My phone vibrates in my back pocket: a picture of Noah, with only a towel covering his front, and a text that reads,You like what you see?Immediately followed by another one.
Noah: Fucking Maverick Delete that. Or save it for when you miss me, your choice.
“Hello, darling. Sorry I’m late,” my aunt says, brushing a strand of her hair over her head the same way my mom used to.
I quickly pocket my phone as she pulls me in for a hug. I shiver against her coat that holds on to the cold air. “No worries. I just ordered.”
“Go ahead and sit.” Peter calls over his shoulder, filling up the kettle. “I’ll bring your drinks over when I’m done.”
The fire is already going as we take a seat on the empty couch across from the fake logs. We sit for a minute, watching the flames flicker, but the sounds of laptops typing and low conversation begin to feel too loud—especially next to someone who is usually the loudest one in the room.
“How was your weekend?” I ask.
“Good!” She answers quickly, nodding her head a little too enthusiastically. “Busy. I’ve fallen behind on grading, but good.”
“Good.” I eye her suspiciously, and she turns her attention on me.
“How are the rest of your classes going?”
“Not terrible. Surprisingly, my hardest course is a jazz history class—if you can believe it.”
“I can.” She smiles. “And Chloe?”
“Chloe is being Chloe. She’s wearing thirty different hats right now, but you know how she is.”
“God, I love that girl.”
I unzip my coat and pull my legs up under me.
“And what about Noah?”
I blink and thankfully I’m already sitting.
“What about Noah?” I ask.
“I don’t know, that's why I’m asking. After our run in during our last coffee date, I thought something might begoing on, especially after seeing the way he was looking at you.”
“How was he looking at me?”
The clinking of ceramic mugs on mini plates surrounds us as Peter places my coffee on the low wood table and hands my aunt her tea.
“Thank you,” she says, and he smiles, dipping his head before heading back to the counter.
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm.” She lifts her mug from the plate as if her last words weren’t a tiny bomb dropped between us.
“I said, how was he looking at me?”
“I don’t know. It was like he was trying to memorize your smile or something.”
My heart thuds heavily in my chest. That was before our date. Well before anything had happened between us.
“And then after reading his report.” She tilts her head, eyes widening like saucers.
“His report?”
“Mmm,” she says around her a sip from her mug. “I might be old, but I’m not blind to the fact that something is going on there. He wouldn’t write about you the way he did otherwise.”
