Unmistakable

  Psych-speak. Sometimes, I think academics just throw a bunch of big words out there in the hope that no one will ask about them.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The goal of technology is ultimately to improve human communication, right?”

  I consider that for a minute. “I thought the goal was to improve productivity.”

  “Spoken like a true economics major. That’s a goal, certainly. But think about it like this…if we didn’t have a need for faster and more efficient communication, none of the world’s greatest inventions, like the printing press, the telephone, or, of course, YouTube, would exist. The economics is a huge part of it, obviously, but I’m an optimist. I think people are all searching for some form of human connection. I want to find out if technology has become an impediment or an enabling tool.”

  I swallow the urge to say, “Well, duh.” Of course people are just going to text on their phones instead of trying to make conversation with perfect strangers. It’s easier. Honestly, he could just head over to the nearest frat party and watch for about five minutes. I’m on the verge of suggesting it when I realize that I’ve already done enough damage to his ego. Plus, I’m not trying to make myself obsolete.

  “Sounds great,” I say brightly. “What do I do? Join the melee? Mix it up a bit?”

  “Your job will be to watch the interactions and to take notes. I’ll take your offer under advisement, though.” He grins. “I can only imagine that your presence might serve an interesting function at some point.”

  I’m relieved. Mingling sucks. “I think I can handle taking notes.”

  “I think you can, too.”

  “So…when do we start?”

  “Does Wednesday morning work for you? Around nine?”

  I nod. “I’ll be here.”

  “Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because you’re not a psychology expert.”

  I bite my tongue. I may not be an expert, but I’ve picked up a thing or two from my mother over the years.

  “I’ll e-mail you a couple of reviews of the previous research, so you can get caught up. I’d send you the original reports, but Caroline Granger has a tendency to be obtuse in her writing, and you might have difficulty deciphering her articles without formal training.”

  Caroline Granger would fight his words to her dying breath. I stifle the overwhelming urge to tell him that.

  He looks guilty and rushes to clarify. “She’s the originator of the experiments. She does truly breathtaking, groundbreaking work, and she’s probably the finest mind that the field of psychology has seen in the past two decades. She’s brilliant.”

  The fruit is dangling. I can’t resist.

  “So, maybe I should just read the originals,” I suggest, in my most innocent of voices.

  He hesitates. “She’s not exactly Shakespeare.”

  A tiny burst of laughter escapes. That’s a wild understatement. My mother hates writing, and it hates her. Whenever someone asks her to contribute to a professional journal or a book, she huffs and puffs and starts baking until the day before the deadline. I’ve tasted more than a lifetime’s worth of her burned cookies. Still, she would bristle at being called obtuse. Not exactly Shakespeare. She’s going to die when I tell her this story.

  I can almost see her face…

  Then again, maybe some stories are better left untold. I don’t think even Holden could keep up his aloof façade in the presence of my brilliant, obtuse, and furious mother.

  “The literature reviews will be fine,” I manage, once I’ve successfully smothered all of my own laughter.

  “All right,” he says, looking relieved. “Until Wednesday, then?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  He stands up just as I do. He has perfect manners. Perfect looks. And I’m still pretty sure that I’m not imagining the flirtation. He winked at me, for chrissakes.

  If I were a different person, any other person, really, I would be head over heels in love with him.

  I could try to fall in love with him.

  It’s a crazy idea.

  Love is for fools and schoolgirls. I learned that lesson the hard way. But maybe, just maybe, I could talk myself into a little crush on him. Holden is safe. He’s my professor. It’s not like anything is actually going to happen. I may not know him very well, but the door-opening, the escort service, the chivalry—all of those things are pretty clear indications that flirting is exactly as far as this will go. It would be harmless.

  I can totally talk myself into that.

  We both reach for the door at the same time, and our fingers brush against each other. It’s perverse, but I’m hoping for a burst of electricity, some kind of sign that I feel something more than friendship, or amusement, in his presence.

  His touch is the same as his smile—whiskey-coated, warm, and soothing. “Please. Let me.”

  I would have to be crazy not to be attracted to him. Really crazy. Crazy crazy.

  He’s the prototype of male perfection. He makes me laugh. He can go toe-to-toe in staring contests. He’s the perfect candidate for a daytime fantasy. A nighttime fantasy.

  I could totally have a crush on him.

  There’s one tiny problem.

  No fireworks. No explosions. Just a little voice screaming at me: It’s not going to work, Stella.

  I’ll make it work. Everything doesn’t have to be fireworks and explosions.

  His eyes linger on my face when I turn back to give him a little wave.

  I’ll manufacture a crush. How hard can it be, really?

  * * *

  Izzy will jump all over this. I need a distraction. And Holden is beautiful and kind and everything that I should want in a man, especially since there’s no chance that I’ll let him inside my heart and there’s no way he’ll let me inside his pants.

  It’s the perfect solution.

  I’m so busy going over the specifics of manufacturing a perfectly harmless crush that I almost run into the stone pillar outside of the psych building.

  I need to go to the library, so I eschew my usual route across the quad in favor of the scenic one. Greenview, for all of its innumerable flaws, is consistently voted the most beautiful campus in the country, and I breathe in the sweet smell of honeysuckle and flowers and try to be excited by the prospect of a dead-end crush on Holden Evans.

  I’ve managed to produce a pretty good imitation of enthusiasm when I see Luke sitting on the lawn across from the student center.

  He’s surrounded by a group of beautiful people, all of whom are talking and laughing like they don’t have a care in the world. Like attracts like. Isn’t that what Holden said? Holden, my new crush, who’s every bit as handsome as Luke and probably more so.

  I search for the little scar above his eyebrow to convince myself of that fact, but my eyes drift lower, to the electric blue of his eyes.

  It’s not going to work, Stella.

  Shut up, self.

  He’s painted a thoughtful expression on his face, but I can tell that he doesn’t give a shit what anyone else is saying. He has the ability to turn the world off, to live inside his head, to appear interested and engaged while he’s actually writing a song or solving the mysteries of the universe. It’s just the way that the strange brain of his works. I confronted him about it once, when he wasn’t paying attention to my story about Jack’s latest bimbo, a tale that I thought was perfectly enthralling. He denied and yelled and teased and whined, but I could tell that he was stunned that I had ferreted out his secret. “You’re not as good as you think you are,” I said haughtily. That remark earned me a fully-clothed swim in the pool.

  He never pretend-listened to me again, though, so I think I won.

  I stare a moment too long.

  When his gaze lands on me, surprise stiffens his body. I try not to read too much into it, but no one gave my body that particular memo. There’s an explosion of color and sound somewhere in my gut. As our eyes meet, I hear him saying it aloud, in th
at breathless, sulky voice that I had never heard before—you are infinitely beautiful.

  My hopes for a manufactured crush on Holden Evans take a serious hit.

  Luke raises one mocking eyebrow. Oh, shit.

  He slides his arm around one of the girls and proceeds to trace circles over her wrist. My skin itches with the memory of his fingers doing the same to me. She (her name is Nicole, I remember, with far more than a trace of loathing) giggles up at him, and he draws her in for a long, languid kiss. When she recovers and returns to the conversation, his eyes pierce right through mine.

  His message couldn’t be clearer—I mean nothing to him.

  The possessive part of me wants to march over and slap his face. Or kiss him. Or beg him to be the Luke that I know he can be and not the monster he is.

  But he doesn’t belong to me.

  He never has, and he never will.

  Pride wins, but it’s a pretty long battle. I sling my bag over my shoulder and this time, I’m the one who leaves without so much as a second glance.

  Chapter 14

  3 Months Later

  “Kill me. Please.”

  To my very great annoyance, Holden doesn’t even look up when I sink desperately into the armchair in his office.

  “You’re not paying attention,” I whine.

  “I am currently responding to an urgent e-mail from a student,” he says calmly. “He was polite enough to send his request in writing, and I am polite enough to respond to it. Some people don’t even have the common courtesy to knock anymore.”

  His eyes crinkle at the corners, belying his authoritative tone.

  “I’m a student and I have an urgent story to tell you.”

  “I’m sure you do. Give me one second. Maybe two.”

  Patience doesn’t happen to be a virtue of mine, so I make annoying little humming noises for a few seconds until he laughs, finishes his typing with a flourish, and shuts the laptop.

  “Finally,” I say.

  “You’re a nuisance. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “You. Every single day.”

  “Good. Go ahead with your story now,” he says, waving his hand in the air and grinning at me.

  “If one more person starts checking their fantasy football line-up while in the process of telling me that they don’t think their cell phones have an impact on their interactions with human beings, I am seriously, truly, really going to lose my mind.”

  “That bad?”

  I shake my head in disgust. “Worse. Get this. I was doing a pre-interview with one of the subjects. I think she’s a philosophy major. This woman had the nerve to tell me, literally, that she, and I quote, ‘loathes the death of human interaction. Lack of communication kills all sense of community.’ So, I thought, great, okay, she might be a little bit of a melodramatic lunatic, but she could also liven up the joint. You know, maybe the data from one mixer will at least give us a glimmer of hope for the next generation.”

  “That would be your generation,” he interjects, giving me a mischievous look.

  “Yours, too,” I counter. “You’re what? Four years older than me? A geezer.” I glare at him stonily, and he puts his hands up in surrender. “Anyway, she proceeds to play some game on her phone…”

  “What game?”

  “How the hell should I know?” I shake my head. “Check the tapes. Something with lots of bells and dings and whistles. It’s not important. I focus on her the entire time, but she doesn’t look up. Not once. She doesn’t attempt a conversation, or leave her chair, unless it’s to get another drink, and she certainly doesn’t display any sign of loathing the death of human interaction. We’re giving these people alcohol, at least the ones who are 21, and all they want to do is read Buzzfeed.”

  “That aligns with all of the previous results. You were expecting a literary salon, perhaps? Stimulating conversation about the merits of Goethe versus Kant?”

  “I’m so glad that this amuses you.” I reach for the little stress ball he keeps on his desk and squeeze it with all of my strength. “I am not entertained.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have to put up with it any longer. It’s your last day, remember?”

  I was hoping he would forget about that.

  I paste a cheerful smile on my face, but my stomach sinks. “Sweet, sweet freedom. I don’t think I could take another second of pondering the end of human civilization as we know it.”

  “Thank god almighty, you’re free at last.”

  “If I never see another cell phone again, it will be too soon,” I proclaim.

  Of course, my cell phone chooses that exact moment to emit Izzy’s wailing ringtone. Holden releases a long belly laugh that echoes throughout the room. I glare at him and press the glowing green button.

  I’m totally going to catch hell for that.

  He mouths, “Hypocrite.”

  I flip my finger at him and pick up the phone. “Hey, Iz.”

  “You better have a really good excuse this time. Before this semester, I don’t think you had ever been late in your life. Now, it’s twenty minutes here, thirty minutes there. ‘Research is so important, Izzy,’” she says, mocking my voice.

  She’s ostensibly pissed, but I detect a hint of a smirk behind her words.

  “I do. I promise.”

  “Let me guess. You needed to have a chat with Holden,” she says, extending the syllables in his name. “Stella and Holden, kissing in a tree, making out after a hot day of data collection.”

  “Iz,” I warn.

  “Are you going to make it back in time for me to give you a ride to the airport, or should I assume you chickened out?”

  “I didn’t chicken out.” I glance at Holden. He’s typing away on his computer, seemingly lost in his work, but I know better. He’s heard every word. “I am going to the airport. I’ll just grab a cab, though. Don’t wait on me.”

  “I’m going to call you every five minutes until I know that you’re actually getting on that plane.”

  “Don’t do that. I’m really going this time, I promise, unless you badger me changing my mind.”

  She sighs. “Fine. Call me when you land?”

  “Promise. Tell Barb and Dave that I love them, and tell Evie that I’m sure nothing on my mother’s table could ever compete with her sweet potato casserole.”

  It’s true. My mother doesn’t have a culinary bone in her body, and Iz’s sister makes gastronomic masterpieces. During my first Thanksgiving with her family, I managed to put away so much sweet potato casserole that Iz’s sister has made me my own personal version the past two years.

  “I’ll tell her,” Izzy says, softly. “Love you, Stella bella.”

  “Love you too. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Holden gives me a curious glance as I hang up the phone, but he quickly busies himself with his computer when he deduces, correctly, that I’m not planning on providing any further information.

  I’m sorely tempted to call Izzy back to tell her that I do need a ride—to her parents’ house in Alabama. However, I promised my own parents, who’ve been torturing me with twice-daily phone calls for the past three months, that I would make it home for Thanksgiving this year. I’ve caused them enough grief. I owe them this small thing, and therefore, the trek to San Francisco is all but unavoidable.

  “Everything okay?” Holden asks.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. Just Izzy being her usual annoying self.”

  “It’s good that you have someone who annoys you. It gives you a taste of your own medicine.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Believe me when I tell you that there’s more than one person who annoys me.”

  “Not anymore. We’re done with each other,” he announces cheerfully.

  Is he really that excited to be rid of me?

  “I officially signed off on both the Rhodes application and the grade. You are no longer my student or my research assistant. Normally, classes don’t finish until after Thanksgiving break, after finals and re
ading days, but since this is an independent study, so there’s no need to bother with any of that. In case you were wondering, I gave you an A. It’s not enough of a thank you for all that you’ve done, but it’s the best I could do.”

  I open my mouth to thank him, but he clears his throat, his eyes studying me pensively. “I….I don’t know what we’re going to do without you. You’ve meant a lot to the project.”

  I don’t know what to say. Meaningless words are inadequate for what Holden has given me. There’s the independent study and the project, of course, but it’s more than that. His unfailing optimism, his endless patience for my whining, the way that he makes me feel like I belong somewhere that’s perfectly right for me—those things are unspeakably precious.

  Being here is the best part of today, of every day. I spend hours anticipating those few minutes right before and right when I rush to his office to tell him a silly story about one of our participants or to moan and groan about the fact that Kellen, the other research assistant, didn’t show up.

  It’s the best part of my day and I’m about to lose it forever.

  There’s been no hint that we’re anything other than teacher and student. I mean, he treats me like a colleague, which is nice, but there’s been no sign that he finds me attractive since that flirtatious wink that I’m not even sure was a flirtatious wink in the first place. He hasn’t once mentioned that night that he walked me home.

  And yet, I’ve managed to stick to my plan of developing a harmless crush on him. In fact, everything’s worked out to perfection.

  Better than perfection. We’ve developed a spontaneous and genuine friendship, the only one I’ve really had since I met Izzy. We manage a fairly steady stream of quick-witted exchanges and funny jokes and conversations about books and movies and food. Our tastes are uncannily similar, so much so that I wonder if he actually has some window into my brain.