never Tucson. The high is eighty degrees today, and it’s during months like this, when New York is still sludgy and gray, that I miss the desert.
“Are you okay?”
I startle out of my homesickness for a place that was never really home and land back in the small administrative lobby, where a young woman is sitting behind a wooden reception desk littered with campus maps and conference schedules.
While she stares at me over the top of her phone, with AirPods in both ears and a please-don’t-talk-to-me expression on her face, the anger simmering in the pit of my stomach slowly eases.
In its place, uncertainty curls around my ribs.
Now that I’m here, I’m not sure what to do.
I waver in the doorway, torn between the cool, quiet lobby and the warm, bustling festival.
In the end, it’s not a choice. I can’t turn around and walk back down the Old Main steps, not when West might still be lurking, waiting to tell me how lucky I am because my mindless fans will read whatever drivel I put on paper.
I clear my throat as I approach the table. “Hi! I’m Mars, and I’m hoping to speak with the director of the conference.”
She blinks at me. “I don’t even know who that is.”
Not a surprise, but I’ve never been one to give up so easily. “Is there anyone you can put me in contact with?”
“I can give you a parking map.”
I crane my neck to see down the hall behind her. “Is there anyone in charge here?”
Her eyes travel over my shoulder, and somehow, I just know.
“No one told me the Karen Convention is in town.” West’s deadpan voice scrapes my spine like gravel as his shadow falls over the tile floor.
“I need to report a stalker,” I say as blandly as possible.
His answering scoff sounds equal parts amused and annoyed. “She’s kidding.”
“She’s not.” I glare at him as he strides smoothly toward me. All my senses perk up at West’s sudden nearness, and it sends me into a nearly unbearable state of fight-or-flight. I shuffle back. “Why are you here?”
He stops next to me—balanced on the line between close and too close—and reaches around me to pick up a conference schedule.
Determined not to give him the satisfaction of my attention, I look down at the brown commercial carpeting.
Straight ahead at the wood trim around the baseboards and doors.
Up toward the recessed lighting in the ceiling.
My hand clenches, fingernails leaving crescent moons in my skin.
His fingers drum a rhythm against his thigh as his eyes rove over the schedule, and it’s a trait so shockingly familiar that I can’t help but look.
West’s eyebrow ticks up. “Okay, I have to know what Crock-Pot Romance is. Starts in ten minutes. Want to go?” He flashes a smile that gives shades of Fox the fae king.
Teasing and irresistible. I hate him for it.
I straighten my spine and turn toward the reception desk. “This is urgent,” I tell the helpless undergrad. “I’m a presenting author, and there’s an issue with the schedule—”
“It’s me. I’m the issue.” West extends his hand across the table, and the girl’s eyes widen as she shakes it.
“No, he’s not.”
West angles his body and dips his head so that I have no choice but to make eye contact. “This isn’t about a pretentious asshole being added to your keynote?” he asks with the mildest interest. He might as well be asking about my car’s long-term warranty.
I roll my eyes. “Not everything is about you.”
“But some things explicitly are.” He nods to the girl behind the table. “Ever heard of Fox Caldwell?”
I haven’t heard him say that name in years, and it sets off a red alarm in me that triggers all my nerve endings. It feels like pins and needles, with heat prickling at the back of my neck and pressure building behind my eyes.
“Mars Darling?” A voice booms across the lobby, saving me from certain mortification.
“Dr. B!” I can’t help but smile at the man walking down the hall.
I hurry to meet him, impatient to shrug off the specter of West. My old professor must be in his seventies now, but from the long gray ponytail that hangs down his back to his cargo shorts to the socks-and-Birks combo on his feet, he looks exactly the same as he did when I was a freshman. “How are you?”
“Better now that my star pupil is here!” he says as he tucks a stack of file folders under his arm.
I know West can hear us from the lobby, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Did I ever tell you that you’re my favorite professor?”
“Don’t say that unless you’re here to fulfill the promise you made when you were my student.” He must see the confusion on my face, because he raises his hand and says, “ ‘I promise that when I’m a published author, I will come talk to Dr. B’s class—’ ”
“ ‘For free,’ ” we both finish at the same time. I laugh, now remembering vividly how Dr. B would extract that same promise from every student who sat in his upper-division courses.
“I’m leaving early Monday morning,” I say with real regret.
“Next time.” He waves it off. “Walk with me? I have a few minutes before I have to run.” He nods down the hall, and I can’t help but turn my eyes to West, who is scowling darkly at the desk of maps and schedules, riffling through them as if his life depends on locating the Second Street garage.
“I’d love to,” I tell Dr. B, throwing a smirk over my shoulder at West.
He clears his throat intentionally, drawing the professor’s attention.
Dr. B does a double take before his eyes light with recognition and a healthy dose of delight.
“West Emerson?” He walks down the hall and rounds the desk to clap West on the shoulder.
“Apologies, I was blinded by our celebrity here, but I should have known that where Mars is, you wouldn’t be far behind!
My two star pupils!” He motions for West to join us.
He falls into step on the other side of Dr. B and returns my gloating smile with one of his own.
“I owe you an email, Mr. Emerson,” Dr. B says. “I found your novel quite moving. In fact—”
“We don’t have to talk about it.” West pinches the bridge of his nose, giving the distinct impression that he regrets drawing attention to himself.
“Ah. Some things never change,” Dr. B says.
I snort, and West glares daggers at his feet as Dr. B turns his attention to me.
“And you, Mars.” I straighten my spine instinctively.
“You wouldn’t believe how proud I am of you,” he says with such sincerity that my stomach drops.
“I claim credit for your success in all of my classes,” he adds with a wink.
“Is the world ready for another Mars Darling adventure?”
I cringe under the pressure of his praise. “Not sure I’m ready, to be honest.”
He hums thoughtfully. “Some things do change. Is your new book another sequel?”
“No, thank god.” One of my favorite things about Shattered is that it takes place in a completely separate universe from my Fox Caldwell series. It’s as free from West’s inspiration as anything I’ve written in more than a decade.
Dr. B pulls open the door to an empty office and drops his stack of folders on the corner of the desk. “I have a meeting in a few minutes, but you both know where to find me. And really, Mars. I’m glad you’re back. I’ll be in the audience on Sunday if you need a friendly face.”
It takes everything in me to force a miserable smile.
“I’ll be there, too,” West tells him.
“In the audience?”
West nods his head at me. “On the stage. With Mars.”
“Nothing’s finalized yet,” I say quickly.
“Interesting.” Dr. B’s eyes flit between us. “It’s with sincere regret that I don’t have more time.”
Back in the hall, West glances at me as I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth; it’s a trick I’ve learned to stem the tears.
“You keep in touch?” I ask, half as a distraction from the tears building in the corners of my eyes and half in accusation. It would be unfair and, yes, immature to ask Dr. B to choose sides, but it stings that he didn’t choose mine.
“A little.” West shrugs uneasily.
Please withdraw. The plea sits too close to the edge of my lips, but I quickly swallow it down, hating the implied vulnerability in the request.
West follows as I retrace our steps to the lobby, and I can tell by the way he runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek that he wants to say something. My phone saves me from having to listen. He’ll have to inflict his unwelcome presence on someone else.
I close the door in his face as I step outside and answer the call.
“Hi, Amina. Sorry I snapped at you earlier,” I say as I lean against sun-drenched brick.
The warmth seeps into my shoulder blades and slows my heart rate.
I pinch the bridge of my nose for half a second before I realize it’s a West mannerism and drop my hand.
“No, no, no, not at all. Please don’t worry about it,” Amina says a little too quickly, and I feel a sense of guilt for once again being a “difficult” author. I’ve dug in my heels with my publishing team before, and I’m still paying for it. And just like last time, this is all West’s fault.
“People won’t want to see me with him.”
“I’m working on it,” she assures me.
“Thank you.” I take a deep breath. “I appreciate you trying, especially on a Friday afternoon.”
“I’ll keep at it,” she assures me. “And you absolutely do not have to do this event if you don’t feel comfortable. Say the word and I can pull you out of any of your scheduled appearances.”
The door swings open, and West ducks outside, pushing his curls off his forehead. I wonder what it would feel like to run my hand across the stubble on his jaw, which is an insane thought I should not have. The scent of orange blossoms is screwing with my brain.
He hesitates under the brick archway, and for an agonizing moment, I think he’s going to stay.
I imagine he’ll lean against the bricks and cross his legs at the ankles, arms folded over his broad chest as he pins me with a heavy stare.
He catches me watching him, and as we blink at each other in silence, I admit that I’ve never been able to predict his moves as well as I thought.
“Mars?” Amina’s voice carries through the phone. “Do you want to think about canceling and get back to me?”
“No,” I tell her quickly, the weight of West’s gaze hot on my face. I force myself to hold his eye contact even though it makes me feel like my skin is stretched too tight over my bones, paper-thin and ready to crack. “He’s the one who needs to drop out. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
His jaw clenches as his features turn to stone. Nothing about West is soft these days, and the way he looks at me is sharp enough to draw blood. He brushes past me and jogs down the stairs.
“Likewise, Darling.” His words carry over his shoulder, bruising me between the ribs.