Before You Go

by St. James, Meredith

  Jocelyn sent an elbow careening into her son's side, not even bothering to hide it. "Rude," she chastised him.

  The waiter turned up to take our orders. "I'm sorry. I had no idea she'd put us on the spot like that," Isaac apologized quietly while the other two were distracted.

  "It's okay," I answered, my tone coming out sharper than I intended.

  His expression, usually so open, seemed to darken and close-off in front of my eyes. Guilt gnawed at me. Much of my anger at Isaac was centered around a belief that he would manwhore it up once I was no longer warming his bed. If Drew were to be believed, that hadn't been the case at all.

  I slipped my hand from my lap and rested it on his forearm to pull his attention back to me. "It's okay," I said again, but softer that time.

  He nodded almost imperceptibly as he turned to place his order with the waiter. His muscles relaxed under my touch, though, so I took that as a sign that things were okay. I was the last to order, ordering a fancy salad with a name I could barely pronounce. Even so, a salad seemed like the least risky possible choice.

  "I do think I'd like to be involved with your project," Jocelyn announced as soon as the waiter stepped away. Puzzled, my brows furrowed. She hadn't heard anything about my proposal yet. "The thing is, when I get involved in things, I like to have a hand in the day-to-day operations of it. Right now, my schedule just doesn't have that kind of time in it."

  "That's completely understandable. We can minimize—"

  She held up a hand to stop me. "The good news is, I'm too busy to help regularly, but Isaac isn't."

  Isaac and I stumbled over each other's words as we tried to protest at the same time. Jocelyn smirked. "I'm afraid that's the only offer I feel comfortable making right now. I can trust Isaac to look out for my best interests if he stays involved."

  Dread sank in my gut like a lead weight as Isaac and I exchanged guarded looks. One thing was very clear. His sister played the both of us.

  Isaac

  I felt surprisingly calm as I weaved my way between students in the lobby of Razor Hall. Jocelyn blindsided me as much as Laurel when she suggested I helped with the fundraiser on her behalf. The rest of dinner was spent hashing out details in between her grilling Drew about his studies. Jocelyn agreed to promote the event on her own social media pages, plus offered to refer many of her art-buying friends to the event. It was an easy win for Laurel—so long as she was willing to have my help.

  Nearly a week passed with no word from her since that dinner. Finally, I figured I was better off paying her a visit than sitting around waiting for a call that seemed unlikely to come.

  "Hey there, professor." It took a second for me to realize the young woman with blue hair was looking straight at me. "Are you looking for Laurel?"

  "Yeah, do you know where I can find her?"

  A ghost of a smile played over the woman's lips. "Sure do." She checked me out in a way that made me decidedly uncomfortable. I was about to make my excuses to bail when she spoke again. "I'm Ivy. Her roommate."

  Reluctantly, I shook the hand she offered. I was quick to pull away, though. She didn't seem the least put-off by it. I hated the way she was staring at me like she knew something I didn't. To be fair, if she was Laurel's roommate then there was a good chance she knew more than I wanted to even think about.

  "Is Laurel's office around here?"

  "One track mind, eh?" she teased. "This way."

  She waved me on to follow her, her steps bouncy as she led me down a side hall. About halfway down the corridor, she paused in front of a closed door and knocked.

  "Come in," Laurel's muffled voice called out.

  "Have fun," Ivy chirped, already moving away.

  The whole thing struck me as more than a little meddlesome. I reminded myself that it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have someone on the inside willing to play on my team. Once Laurel made up her mind about something… Well, I could use all the help I could get.

  Gently, I nudged open the door and popped my head in. "Hey," I greeted.

  Laurel's head snapped up from her computer so fast that I was surprised she didn't give herself whiplash. "Hi. What are you doing here?" It wasn't the warmest welcome, but she did gesture for me to take a seat in front of her desk. I sank down into one of the stiff chairs.

  "I thought maybe it was time we talk about my sister's request. Or have you already decided to decline?"

  She busied herself clicking around on her computer. I couldn't tell if she was actually working on something or if she just didn't want to look me in the eyes. "I'm not sure it's a good idea. Us working so closely together. This is really important to me."

  "You don't think I'll take it seriously?" I asked.

  "You spend less time volunteering than Jocelyn does," Laurel pointed out. "This really isn't your kind of thing."

  Rather than argue about, I decided to make myself very clear with my intentions. "I have every intention of helping, Laurel. So, unless you're gonna kick me out, I'm here."

  Her fingers left the keyboard in front of her and dropped into her lap. She collapsed against the back of her chair, practically sinking into it. Her eyes studied me from across the desk. I dressed semi-casually in jeans and my regular tennis shoes, but I made the point of wearing my dark blue t-shirt. Before, Laurel always loved when I wore it. I couldn't help but throw that in her face now that she was struggling to act so distant from me as if we never shared that time together.

  I was trying to ruffle her feathers at every turn.

  "Have you eaten lunch yet?" Laurel asked, surprising me with the change in subject.

  "No, I haven't."

  She pulled her purse out from one of her desk drawers and stood. "If we leave now we can drop by the deli for sandwiches before the regular lunch rush."

  I wasn't sure if she was genuinely interested in having lunch with me or if it made her uncomfortable to be trapped in her small office alone with me. Either way, I figured having lunch together could only work to my advantage. I nodded easily.

  The walk to Fred's Breads, the campus deli, was only about five minutes from Razor Hall. Laurel stood a solid three feet away from me and didn't say a word the whole way there. I focused on not getting distracted by the curves of her hips in the tight jeans she wore. After so long of seeing her only in dress pants and knee-length skirts, the fitted jeans were a downright distraction. I could imagine how good it would feel to be the one peeling them off of her—and forced myself to remember why that wasn't currently an option.

  "Do you know what you want?" she broke the silence to ask.

  I studied the menu board hanging over the counter. "I'm thinking maybe roast beef.

  "I'm gonna get—"

  I interrupted to finish for her, "Turkey with Pepper Jack cheese."

  She gaped at me. "How do you know that?"

  "Sometimes you picked food up here for us when you met me after your classes." I shrugged. "You almost always got the same thing."

  "And you remembered that?" She worried her bottom lip between her teeth as I shrugged again.

  Discomfort was clear on her face as she turned and placed our orders with the guy working the counter. I reached around and set a twenty dollar bill between them before Laurel even got a chance to grab for her wallet. She turned as if to argue, but when she noticed I was still standing with only an inch between us she quickly turned back and stayed silent. Completely oblivious to the tension between us, the guy took the money and handed Laurel a receipt with our number on it.

  As we stood waiting for our food, Laurel asked me how my first few weeks of teaching were going. I entertained her with a few of the funnier moments from class. Freshman always found a way to make things interesting.

  All too soon, "Ninety-three," was being called over the intercom.

  Each of us grabbed our own food, the sandwiches stowed in plastic takeaway containers. I pointed myself in the direction of the door, pausing in confusion when Laurel turned the opposite way an
d gracefully slid into a two-person booth.

  "We're eating here?" I asked.

  "Is that a problem?"

  I slid into the booth across from her. When she suggested grabbing lunch, I hadn't realized she meant we would actually be sitting down to eat together. I really thought she was just looking for a way to get rid of me. It still took me a minute in the booth before I realized she genuinely intended for us to have lunch together. I let myself relax the best I could. Put me in front of a small stadium's worth of students and I was fine. Plop me in front of a single woman I was clearly still interested in and watch me flounder. It was downright embarrassing.

  "President Wallace agreed to put the fundraiser on the school's social calendar," Laurel said just before sinking her teeth into her first bite of sandwich.

  "That's good, that means a lot of extra advertising will be coming out of the school, right?"

  Just because I rarely got involved in fundraisers didn't mean I didn't know how it worked. Kelley loved charitable giving, especially for events that made good photo-ops. I imagined an art gallery fell well into that category.

  Laurel offered a small smile. "Yeah. It also means I have my hands full, and I'm not really in a position to turn down any extra help. If you're serious about helping us, that is."

  "Of course I want to help you," I reassured her. "Tell me what I can do."

  She held up a finger for me to wait, turning to her purse. After digging inside of it for a second, she extracted a pamphlet and handed it across the table to me. The pamphlet was advertising the art program at North Kelley High School. Kelley was home to only two high schools. North Kelley was the sole public school. The other was Heritage Prep, an elite private school that locals seemed to think offered a direct pipeline to Kelley University.

  "While Heritage focuses on technical education, North Kelley is moving towards more art-centric programs. A few of the art majors volunteered last semester, and rumor has it there's some serious young talent there. They're exactly the kind of kids Razor Hall needs."

  I skimmed over the inside flaps. "Can these kids afford Kelley?"

  "Here's the kicker…" Laurel leaned forward on the table and lowered her voice. "I did my research. For three years running, North Kelley has actually managed to get more students into Kelley University than Heritage has."

  "You're kidding."

  She shook her head. "Not at all. Anyway, I'm bringing it up because there's something I'm hoping you could help me with."

  "Anything, yeah." She fussed with the napkin laying next to her on the table. "What is it?" I prompted, already worried I would regret agreeing so quickly.

  "The admissions office has done a little recruiting over at North Kelley already this year." She grit her teeth before the next part. "But no one will give me any details." I wasn't surprised by that. It was well-known by most campus staff that the admissions office carried around quite the elitist attitude about their jobs. "I want to know which students are most likely to get in here, and then I want to get them involved in the showcase. If they're as talented as the art students here say they are, then I need to give those students a reason to believe this is where they should be going to college."

  "Alright. No promises, but I'll see what I can do." I was pretty sure one of the student clerks in the admission's office was crushing on Drew. I wasn't above pimping him out a little if it got the information Laurel needed.

  The bright smile Laurel shot me told me it would absolutely be worth the effort. Though, I didn't miss the guarded look that still lingered in her eyes.

  Laurel

  My poor, pounding head sought comfort from the cool bar counter in front of me. "She didn't even ask for him to just help a little. No, Jocelyn wants him involved, like, constantly. We'll have to spend so much time together," I wailed. I couldn't even remember how long I'd been carrying on like that for. It felt like nonstop since our lunch a few days earlier.

  "It's insane to me that you're even complaining about this right now." Ivy patted my back much harder than necessary. "Hey, bartender? Can we get like a gazillion more rounds over here, please?"

  I groaned into the counter. "No more," I protested.

  "Yeah, definitely no more for you. Those are all for me for having to listen to you bitch about spending time with a gorgeous man. Also, I figured Derek might want a few, because speaking of gorgeous men, here he comes."

  My drunken brain struggled to catch up with what she was talking about. I was still mostly coherent but Ivy talked too darned fast sometimes. The desire in her sigh struck me before the rest of her sentence sunk in. Derek. Was she sighing like that because of Derek? I forced myself to sit back up on my stool and spun to face the room, mimicking Ivy. Derek was heading right for us.

  Agreeing to hang out at The Burgundy was the worst idea ever. When Ivy suggested it, I was already most of the way into my second bottle of wine. Pity party of one, that was my plan for the night. Obviously, Ivy wasn't content to sit around watching me mope. She stuffed me into a crop top and shuffled me off into the car waiting for us outside the apartment. It wasn't until we were walking into the bar that I realized what she dressed me in. I kept wrapping my arms around myself in a fruitless attempt to cover up.

  "I guess I should have known you all would be showing up," Derek smirked.

  "What do you mean by that?" I asked. It wasn't a secret that I didn't get out much. Not when it involved tiny strips of clothing and copious amounts of alcohol, at least.

  Derek glanced to Ivy, which, in turn, made me glance at her, too. She was pulling a face that begged him not to say anything. I wasn't too drunk not to notice it. "What's going on?" I demanded.

  Ivy sighed. "One of the business undergrads is hosting karaoke night here tonight as part of some project. The whole business department got an invite to attend."

  I cringed as she explained, my eyes already skimming the room in search of the familiar dark head of hair. I couldn't find him in the room. A weird mix of disappointment and relief settled in my stomach in the small space not currently taken up by wine and tequila shots.

  "Perfect. Just perfect," I muttered.

  Already, I was turning in my seat to signal the bartender back over. He eyed me wearily as I swayed on the barstool. It wasn't my fault gravity was betraying me. I pushed my lips out in a pout. His chuckle managed to reach my ears even over the noise of the bar. He shook his head, amused, but came over anyway.

  "Listen, Library, I'm not so sure you can handle another drink."

  I scoffed at him. "Did you seriously just call me 'Library' out of all the nicknames you could have come up with?"

  The bartender winked as if that could make my frustration at him melt away. It sort of worked. He was objectively cute, very clean cut and definitely a smooth talker. Nothing like Isaac, with his more rugged appeal. Besides, Isaac never made me feel like he was trying to speak directly to my panties. Why the hell couldn't I stop thinking about him?

  Already bored with the bartender—despite being the one to call him over—I turned my back on him, spinning back to the floor. My mistake was immediately evident. Isaac stood only a few feet away, his head tilted like he didn't know how to respond to seeing me there.

  "Hey, Gilmore, over here!" another professor called out to him.

  He barely flicked a look in their direction before he started moving towards me. I stared at the group of professors as they watched, confused, as Isaac moved towards me like a man on a mission. My eyes kept darting back and forth, my cheeks heating as several of the people in the group settled their eyes on me. For a moment, I felt like the star of a really bad soap opera. One that was in Spanish in a room full of people who didn't speak Spanish, so no one could quite figure out what exactly was happening.

  Yeah, my brain was definitely spinning out.

  Isaac

  "Are you okay?" were the first words out of my mouth when I realized how glazed over her eyes looked. I was suddenly very, very glad that I changed my m
ind about skipping the event at The Burgundy.

  "She's had some drinks," the bartender standing behind her offered. He snickered as he said it, which didn't amuse me at all.

  Her roommate and the fake boyfriend were flanking either side of her. Neither one seemed all that concerned about the woozy young woman propped up on the stool between them. I fought down the anger working its way through my system. Laurel still offered no answer to my question. Her eyes were glued to me so my hope was that at least she was coherent enough to realize I was there.

  "Hey, Laurel? Babe, I think you should get up." So I could take her the fuck home.

  She brightened. "To dance?"

  I withheld my groan the best I could. Trying to keep her upright on the dance floor didn't seem all that appealing. She shocked me by hopping off the stool with surprising grace. Drunk Laurel was a first for me. A couple times she was tipsy after a few glasses of a good wine, but I couldn't ever remember her dipping into full-fledged wasted territory.

  I grabbed for her hand as she tried to wander away. She curled right into my side, which was a pretty good indicator of how messed up I knew she must be.

  "Why did you let her get like this?" I frowned at her roommate, the woman with the blue hair that showed me to Laurel's office days earlier.

  She rolled her eyes at me. "Don't get all judgy on me, Mr. Naughty Professor. You're the reason she's so drunk."

  "What the hell did I do?" I grunted out.

  "Broke her heart into a million pieces would be my guess," the fake boyfriend chimed in. He seemed less than thrilled with the way Laurel was plastered against me. Asshole.

  "She needs to go home."

  The roommate—Ivy, I reminded myself—shook her head emphatically. "We just got here. You take her home if you're so worried."

  "You just got here?" That made no sense. "Then how the hell is she already so drunk?"