“Welcome home.”
“Are these access cards to get into your apartment?”
“Our apartment, yes.”
I ran my finger along my embossed name. He just gave me keys to his place. Our place. I liked how that sounded.
“I find it incredibly hard to fall asleep when you’re not beside me. I’d like you to move in. If that’s what you want too.”
I looked up at him. We had talked about this before. Before our fight. A few weeks ago I thought I’d never even step foot in his apartment again. And now he was calling it ours and asking me to stay. This was a big step. And it was definitely a step I wanted to take.
He wrapped his arms around me. “So what do you say?”
“Yes. Absolutely yes.” I hugged him, pressing the side of my cheek against his chest. His heart seemed to be beating as quickly as mine. I felt so safe in his arms. It finally felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Thursday
“Close,” James said. “The standard deviation of the difference should have come out to 0. 625. Let’s see.” He sat down next to me on the sofa and scanned the math that I had done to solve the equation. “Okay, there. You forgot to transform the random variable into a z-score.”
“Oh. Oops. I knew to do that too.” I still hated statistics, but it seemed a lot better when James was teaching it to me. Especially because whenever I got a question right, he kissed me. Maybe I had just needed a proper motivator. I grabbed the paper back from him. I quickly fixed the equation and handed it back to him. “How’s this, Professor Hunter?”
He laughed and looked down at the sheet of paper. “Much better.” He leaned down and kissed me.
His phone started buzzing again. It had been buzzing nonstop all morning.
“Are you sure you don’t want to answer that?” I asked. “Maybe it would be best to just get it over with.”
“Talking to them will make it worse. If I ignore them, they’ll get bored and move onto the next thing.” He stood up and walked back over to the T. V. mount he was screwing into the wall. It was fun watching him use tools. There was something very sexy about a man who could use a power drill.
“But you don’t even know who it is. You haven’t listened to any of your messages. You could always answer and hang up.”
“Which means I refused to comment. Which looks bad.”
“Oh.”
“Besides, if it’s someone I know, it’ll ring.”
“Speaking of people we know… I was wondering if I could hang out with Melissa tonight?” We had gone to my dorm room this morning and grabbed a few things. But Melissa had been in class. I wanted to tell her in person that I was moving in with James. And even though I had been texting her, I knew she had questions about what was going on. Besides, I missed her. We used to do everything together.
He put down the screwdriver and looked back at me. “You know that you don’t have to ask me permission.”
For some reason it kind of seemed like I did. He hadn’t let me go to my classes today despite my nagging. I knew it was just because he was trying to protect me. “I know. I just wanted to make sure it was okay.” I glanced toward the window. I was kind of nervous to leave the apartment. I didn’t want to have to walk past the news reporters. I was worried they’d follow me until I talked to them. And I always said stupid stuff when I was nervous.
“Well, how about you just invite her over here?”
“Are you sure that’s okay?”
“Of course.” He smiled and turned back to the T. V. mount.
“Do you want my help with that?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure I can figure it out.” He picked up the direction booklet off the floor and turned the page.
It was hard to focus on my Stat practice questions. My eyes seemed to automatically gravitate to him. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt. I was just about to suggest we both take a break when his phone started ringing.
James turned around and looked down at his phone. “It’s just the front desk.” He picked it up and slid his finger across the screen. “Hunter.”
Silence.
“Regarding what?”
Silence.
James looked down at me. “Do you mind putting them on the phone for a second?” He put his free hand in his pocket, turned away from me, and walked toward the kitchen. “It was my understanding that she wouldn’t be included in this.”
Silence.
“We’ve already disclosed our relationship to Joe. If you have any other questions then I’d recommend discussing them with…”
Silence.
James removed his hand from his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair. “Fine. Please put Ben back on the phone.”
Silence.
“Yes, go ahead and let them up. For future visitors please tell them I am out of town until further notice.” James hung up the phone and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. He didn’t turn around to look at me.
I put my Stat notes down and walked up behind him. “James?” I said quietly. I could tell that he was upset.
He sighed and turned around. “Apparently the people they hired for the investigation need to talk to you.”
“Why would they need to talk to me? We already told everything to the dean.”
“I don’t know. But it probably isn’t good.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
“How do you think they knew I was here?”
“Maybe they already tried your dorm room. It doesn’t exactly take a great investigator to assume you’d be here.”
A dinging noise sounded through the apartment. James walked over to the elevator door and pressed a button. The doors slid open.
Two men in suits stepped out. One looked about James’ age and the other was probably 20 years older or so.
The older one put his hand out to James. “James Hunter, I’m Detective Tim Reed. And this is my partner, Scott Turner.
Detectives? Were they cops? When the dean had said they’d be interviewing all the students, I thought he meant a colleague of his. Not the police.