We break apart at the familiar voice, Amelia stiffening against me. I take her hand and turn slowly, looking straight at Dean Miller. He’s wearing ill-filling khaki pants, a sweater vest, and an expression that says, under no uncertain terms,you’re fucked.
Anxiety tightens in my stomach like a fist.
“Dean Miller,” Amelia starts. “We…”
She breaks off when he holds up a hand. “Save it, Ms. Sullivan. I’ve long suspected there was something between the two of you, but I didn’t think it would be so easy to figure it out. Kissing at a diner right by campus.” He scoffs. “It’s like you weren’t even trying to keep it a secret. Well…” He stands up straight and puts his hands on his hips. “It’s not a secret anymore.”
“We can explain,” I start, my brain racing a million miles a minute, trying to find something to say to him that will minimize the fall-out for Amelia.
“Oh, you’ll explain all right,” he says, smirking at us. “You’ll explain on Monday morning at nine a.m. in my office why I shouldn’t fire you effective immediately. Your tenured position is subject to a morality clause, and sleeping with a student is definitely not what MassTech considers moral. It’s right there in the faculty handbook, if you’d even bothered to read it. And as for you, Ms. Sullivan, I can’t imagine your brother would take too kindly to the knowledge that you’ve been carrying on with a professor, of all people. Just think of the damage it would do to his reputation.”
I can feel every muscle in Amelia’s body tense behind me, and the two parts of my brain are warring with each other. The need to both stay and fight for her to make sure the dean doesn’t fuck up her entire life and also to get home where I can care for my twisty thoughts in the dark is making my own muscles tense painfully.
I didn’t want this for us. And I definitely didn’t want it for her. It was stupid to let our guard down out in public like this, so close to campus. And now she’s going to pay the price for it.
“Nothing to say?” asks Dean Miller, his voice sly and his smile a little feral.
All I want to say is words of apology to Amelia. That I couldn’t protect her. That I let her down. But the words won’t come. My hands shake and my stomach churns. My breath comes out in a quiet gasp through the vise tightening around my chest.
“Come on, El,” Amelia says quietly, grasping my hand and holding on tight. I grip it like a lifeline. “Let’s go. I’ve got you.” With her free hand on my back, she nudges me out of the booth, and I stand on unsteady legs. She follows me off the bench, standing next to me and wrapping an arm around my waist, staring Dean Miller down.
“No, Dean Miller. We don’t have anything to say because I was taught to ignore bullies, and from where I stand, that’s exactly what you are. We’ll be in your precious office on Monday morning, but if you thought you could threaten Elliot’s job and my brother’s reputation, and I’d just stand here and take it? Well, I guess you don’t know me very well at all. I protect what’s mine.”
Dean Miller’s face turns beet red, and if I wasn’t so focused on trying to breathe air into lungs that have suddenly decided to stop cooperating, I would appreciate his discomfort. “You’re finished here,” he hisses, glancing back and forth between the two of us. “Both of you.”
Amelia shrugs, a bored expression on her face. “We’ll see.”
She tosses some cash on the table, and with a tug on my waist, she leads me to the front of the diner. As soon as we walk out the door, I bend over, my hands on my knees, my heart pounding as my breath comes in shallow pants. Sweat slides down my back even in the freezing air.
Amelia bends down over my back, wrapping her arms tightly around me from behind. “I’ve got you,” she repeats. “Breathe with me, El. Feel me breathe and do what I do.”
I close my eyes and focus on the way her chest rises and falls against my back. The slow and steady beat of her heart. My brain is working a thousand miles a minute, and I can’t grab onto a single thought except that Amelia has her arms around me, and that’s enough for the band around my chest to loosen, the tiniest bit. For my heart to slow, just enough.
“There you go,” she murmurs. “You’re okay. What do you need?” she asks, flattening her palm on my chest.
“I need…” I break off, sucking in a breath, covering her hand with mine and trying to steady myself. “I need to be home. Please.”
Home. It’s a person now as much as it’s a place, I realize though my spinning thoughts, as Amelia circles me, her arms still locked around my waist, keeping us connected. She presses a kiss to my chest, right over my heart, and looks me in the eyes.
“Then let’s go home, El. Together.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
AMELIA
The Uber ride home was silent, and as we unlock the front door of the brownstone and climb the stairs to Elliot’s third floor apartment, Elliot has yet to say a word. He hasn’t let go of my hand though. From the time I took it in the diner to now, his fingers remained laced through mine, his grip a vise, as if I am the only thing tethering him to this moment. The only thing keeping him from disappearing too far into the darkness.
It's a role I’m happy to play.
I want this. I want him. All of him.
The second the dean appeared and said his piece, Elliot sank into himself. I could see his dark thoughts as if he spoke them out loud. I watched them take over until his body was trembling, his breathing shallow. He told me earlier that he wasn’t worried about his own job—he was worried about me. So, his reaction to the dean is about what being outed like this will do to me. And it was that thought that had my rage burning bright. My mouth making words before my brain realized what was happening. My thought was singular.
Protect Elliot.
Keep him safe.
I wasn’t lying when I said I was taught to stand up to bullies. I abhor a bully, and that’s exactly what Dean Miller is. In that moment, I realized I don’t care about any of it. Gabe finding out what I’ve been doing with my life or people realizing who I am, or anyone questioning whether I deserve to be here. None of that matters. Because I have a family I love who loves me back. For the first time in my life, I have good friends who like me for me, not because of who my brother is or what he might be able to do for them. I built an app the whole fucking world is using, and I have ideas for a hundred more.
