CHAPTER TWELVE
October 5
“ANY CONCLUSIONS?” KELSEY PULLS HER SUNGLASSES from her bag and slips them on as we walk down Avalon Street.
I don’t bother pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about. “No. Still in a rough patch. I didn’t handle the whole thing very well.”
“How’s Dean?”
“Okay. Busy. At least he’s got important stuff to do.”
I kick at a loose stone. I’m glum. Things with Dean and I aren’t bad, but they’re not great either. He’s busy with work, I stay occupied with the Historical Museum, the bookstore, and cooking class. We have sex every now and then, but still not nearly as often as we used to.
“And how’s the cooking class?” Kelsey asks.
“Fine. I’m not all that great at it, but I guess it’s fun.”
“Good Lord.” Kelsey stops in the middle of the sidewalk. “What kind of Debbie Downer are you becoming?”
I blink. “What?”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Her voice takes on a whiney note. “I’m not good at it, I don’t do anything important, I fucked it up. What’s up with that? So things with you and Dean are kind of crappy right now. Doesn’t mean you’re allowed to walk around flogging yourself.”
I can only stand there staring at her. Kelsey takes off her sunglasses and looks hard at me.
“If you’re letting Dean’s reluctance about a baby do this to you—” she spreads her arms out as if to encompass all my self-criticism, “—then what happens if you actually have a baby, Liv? Is that what you want to teach a kid? When the chips are down, you blame yourself and moan about how lousy you are at everything?”
Good God. She’s right. Not only do I dislike where things stand with me and Dean, I’m also not all that nuts about myself right now.
“Well?” Kelsey demands. “Is that what you want?”
“No. No way.” I frown back at her.
I’m not like this. It’s true I’m still searching for something, but God knows I’ve fought my way through pitch darkness before. I know I have the strength to somehow untangle this mess with my husband.
Dean and I both do.
“So?” Kelsey waves her arms around again. “What’re you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admit, but there’s a very real, determined tone in my voice. “I’ll think of something.”
She steps back and nods. “Well. I guess that’s a start.” She pokes me in the chest with her forefinger. “And I never want to hear this whiney, I’m-a-piece-of-shit crap from you ever again.”
“Yes, ma’am. I love you.”
She sniffs and puts her sunglasses back on. “Don’t you dare hug me here in the middle of the sidewalk. Come on. You’re buying me a milkshake.”
As we continue walking, I can’t resist slinging an arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. She mutters under her breath, but returns the gesture before we enter an ice-cream parlor.
After some debating, we agree that we each need our own milkshake, so we place the order then sit at a table by the window. She entertains me by grousing about her fellow professors and grad students, I tell her she needs to get laid, and she agrees heartily while we survey Avalon Street looking for a potential candidate.
“Hey, you and Professor Marvel be nice to each other.” Kelsey squeezes my shoulder as we part ways outside the ice-cream parlor. “And you be nice to yourself, okay?”
“Promise.” I subject her to another hug before we head in opposite directions.
I don’t feel like cooking anything tonight, so I stop at a deli on Ruby Street to pick up one of our routine meals of roasted chicken, green beans, and pasta salad. Because it’s still light out, I take a shortcut through the parking lots behind the buildings.
The instant I turn the corner, I sense someone behind me. My heartrate kicks into high gear, and I struggle to pull in a breath. I quicken my pace.
“Mrs. West?” a woman’s voice calls.
I stop and turn. A young woman approaches me, a backpack slung over one shoulder. I take another deep breath and will my pulse to stop pounding. As the woman nears, her features and her curly blond hair sharpen into clarity.
Crap. I force a smile.
“Hi, Maggie.”
“Mrs. West.” Maggie stops in front of me, her own breathing fast. She glances behind me, a quick, furtive look. “Sorry, I saw you heading this way.”
“No problem.”
“Is… uh, is Professor West with you?”
“No.” Unease suddenly rises in my chest. “Are you supposed to meet with him or something?”
“No.” She shifts her weight to her left foot, her eyes darting from the lot to me and back again. “Just wondering.”
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
She stares past me again. Her lower lip trembles. Tears flood her eyes.
Oh, no.
“What’s wrong?” I put down my bag and move closer to her, my unease deepening. I know this has to do with my husband.
“He won’t approve my thesis proposal.” Maggie swipes the back of her hand across her eyes. “I told him my dad will freak out if I don’t get it approved this semester because he’s expecting me to apply to law school in the spring.”
“Law school?”
“My dad’s a partner in a law firm and wants me to follow in his footsteps.” She fumbles in her backpack for a tissue. “I have to get a master’s degree to get into law school because my undergrad grades were lousy. So my father agreed to let me major in history because I promised it would take only two years.
“I should be finished already, but I took a year off after Professor Butler retired then when I reentered the program, I had to switch to Professor West. Now he’s being a total hard-ass.”
She wipes her eyes. “My dad threatened to cut me off if I don’t finish by the end of the year since I’ve already been in grad school for three years already. But I can’t even get started until Professor West approves my thesis proposal!”
I have no idea what to say. None of this is my business. I don’t have the right to defend Dean because I don’t know why he won’t approve her proposal. I do know that he has a good reason for his decision, but it’s not my place to explain that to Maggie Hamilton.
“Do you want to go to law school?” I finally ask.
She heaves a sigh. “I don’t know. But my dad’s funding my education and made it clear that’s what he wants. And he’ll have a job waiting for me in his firm, so you know, how can you turn that down? And if I did turn it down, he’d cut me off right now, so… whatever.”
Though I find it difficult to sympathize with a girl who has obviously had a great deal handed to her on a silver platter, I do feel sorry that she’s so upset.
“That sounds unfair,” I say, well aware of the hollow tone to my words.
“Yeah, well.” Maggie swipes at her eyes again and hitches her backpack over her shoulder. “I’m going to visit my parents next week, and I want to tell my dad everything’s on schedule. Maybe… maybe you could talk to Professor West for me?”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Please, Mrs. West? I could really use some support, you know, girl to girl?”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, more firmly this time. “I don’t interfere with my husband’s work. It wouldn’t be right for me to talk to him about a proposal I don’t know anything about.”
Fresh tears spill down her freckled cheeks. “Maybe if you explained about my dad and the—”
“Maggie, really. I can’t help you. But my husband is a reasonable man who has always been willing to work out solutions with students. I’m sure if you talk to him, he’ll—”
“He’ll tell me to review the damned research, like he always does, except there’s so much of it and I don’t know Italian well enough to read all the papers he’s given me. And he totally doesn’t get that I also have to start studying for the LSAT.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to do too much.”
“I don’t have a choice, Mrs. West! I could have started writing in the summer if Professor West had just signed the proposal. Please, will you talk to him?”
“I’m sorry.”
Her mouth hardens into a line. She dashes a hand across her eyes and tries to suppress a hiccupping sob.
“Maggie, if you’d tell my husband what you told me…”
“I have told him. He just cares about his star students like Sam and Jessica.”
“He cares about all his students.”
“Yeah, right.” Her voice is bitter. “Maybe he cares about some of them too much.”
The edge to her remark slices into me. I take a step back, my hip hitting the fender of the car behind me. “What?”
She hitches her backpack over her shoulder. “Sure your husband is willing to work with students, Mrs. West. Especially female students, just like his predecessor. Maybe he’s being such a hard-ass with me because he expects more than a thesis proposal.”
She spins on her heel and stalks back to the street. Part of my brain screams at me to follow her and demand an explanation, but I can only stand there staring after her. I can’t even form a coherent thought.
Was she… is she talking about… did I understand that… ??
My breathing is getting too fast again. I press a hand to my chest and count in my head as I draw in a breath and let it out slowly. Again. After a few minutes, my heartbeat settles but my mind is spinning.
I pick up my grocery bag and walk home. When I open the front door, I hear the sound of the shower running. I unpack the groceries and go into the bedroom. Dean left his muddy football clothes on the floor. I dump them into the laundry hamper and stare at the bathroom.
There’s a knot in my stomach. I swallow hard and go to ease open the bathroom door a little more. Fragrant steam billows through the room, fogging the mirror and the shower door. Behind the glass, I see the outline of Dean’s strong body, and my heart pounds.
Another step. I stop. His hands move as he soaps his chest, and I imagine wet lather slipping over his slick muscles, tracing all the ridges with my fingers… then his hand slides down to his groin. My gaze follows.
Even through the fogged glass, I can see that he’s hard. Unexpected lust jolts me at the evidence of his readiness. Before I can back away, he curves his hand around his cock and starts stroking.
My knees weaken. I grab the towel rack. I’ve seen him masturbate, of course, but never like this, never without him knowing I was there. His movements are easy and fluid, his body rocking slightly as he thrusts into the vise of his fist.
I suck in a breath, part of me thinking I should leave him in privacy and the other part mesmerized by the sight of such an intimate act. He presses one hand against the tile wall while the other works his erection faster. Heat blossoms through my entire body. I press my legs together as I start to throb in response.
How often does he do this?
What, or rather who, is he thinking about?
The thought dampens my own arousal a little. I continue to stare at him, at the length of his cock, the rapidly increasing movements of his hand. His head falls back, the hot water pounding across his skin as his body jerks with release. His rough groan filters into the steam. I wish I could feel its low vibrations against my skin.
He’s still pressing his hand against the wall, his head lowered against the spray, his chest heaving.
I back out of the bathroom, close the door, and return to the living room. I’m breathing fast as I pace, my mind filling with images that both arouse and dismay me—Dean thinking about another woman naked, fantasizing about fucking her… his grad student with her pretty smile and toned body.
The bedroom door clicks open. My breath catches in my throat. He’s only wearing a pair of boxers, his skin still damp, his arms raised as he scrubs at his wet hair with a towel. When he lowers it, he sees me standing there.
My mouth is dry, though I don’t know if it’s from fear or my own thwarted lust. Unfortunately I suspect it’s the former.
Dean loops the towel around the back of his neck. “You okay?”
I twist my hands together. “I don’t… no. Not really.”
He waits. He knows I’ll tell him eventually, but it takes a minute to drum up my courage.
“Do you… uh, do that often?” I gesture to the bedroom.
He flushes a little. “Not often, no. Not if you’re here.”
“So why now?”
“I didn’t know you were home.”
I cross my arms. My nipples are still hard. I have to know. “Were you thinking about her?”
“Who?”
“Your grad student.” I can’t bring myself to say her name.
Dean frowns. “My grad… Jessica?”
“No.” I try to keep my voice even. “Maggie.”
“Maggie?” He looks stunned. “You thought I was thinking about her?”
“Were you?”
“Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“I saw her today. In the parking lot behind the deli.”
He doesn’t say anything, again waiting for more.
“She’s… uh, the first time I met her, I suspected she had a thing for you.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell. I’m not blind.” Neither is Maggie Hamilton. Or any other woman when it comes to Professor Dean West.
“Liv.” He pulls the towel from his neck and tosses it onto the sofa. “I’d be lying if I said sometimes other women… even grad students… haven’t come on to me. But do you think I respond? Do you think I’d ever let them cross the line? Do you think I’d ever do that?”
I don’t like the turn of this conversation, as if I’m at fault for having doubts. In the deepest part of my heart, I know he’s honorable and loyal to the core.
At the same time, there’s a lot I don’t know right now. And every day I have the disquieting sense that the pool of “don’t knows” is growing larger.
“Maggie Hamilton implied that you’ve made a move on her,” I tell him.
Dean stares at me. “What?”
“That’s what she said.” I swallow past the lump in my throat, the resurgence of unease. “She’s upset that you won’t approve her… her thesis proposal, and then she said maybe you’re expecting more from her.”
“What the fuck…” Dean paces away from me, his shoulders stiffening. “I won’t approve her thesis because her research and methodology are incomplete! I told her that. I told you that. I won’t put my name behind a student who produces lousy work. And she won’t take my suggestions or find another topic, so we’re at a deadlock.”
“Why hasn’t she changed advisors?”
“Because she claims it would set her back too far since she already started with the previous professor, and then she took a year off. She still thinks she can earn her master’s by the end of the year, even though she hasn’t started writing her thesis. Much less done any useful research. I’ve been telling her that since last summer.”
He swears and paces again, running a hand through his hair. I tighten my arms around myself, feeling the thump of my heartbeat. I could care less about Maggie Hamilton’s poor research abilities.
“Why… why would she imply you treat the female students inappropriately?” I ask.
“I don’t know! I haven’t even talked to her in a…” He stops suddenly. Tension rolls through his body as he turns back to face me. Darkness suffuses his eyes.
I take a step back. My throat aches.
“Liv.”
I can’t look at him.
“Liv.” His voice roughens. “Do you believe her?”
No. No!
The denial boils inside me. But it is not powerful enough to dissolve the hard-edged fear that has prodded at me for weeks now. I clench my hands into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms hard enough to hurt.
“I don’t… I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I whisper. I realize that is the unvarnished truth. A wave of dizziness washes over me.
“Liv… Jesus, Liv…” The words crack as Dean backs away, pale beneath his tan. “No, for the love of God. You think I would do that to you, to us, after… why the fuck would you… no.”
“I’m sorry, Dean! I feel… for weeks now, I’ve felt like you’re keeping something from me, but I have no idea what it is, so when she said—”
“You thought that was it?”
“I’m just… things have been so messy between us, and then she… why would she say that?”
“No.” His voice is forceful now, lined with steel. “No, Olivia. I have never made a pass at another woman since the day I met you. Since long before I met you. If you can’t believe that, then I don’t know what the fuck we’re even doing anymore.”
He turns and leaves. A second later, the bedroom door slams shut. I sink into a chair and bury my face in my hands.
Is it true? Have I stopped trusting my own husband?
If so, where in the love of God does that leave us?