Jordan’s eyes light up, and Jo practically rubs her hands together with glee. No one loves gossip like those two. “Fuck yes,” Jo says, swinging her legs up onto the sofa so she’s sitting cross-legged, her elbows on her knees. “Big news is exactly what this movie night needs. Tell us everything.”
“So...I kind of found Amelia.”
“What?” Jordan, Jo, and Cooper all say at once, staring at me.
“Mystery girl from the plane?” Jo asks excitedly.
I nod. “The very same one.”
“No shit,” Jordan says, grinning at me. “How did that happen?”
“Hold up.” Cooper lifts a hip and pulls out his phone, unlocking it. “Noah needs to hear this too.”
He hits Noah’s contact, and ten seconds later his face appears on the screen. “What’s up? I need to be in the OR in ten, so I don’t have long.”
Cooper grins into the phone. “Guess who found his mystery girl?”
“No fucking way,” Noah exclaims, looking at me. “The girl from the plane?”
I nod. “Yep.” I could give them more but making them ask for it is more satisfying. It’s a brother thing.
“Okay, I only have ten minutes, so I’m going to need you to start talking right now. Leave nothing out.”
I snicker at the earnest look on Noah’s face. “She walked into my first class this morning.”
“Just showed up in your class?” Jo asks. “Like, she’s a student?”
I nod. “A PhD student. She started mid-year, so today was her first day. She walked into class five minutes late and I recognized her, like, immediately.”
“Did she recognize you?” Cooper asks, his face screwed up in thought.
“She did. It turns out she already knew who I was. I think I told you guys that when we landed in Boston we ran into one of my students in the airport. When my student called me Dr. Wyles, Amelia put it together and figured out who I was.”
“That’s why she disappeared,” Jordan says, running a hand up and down Jo’s back in a gesture that looks so habitual I’m not sure he even realizes he’s doing it. The desire for that kind of ease with another person—with one person in particular—is sosharp I have to take a deep breath to stem the emotion bubbling up in my chest, the lightness from before dissipating like the air let out of a balloon.
“It is,” I manage.
“So, what happened this morning? Did you talk to her? Hurry the fuck up because I’m down to a tight five before I have to be in the OR.”
“I talked to her after class. We went to breakfast.” I rub a hand on my chest to try and dispel the ache settling there, a familiar heaviness covering me like a weighted blanket. “It was…well, it was amazing. She’s amazing, and I barely know her, but it’s like Iknowher. I can’t explain it. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, ever.”
“That’s awesome,” Noah says though the phone. “This is so completely happening. The Wyles brothers are falling like dominos.”
“Except it’s not happening, is it?” Cooper asks quietly, studying me in that all seeing way of his.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, myI can be patientbravado from earlier escaping me as the reality of the situation sets in. “It’s not. At least not now. MassTech has a pretty strict non-fraternization policy for professors and students. And even if I was willing to risk my job, I would never risk her standing at the school or her future career. You know that this shit always falls disproportionally on the woman, and it fucking sucks. I would never do that to her. She’s too important. Or, at least, I think she could be really important.”
“So, what happens now?” Jo asks, eyes serious.
I shrug and cross my ankles, settling deeper into the chair. “She wants me to be her advisor. Apparently, she came to the school to learn from me. She wants to know what I know, and I’m going to help her with her research. If that’s the way I can have her right now, then that’s the way I’m going to haveher. Hopefully one day, when we’re not student and professor anymore, it can be more.”
“Are you okay with that?” Jordan asks.
No.
And yet…
“I kind of have to be. And I guess mostly I am. It feels like kind of a miracle to have found her again. I know where she is, and I’ll get to spend all this time with her, and if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. This way, we can get to know each other first.”
