Page 39

Six Weeks Later

“You were great,” Felicity said as she approached the podium after the lecture.

“Yeah? Not bad?”

“No, it was great. Really,” she added.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show. It’s a drive for you.”

“Three hours.” Felicity shrugged. “And I just got a hotel room for the night so that I wouldn’t have to drive back.”

“Yeah? Want to grab a drink, then?”

Felicity looked concerned then and replied, “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Well, your wife hates me, and I’m trying to stay on just her bad side and not the evil side. She’s kind of scary sometimes.”

Rosie nodded and said, “It’s okay. She won’t mind.”

“No? She basically stared me out of your kitchen last time.”

“It was just a weird night for her. Long story, but if you want, I have that scotch in my office.”

“Thatscotch? From, like, five years ago?”

“I haven’t opened it.”

“You said you wanted to save it for a special occasion.”

“Thisisa special occasion. You’re in town.”

Felicity smiled at her and tilted her head a bit. Rosie remembered that head tilt from their time working together years ago. Felicity used to tilt her head whenever she was confused or wondering about something. For a second, Rosie wondered what Felicity was wondering about now, but then she realized that she probably already knew.

“Yeah, okay. One drink, though. I’m driving tomorrow, and I’m guessing that stuff is strong.”

Rosie grabbed her stuff, said goodbye to a few students who had approached to thank her for the lecture, and then they walked up the middle aisle of the auditorium and out the doors. Through the lobby and down the main stairs, they landed on the sidewalk and walked around the main quad on campus, where Rosie had her office.

“It’s nice. Bigger than I thought it would be,” Felicity noted when they walked inside.

“They were trying to woo me,” she explainedand closed the door behind Felicity. “Oh… One second. I forgot–”

Rosie hadn’t planned on inviting Felicity to her office that night. In fact, she hadn’t planned on seeing her at all. Felicity had messaged a few days earlier that she was going to try to make it but wasn’t sure if she could. If she couldn’t, she’d attend another lecture in the seminar. As a result, Rosie hadn’t spent any time cleaning her office, and it needed to be cleaned because the sofa had a blanket and pillow on it, and there were two bags in the corner of the large room, not to mention the toiletries in the attached bathroom.

“Yeah, it’s not bad. This used to be the dean of the department’s office. When he left, they just combined two departments instead of replacing him, so this office would have been up for grabs, but they wanted me here a lot, so they offered it to me instead.” Rosie bunched up the blanket. “And I didn’t have office hours today, so I haven’t–”

“Rosie, what’s going on?” Felicity asked her as Rosie tossed the blanket and the pillow onto one of the two guest chairs in front of her massive wooden desk.

“I take naps,” she lied. “Before the seminars, I take naps.”

“And you need your suitcases for that, too?” Felicity pointed to the two roller bags in the corner.

“No, I–” Rosie paused for a second. “I’m going away for the weekend.”

“With two-roller-bags worth of stuff and some weird metal case thing? Didn’t I see that under your bunk on the ship?” Felicity moved into the office more and walked over to the metal case.

“Ami is at the house,” she said, deciding to be honest. “And I should’ve gotten a hotel, but this office comes with a bathroom, and there’s actually a shower in there that’s bigger than the ones we have on ships, so I’ve delayed the hotel.” She moved to the small cabinet off to the side of the desk and bent down to open it.