Chapter 1 #2
When Colton Miller’s tall, lean figure slips in and closes the door, my whole body relaxes, like he’s an even more effective form of Valium.
Okay, so not every professor is the enemy.
When my other best friend was offered a tenure-track position at Billings a year ago, I was torn.
The idea of having him close again made my heart soar, but I was worried that the culture on campus would poison our friendship.
But like with everything else in his life, Colton refuses to be cowed, rolling his eyes whenever I tell him to meet me off campus for coffee or fixing his signature scowl on his face when I try to push him behind a bush to hide from a professor walking toward us.
I’m not going to sacrifice nearly a decade and a half of friendship because they all have sticks up their asses.
It’s been magical having him back with me this year.
Then came the request for him to join the Rome program.
Yes, not one, but both of my closest friends are going on this trip.
I finally got Colton back after a decade of him traveling between Rome and Chicago, getting his PhD and becoming Roman history’s new golden boy.
I don’t want to surrender him back to his one great love, at least not without me being there, too.
Colton’s never been one to give out his smiles easily, so when he spots us at the front of the auditorium, all we get is a small quirk of his lips.
It’s still bizarre having him on campus after he only existed within my six-inch phone screen for so long. My fingers tingle with the desire to reach out and touch him, to prove to myself he isn’t a figment of my imagination.
“How are you two feeling?” he asks, all somber gravity.
Inez gusts out a breath. “Like I’m gonna be sick.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say, reaching across the podium to squeeze her hand as the two of us seamlessly shift between consoler and consoled.
Inez has terrible anxiety over presentations, which, sadly for her, make up a decent third of the work she does at Billings.
We spent half of grad school coming up with coping mechanisms. It works well when she’s doing low-key pre-departure orientations with a handful of students, but standing up in front of a group that’s rooting for you to fail is a whole other beast.
Colton jerks his head toward me. “And how are you feeling?”
“Like you aren’t supposed to be here,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and shaking my head at him. “Did I dream that extensive conversation about how you should stay away so people don’t think you’re siding with the staff?”
He turns so he’s leaning his side on the podium, facing me fully.
My eyes skim over him without permission.
The past decade has been kind to him. He’s always been cute in a scraggly hair, metal-band-shirts-that-were-too-big sort of way.
But this isn’t the eighteen-year-old Colton Miller I met the first week of freshman year, all sarcasm and scowls to cover his fear of not fitting in at our expensive private college.
This isn’t even twenty-two-year-old Colton, nervous smiles and held-back tears when I dropped him off at the airport, both of us emotional over the fact that we wouldn’t see each other for a full year.
We had no idea that one year would turn into ten.
I watched the changes play out virtually.
The way his shoulders continued to broaden.
The new haircut that showed off his jaw, the lines of his face sharpening until you could cut yourself on them.
The confidence that grew in his eyes as he proved himself again and again.
But it was muted, like looking at a picture of St. Peter’s Basilica so often that you assumed you’d be unaffected in person, only to find yourself bowled over by its grandeur.
I’m sure the impact will wear off eventually—it has to, right?
—but even a year later, seeing him in person hits me like a Mack truck.
My eyes can’t stop clocking all those changes, across his chest and to his forearms, cruelly exposed by his rolled-up sleeves. I rip my gaze away.
Yes, he’s grown up. Doesn’t mean I need to notice it this much.
“I seem to recall a lecture from you,” he says, his head tilting side to side, “but I don’t know if I’d call it a conversation.”
“They’ll see you supporting me and then they’ll hate you and you won’t get tenure and all the hard work you’ve put in will be for nothing and I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hate myself, Colton. You’ve met me. I’m awesome.”
Colton’s been working toward a tenured position with his special brand of tunnel-vision determination since we were nineteen.
Aligning with campus culture is taken into consideration during tenure review, especially at a small institution like Billings, and being the one and only professor to be friends with the staff is definitely going against campus culture here.
His mouth stays stubbornly straight, but the dimple in his left cheek pops the smallest bit, like he’s trained his lips not to smile but can’t wrangle his cheeks under control. “Seems dramatic.”
“It’s really not dramatic,” Inez says with a sigh. “You’ve been here for a full academic year and you haven’t noticed it?”
“I’ve noticed faculty and staff don’t spend time together, but I don’t think it’s as bad as you two make it out to be.”
“What about the way they talk over me in the Rome meetings?” she asks.
Colton winces. “Okay, yeah, I can recognize there’s some…tension. But I still don’t think being friends with a staff member will cause drama.”
“We’ve been over this,” I say. “Billings demands you pick sides! How do you think the Capulets and Montagues would’ve reacted if Romeo and Juliet were chatting in the middle of Verona’s piazza?”
He lifts an eyebrow, one side of his mouth losing the battle against his smile. “Are we star-crossed lovers? Seems I missed a step.”
“You know I mean two people on different sides of a feud. Stop trying to be clever when I’m freaking out!”
I push his shoulder with a laugh, and he grabs my hand, tugging me into his chest. I tense for half a second before letting my head find its home right over his heart, the steady beat settling my own.
Even with my heels boosting me up to a solid five foot five, he dwarfs me as he let his large hand skim up and down my back.
I missed this over the last decade. We had our weekly calls and daily texts, my steady stream of consciousness and his sarcastic commentary of life in Italy.
But I’m an affectionate person by nature, and I’ve always needed physical connection with the people I love.
I missed feeling him, missed his reassuring hand running over my back and those hard forehead kisses when I came up with an idea that inspired him.
And if there’s a distracting new awareness that runs through my limbs from those touches? I’ll stubbornly ignore that.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say into his chest, even though I’m beyond grateful that he is. He’s always been there. The only one I’ve been able to count on.
His chuckle reverberates through my body. “I wasn’t going to miss this.”
I tilt my head to look at him, the minuscule curve of his lips showing he isn’t taking this threat seriously at all. “I’m worried about you, Colt. Associating with me is a risk.”
“Worth it,” he says, that curve growing the smallest amount, and I pinch his side. He yelps and grabs my hands, anchoring them behind his back. “I’ll stay quiet and in the back. If anyone asks, I’m here because I’m a professor in the program and wanted to see what they decide. Deal?”
“Deal.” I bury my head back in his chest. “Thank you for being here.”
“What was that?” he asks, all dry humor.
“I hate you.”
Colton’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he lets go of my hands to fish it out, my own last name flashing across the screen. Both of us tense, and I pull back quickly. He silences the call, slipping the phone back into his pocket.
“Take the call, Colton,” I say, turning away from him. My father won’t appreciate being ignored. At least, he never used to. I may not know him anymore, but men like him don’t change.
I’ve spoken to him a grand total of two times in the past decade, a perfunctory greeting at my brother’s engagement party where we both clearly agreed not to ruin his day, and once that same weekend when I begged him to get us access to the campus dining hall as a favor for a friend who had no idea how much it cost me.
He followed that favor up with a text that just said, The door’s open when you’re done being stubborn.
Of course, his version of “not stubborn” means doing exactly what he demands of me with no consideration for my own feelings.
“I’ll call him back later. Tell him I was in a faculty meeting.”
I nod and busy myself with the notecards I brought for the presentation.
Colton grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. “If this is too hard now that I’m back, I don’t have to work with him.”
I’d never ask him to throw away his career just because my relationship with my family imploded.
My award-winning, internationally respected professor of a father may be an epic asshole, but he’s also the most influential member in Colton’s field and willing to mentor him despite his connection to me.
And now that he’s poured years of public support into Colton, he’d be extra vindictive if Colt cut ties.
I force a smile that Colt immediately sees through, but he lets me have it. “Hell no, let’s make having to deal with his bullshit worth something. Call him back. There’s time before we start.”
He looks into my eyes, trying to suss out if I’m really okay. The truth is I’m not—I’ll never be okay with how everything went down—but I’m not not okay enough to have him commit career suicide.
“Okay,” he finally says. “I’ll make sure to get him off the phone quickly so I’m back in time to heckle you with the other professors.”
I swing my foot at his ass, and he scurries out of the way just in time. “I kind of love you,” I call as he runs up the stairs.
He stops halfway up, turning to me with a broad smile, the one with the dimple that makes my heart feel like it’s grown too big too quickly à la the Grinch. “Kind of? I’m moving in the wrong direction.”
I laugh and turn back to my flashcards. Inez is immediately at my side.
“Can you two just kiss already?” she asks in a low voice, her eyes on Colton, who’s undoubtedly dialing my father as we speak.
I nudge her with my shoulder. “You know we aren’t like that.”
We’ve heard some variation of this for fourteen years, though Inez’s comments have kicked up considerably since he came back to Boston.
No one can seem to accept that we are, and have always been, just friends.
There may have been a blip of attraction now and then on my side, but nothing worth risking our friendship over.
He’s been my person since the first week of college, when I word vomited my enthusiasm all over him and he responded by asking genuine questions instead of making fun of me.
I spent all freshman year waiting for the moment I’d be too much for him, like I’ve been for everyone else, but it never came.
Inez purses her lips and side-eyes me, the embodiment of the Sure, Jan meme.
“Men and women can be friends, you know!” I say.
“I absolutely agree. But not you two.”
I scoff. She can say what she wants, but our friendship is deeper than any romantic relationship I’ve ever seen. Romance fades, even when the relationship is built on a solid foundation of friendship. And when those relationships end, so does the friendship. Who in their right mind would risk it?
“Don’t we have more important things to focus on than your matchmaking attempts?” I ask Inez, fluttering my notecards in front of my face like a fan.
“Ready for this?” she asks, tugging on one of her long, dark brown curls.
“Is no an acceptable answer?” I ask with a laugh.
She wraps her arms around my shoulders, laughing with me. “Not really.”
The door opens again, and this time, a group of much less friendly faces walk through. No more time for second-guessing. It’s showtime.