“You finish your paper?” he asks, still fondling me softly.
I take a deep breath and try to focus.
“Yes,” I lie.
Surely I can write one single conclusion while I’m at home, right?
“Good,” he says, growly, gravelly, his voice traveling straight to my core. “Because I just realized how long it’s going to be until I see you again.”
“It’s four days,” I tease.
“I know,” he says, mock-seriously. “Ninety-six whole hours.”
“You did that math fast.”
“How unexpected.”
He kisses me again, then releases me. I shove all my stuff into my bag, put on my jacket, sling the bag over my shoulder. Caleb takes my hand as we walk through the dark stacks toward the elevators and my heart skips a beat even though there’s no one around.
On the elevator he leans against the wall, grabs my hands, pulls me in and we make out slowly, teasingly, one of my hands underneath his jacket and shirt. When the elevator dings I pull away, but he keeps my hand in his, and we walk to his car like that: sweetly, dangerously, even though campus is practically a ghost town.
Then, when we’re in the car he says, “I should tell you something.”
“If you’re married, I’ll kill you,” I say, the first thing that pops into my head, and I instantly shut my eyes and make a face. “I’m sorry. That was nonsense. I’d kill you, though.”
He releases the parking brake, pulls away from the curb.
“I’m not married,” he says. “I mean, I think.”
“Not funny.”
“That was kinda funny,” he says, glancing over at me.
“Caleb.”
“Hand to God, I’m not married,” he says, raising his right hand from the steering wheel as he stops at a stop sign. “I’ve been getting emails, though.”
I sit up a little straighter, look over at him.
“What kind of emails?”
He doesn’t answer right away, looks through the windshield like he’s thinking of the best way to answer.
“Short ones that say they know my secret and tell me I’m a bad person,” he says.
My heart leaps into my throat, and I try to swallow it back down.
“Who are they from?”
“Secret Knower at gmail dot com,” he says.
“How creative,” I say, leaning my elbow against the window ledge, looking out at the dark university buildings going by.
“So far, nothing’s come of it,” he says, and sounds calm, calmer than I am right now. “Whoever it is just… seems to want to make sure that I know what I’m doing with you is shitty.”
“It’s not.”
He’s silent, one thumb tapping on the steering wheel.
“It’s complicated,” I amend myself, tapping the knuckle of my pointer finger against my lips.
After the organ concert incident, we’ve been careful. I’ve barely made eye contact with him in class, only texted, never sent emails. Maybe someone’s seen me walking into his house or coming out in the morning, but he lives in a neighborhood that’s mostly student-free.
It could be another professor. Caleb’s told you how vicious academia is.
“You think they’ll do anything else?” I ask, softly.
“I think if they were going to, they’d have done it already.”
Already?
“How long has this been happening?”
Caleb turns down a residential street, slows, then turns into his driveway.
“A little over two weeks,” he finally admits.
I pause. It’s not the answer I was expecting. I thought he’d say two days, maybe.
“That long?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He turns the keys, pulls up on the parking brake, turns and looks at me.
“They seemed mostly interested in me, and I didn’t want you to worry,” he says.
I take a deep breath, then get out of the car and walk around the front. By the time I get there, Caleb is standing in his driveway, hands in the pockets of his peacoat, waiting for me.
“I need something from you,” I say, stopping in front of him, looking up.
“Anything,” he says.
“Don’t shelter me,” I tell him, my voice soft in the cold, dark night, but it’s quiet except for the wind rustling the nearly-barren trees, so the sound carries. “I know that on paper, this relationship looks pretty off-balance, and there’s nothing I can do about that. But I need the truth of the matter to be that you’re my partner, not my protector.”
His eyes search my face. Then, slowly, he smiles.
“Of course, Thalia,” he says. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He reaches out, takes my hand, lifts it to his lips.
“As long as I can protect you sometimes,” he says, lifting his eyebrows.
“As long as I can reciprocate.”
He kisses my hand again, shifts his, laces our fingers together as we’re standing there, facing each other, and I feel an echo of that first warm night we met, standing by the sea monster on the pond.
“We can stop the affair if you want, now that someone knows,” he says, quiet, low, serious.
“I don’t.”
He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, pauses, smiles.