And it all clicks in his head.
“You could show them and they can dissect my words, and thus our relationship, to the billionth degree without getting suspicious?”
“Oh good, you get it.” Her relief is palpable, her smile easy and her eyes no longer wide and panicked.
Xavier lets out an exasperated breath, but he finds himself grinning back at her. “Yeah, no problem, I can do that. But . . .”
“But?”
“We can’t just do a back and forth right now. It won’t look right. How about this? I’ll text you normally, like I would no matter what, but I’ll add in some extra flavor.”
“Flavor?”
“I don’t know what to call it, but just go with it, okay?”
Then, for a moment, sheer panic takes over her face. “No nudes.”
Xavier clears his throat, not sure whether he should be offended or not. “Not my style.”
Her face immediately crunches up and he thinks he reads embarrassment there. “I . . . Sorry, I just . . . And it’s not that I don’t trust you, but that’s such a bad idea for so many reasons. Not that peopleshouldn’tbe able to share naked pictures of themselves if they want to, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t end up everywhere, even by accident.”
“And besides that,” he says, with a tilt of his head, “I’d never send you anything that you wouldn’t want to see and I’d never ask you to show me something that isn’t for my eyes.”
“Right, of course. You wouldn’t want . . . obviously not.”
For a long second his eyes hold hers and then flick quickly to her lips and then lower, over her body. And for a second he thinks that maybe, just maybe, she’s going to lean forward and then slide into his lap, her thighs landing on either side of his, and that maybe he could close that final distance between them and finally . . .
No.
No, Xavier.
That’s not part of the deal and way over the line.
Not that they ever really decided on where that line is. But touching her like that? Kissing her? That’s gotta be over it. No matter how much he wants to.
And he really wants to.
Of course he does.
Obviously.
But wanting and actually following through with it are two different things and there’s no reason to go there, not when he’s leaving at the end of all this.
“Okay, okay, great,” she says, standing and heading back toward her bedroom. “I’m gonna finish getting ready.”
“I’ll be here,” he says, stretching his neck back and forth and looking back down at the laptop, waking up the screen and groaning. “Eyes melting out of their sockets from dissertation overload.”
“It’ll be over soon,” she says. “And when you’re reuniting the Parthenon marbles with the Acropolis, it’ll have all been worth it.”
“Easy for you to say,Doctor.”
Her face lights up with joy at the title and then her expression softens in sympathy. “Just four more days.”
“No, wait, I changed my mind, that’s too soon,” he whines and she laughs, shutting the door behind her.
Chapter 6
It’s strange to be back on campus. When she was here last, she was on top of the world, absolutely reeling from the high of accomplishing the thing she set out to do.
