Page 28 of Between the Lines
Claire returns, and I have to wonder if the dots along her brow are sweat, or because she had to splash water on her face. I might be running off to do just that if this conversation doesn’t end soon.
“I’m done,” Penelope promises.Thank the Lord.“Fords, would you like to shift the mood with photos of your cute-ass baby?”
Although the baby in the photos is objectively cute, I nod politely, then lean away from theooingandahhing. After raising Cal for my entire adult life, I don’t think I’d everwantkids of my own. I’mstillwaiting for the pressures of being a pseudo-parent to lift. For the guilt of takinghisto subside.
Oddly, as I settle back to sip my soda, I see Claire doing the same: Nodding politely at baby photos while not becoming buried with interest. I lean back on the outside of the circle and catch her eye.
I also catch the way her cheeks turn the color of pink cotton candy, but I pay it no mind.
“Do you not like baby photos?”
God, why do I open my mouth?
Claire laughs, rebuking my awkwardness.
“Don’t get me wrong, she’s adorable. I just get enoughbabyat home.”
Her full lips turn up in a secret smile, and my insides warm, just as they had this afternoon in my office, only somehow more intense. When Aaron and Sam had insisted that I come out of my office, had checked up on me as a human being and not just their superior, my heart had clenched. The way that Claire’s smile turns up for only me makes the unused valves of my heart start to function again.
I lift my brow slowly, the tilt of my head mirroring the way we’d left things back in my office when she’d beenon the precipice of opening up. She leans back, around the backs of our friends who are still looking at baby photos.
“My dad works long hours, and my mom has… Let’s just say she loves her social life, and being aFacebookmom, more than she loves the duties that come withbeingone. I’m essentially a third parent in my free time. Hence the not really knowing what I want to do after I’m done at River Valley.”
My breath evaporates as she shrugs—shrugs it off, as if what she just shared is no big deal. I have to swallow the boulder in my throat before the words tumble from me unprecedented.
“I know how you feel. I raised my younger brother after our parents died.”
Her eyes widen in shock, but soften with empathy. She holds no pity, just inquisitiveness. Her lips part and close several times, and I don’t think I’ve ever longed for something more in my life than I do for her unspoken questions. Instead, I hold her gaze steady, the sparkling blue crystal clear like the Caribbean Sea, a siren threatening to pull me under.
“…college, Nate?”
I blink, hearing my name, remembering that Claire and I aren’t the only two at this table. I remove myself from the vacuum, sounds and sights and smells hitting me all at once as I ask Sam to repeat his question.
“You like, quadruple majored, right?”
“Triple minored,” I clarify. “English, history, and psychology.”
“Oh, wow!Claireactually majored in psych.”
Penelope’s eyebrow lifts conspiratorially.
“Who was your favorite theorist to study?” I ask, pleased and somehow more grounded when the conversation gifts me with an opportunity to talk to her again.
“Oh, I’m a Freud slut. I’m convinced that our subconscious puppeteers us.” Her cheeks pinken, but she continues, “It explains why so many of our students act out and then can’t explain why:They repress their at-home trauma, and when it comes out in a safe place—school—and they misbehave, they truly don’t get why their brain is acting that way.”
“I suppose you disagree with Adler, then?” I ask. She eyes me with a newly kindled fire.
“Sure, I agree that people are shaped by the world around them,” she starts, her back straightening. For some reason,that—that vote of confidence in herself—is what makes my cock stir. “But how can you say that a man’s life is completely separate from his past?”
“Because if man let the past shape him, it allows him to use the blame game for all of his future failures.”
“Oh my God, keep talking. Ilivefor this,” Lucy says, resting her chin in her hand and leaning into our conversation.
“AnnnnndI’ve lost my girlfriend.”
Aaron takes Sam by the elbow and mentions something about getting another round. Lucy leans across the table between us, sipping on her beverage with wide eyes like she’s watching a tennis match. Claire tilts her head and purses her lips in a way that whispers,Game on,and that smug little grin makes me want to grab her by the nape of the neck and drag her back to that restroom to show her what it looks like tonothave to fake an orgasm.
Wait. What?