Page 46
Don’t worry—I’m going to surprise you. But we need to lay some ground rules. You should know that I’m not going to approach you in any situation where you would normally be worried about your safety. Nor will I attempt to break into your house. You should always be ready to protect yourself, and you won’t be if you assume anyone watching or following you would have to be me.
Jonah doesn’t know me well enough to know I’m always ready to protect myself. My guard is always up. Still, I like that he considers my safety even in the maddened heat of our mutual fever.
On some level, Jonah is always in control.
I promise the next time won’t be three whole weeks later. But that’s all you get to know—for now.
Jonah
P. S. —I don’t think anyone actually monitors campus e-mail but we might want to switch to our personal e-mail addresses. Just in case. Should’ve thought of this before.
His e-mail is listed just after. The postscript makes me smile. I hit reply.
Jonah—
Don’t worry. I’ll be ready for anything.
Vivienne
And I toss in my real e-mail in parentheses, after my name. No sooner do I click send than a new boldface entry shows up at the top of my inbox—but this one is from Kip.
V, my darling, duty calls. I’ll be in the bursar’s office the rest of the day—
What in the world could he need to do in the bursar’s office? No telling, but I have a feeling that by the end of the business day, yet another university official will owe Kip a favor.
—but we absolutely have to talk. Free after hours? If so, come to Sigmund’s around 5:30. First beer’s on me. See you there?
K
My first impulse is to refuse. Tonight I need to dig in to these essays; they promise to be excruciatingly bad, and the longer I put off grading them, the longer the task will hover over me like a gray, rain-fat cloud. More than that, though—I want to be alone with my thoughts. With my memories of Jonah, all of them, from the savage way he took me last night to the dark promises implied in today’s e-mail.
But no. I’ve never been one of those women who cancels the rest of her life the first minute a guy comes onto the scene. This is no time to start. If Kip asked me to drop in at a bar we like on the average night, I’d probably go.
So, after a couple hours’ worth of grading, I take myself off to Sigmund’s.
Like pretty much everywhere else in Austin, the bar’s atmosphere is casual with a side of wacky. Various graffiti artists were invited inside to tag the walls in brilliant Technicolor, and the tabletops have campy old advertisements from the sixties and seventies under the glass. I slide onto a bar stool at a table where the Breck Girl grins up at me from between her shellacked waves of golden hair.
Kip strides in only moments later, a brilliantly colored scarf around his neck. “You made it. And looking gorgeous too. ”
“Thanks. ” I tilt my head so Kip can give me a kiss on the cheek. “You don’t look so bad yourself. ”
He touches the scarf at his throat. “This old thing? Glad you like. Aren’t you glad the weather’s finally turning chilly? At last we can layer and accessorize our outfits, as God intended. ”
In Austin, “chilly weather” means temperatures in the low sixties. Jackets and scarves emerge from the backs of closets to show up on the street once again. I smile at him and say, “I think you said something about buying the first drink?”
“Name your poison. ”
“Corona with lime. And thanks. ”
I needed something like this, I think. Some time to kick back with a friend and think about something besides my extremely unconventional sex life. Which is why it’s so startling when Kip returns with our drinks, puts mine in front of me, and says, “Let’s talk Professor Jonah Marks. ”
Although I don’t do an actual spit-take with my beer, I come close. “Excuse me?”
“Sources report that you were apparently emotional and beside yourself in front of the campus Starbucks the other day—and Mr. Marks seemed to take pointed interest in this. As if, perhaps, he was the reason for your upset. ”
“He wasn’t. ” Maybe Kip will let it lie there, but I doubt it. I try distraction. “What do you mean, sources? Do you own the baristas too?”
“Nothing happens on this campus that I don’t hear about sooner or later. My eye sees all. ”
I groan. “You’re like Sauron in Lord of the Rings. ”
“Except with less powerful bling. Now, fess up, darling. ”