In Too Hard (Freshman Roommates Trilogy, Book 3) Page 11

  Well, at least we weren’t back to “Ms. O’Brien.” But there wasn’t one shred of anything personal in that note. I know, because I read it fourteen times analyzing it for something—anything—that would make me think we were back on track on a personal level.

  Much as I wanted to find something, it was all business. And designed in such a way that he wouldn’t have to see me.

  And, obviously, I wouldn’t have access to his chapter one docs anymore.

  All forty gajillion of them.

  I pulled the next pile from the credenza. Skylark would be a fast pile to transcribe. I even considered not doing the process I went through with the One Mile Trot pile of cutting and pasting into different outline ideas. But no, even if that wasn’t part of the job, per se, it was an element that I enjoyed and was sure would help Montrose whenever he got around to writing fresh.

  I snorted into the silent room as I wondered to myself if the man even knew how to type the words “Chapter Two.”

  My anger rose as I entered the notes from the various pieces of paper, napkins, and backs of envelopes, into a cohesive document on my laptop.

  Yes, we hadn’t discussed boundaries for me as it applied to his past work. Or lack of it, as the case seemed to be. But, if I had just been his assistant, if we hadn’t spent all those hours FaceTiming and talking and texting and discussing everything under the sun, would he still have flown off the handle at the thought that I knew he was basically a crippled writer for the past five years, unable, or unwilling, to go beyond three paragraphs?

  If we hadn’t pressed our bodies into each other, clinging together with a shared wanting. If we hadn’t kissed for hours on the couch, would I, as nothing more than a glorified typist, have been permitted to see those all-mighty beginnings of some two hundred different novels?

  But then I thought about the lovely clinging. And the kissing. And I knew I wouldn’t trade having had that for anything.

  Even if I would never have it again.

  My anger dissipated into sadness for what wouldn’t be, but I kept typing, even though my eyes got a little glassy and at one point I couldn’t even read my screen through the unshed tears.

  Part of me even understood what made him lose it yesterday. (Not that he really lost it—I knew real losing it.)

  The insecurity he felt as a writer, something I supposed every writer or artist went through at times, was something I very much understood.

  His numerous chapter ones were the equivalent of my standing at the mall, staring at racks of shoes or clothing on a semi-regular basis because I’d noticed a new trend with the Bribury girls.

  I knew insecurity. And I knew the feeling of shame at having your insecurities found out, like when those Bribury bitches called me a poser to Jane.

  I shoved the Skylark pile a little further away from my keyboard, but still within reading distance. The tears were falling now. Not hard, and not often.

  But there was no way I was going to leave my tearstains on Billy Montrose’s papers.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I got into a routine. I would go to class, then spend two or three hours at the admin building, where the workload was light enough that I sometimes even got my studying done while there.

  Afterward I would text Lily and Jane that I was going to the caf for dinner. Lily would meet me most nights, and we’d have dinner and then maybe study right at the caf or walk over to the library. Lucas worked nights, so Lily did most of her studying then, preferring to spend every moment that she didn’t have class during the day with her man.

  Jane was rarely available to join us for dinner. In fact, I didn’t see much of Jane at all until late in the evenings. And by then, both of us were kind of burnt out and we had pretty surface conversations before calling it a night. Most nights when I came home from working in Montrose’s office, Lily would be asleep and Jane would either be asleep or not there at all.

  She got a new car, a gift from her father. Or bribe, she called it. I hadn’t seen it yet, but she said it was a Corvette, which seemed kind of unlike Jane, but I guessed she didn’t get to pick it out herself. Seemed like it would have been a better bribe if it was a kind she wanted, but maybe the surprise element of it was what her father was going for.

  After I’d have dinner and a study session with Lily, I’d go to Montrose’s office and get a few hours of work in, telling Lily I was off to my second job.

  Each night he would leave a note—and more flash drives if needed—on what pile he’d like worked on next.

  When I was done, I’d leave the flash drive in the middle of his desk blotter (never needing to move a laptop to make room, because he never left his again), with a note on how much I’d gotten done and where I’d left off.

  When I was done with a complete pile, I’d do the cutting and pasting thing for it, then put all the notes and papers back in a box, labeled more clearly this time by the title of the book. Those completed boxes I put in the corner of his office with a paper over them that read “done.” That area of boxes grew as the piles on the credenza decreased.

  I wasn’t exactly stalling and dragging this project out, but I didn’t break my fingers by speed typing, either.

  I knew there were still a lot more boxes at his apartment and once I was finished here we’d have to figure out how we wanted to attack those.

  A part of me hoped that the longer I took with this batch, the higher the chance that Montrose might thaw, and when it was time to make the decision, he’d opt for me working out of his apartment.

  That would force us to be in the same room at least, though I suppose he could probably just stay at the office crazy late.

  I got paid by the job, not the hour, so I never felt guilty if I just stopped typing for a while, took small breaks, and, I don’t know, stared at the photo of Montrose and his sister that sat on his desk.

  His smile was broad and happiness was all over his face in the photo. He had smiled at me like that. While FaceTiming on New Year’s Eve, when we’d joked about something. When he had walked into this office on his first day back and found me sitting at his desk.

  Although that smile had quickly turned heated, and less of happiness and more of pure want. My want, my desire, for him did not decrease even though my only contact with him was through notes left on his desk.

  Even though it had been several weeks, I could still feel his hands on my butt, still taste his kiss.

  I knew I would never forget.

  A few days before Valentine’s Day (which fell on a Saturday this year), I received a text from a Bribury girl I’d partied with a little bit fall semester letting me know where the best party for guy hunting would be on Saturday night.

  Samantha Martin was from old money, with a family pedigree that went back to the Mayflower. She was also the biggest partier I’d met at Bribury. She was the one Bribury Basic with whom I most wanted to cultivate a friendship. She always knew exactly what to wear, and which functions to attend.

  I had texted her like crazy fall term, asking where she’d be on the weekend, stuff like that. She’d always been friendly when I’d seen her, but I suspected that she might have been the one to originally put the label of poser on me that Jane so effusively shot down.

  I supposed normal girls did this sort of thing all through high school, but I was just trying to stay alive and invisible during my high school years, and missed out on all the joys of frenemy bullshit.

  It was immensely satisfying that she was the one texting me this time with party deets. And also satisfying that I hadn’t even once thought to text her yet this semester.

  Personal growth, or Montrose obsession?

  Probably a little of both.

  I knew it was a given that Lily would be with Lucas on Saturday but since Jane hadn’t mentioned the ponytail guy at all, I asked her if she wanted to go out with me that night to the party Samantha had suggested.

  She didn’t seem too excited about it at first, and I was ready to let it drop
, but midweek she said yes.

  I had a sense of dread about the whole upcoming weekend. If things weren’t going to happen with Montrose, it was time for me to move on, and see what might happen with a Bribury guy. I had checked out a few in the fall. Some had blown me off, some had shown some interest.

  And yet, my heart wasn’t in it. The Bribury guys that I’d noticed, or hooked up with, didn’t appeal to me anymore.

  I only wanted Montrose.

  That option apparently not on the table, I tried to garner up the enthusiasm to go through with the evening that I’d cajoled Jane into.

  I went to my closet and picked out the tightest red dress I owned and put it aside to wear on Saturday, talking Jane into doing the same. She ended up borrowing one from Lily. I didn’t think Jane owned any man-hunting clothes.

  Weekends were weird, with Montrose and me carefully planning when we’d each be at his office so we wouldn’t have to spend much—if any—time together. It was like divorced parents divvying up custody of the kids—I had the office in the mornings, he had it in the afternoons.

  That morning the campus was deserted, students sleeping in from their Friday night reveling. Fresh snow had fallen in the night and crunched beneath my shoes as I tromped to Snyder.

  The office was exactly how I’d left it last night when I’d finished up at eight. I knew I would most likely be the next person in, but I’d left a note for Montrose with where I’d left off, just in case he’d…what? Decide to make a late night visit to his office to see my handwritten note? To marvel at my stellar typing?

  Yeah, maybe I was just hoping he had nothing better to do on a Friday night.

  I had come to terms—sort of—with the idea that I’d blown it with Montrose. (Even though I wasn’t sorry in the least for speaking up that day.) That whatever we’d had, whatever flirting we’d done online, and the day of kissing, was all there was going to be.

  But I hadn’t let my mind wander beyond that. If Montrose wasn’t texting, FaceTiming, or kissing me…was he doing all of that with someone else?

  Thinking about it should have made me mad, or certainly sad, but instead, I felt that old familiar insecurity wash over me. Like I’d shown up at a Bribury party in last year’s jeans or something.

  I hated that feeling. Absolutely hated it. I knew I had a chip on my shoulder about it, the size of Queens itself, but I didn’t seem to have the tools to get past it.

  Not yet, anyway.

  I tried to shake off my feelings, and not think about where Montrose had spent his Friday night. Or with whom.

  A stack of papers from the class he taught had been placed on the now nearly-empty credenza. I’d ignored it yesterday, but today I thumbed through them, remembering turning in this assignment myself last fall.

  Had another student’s papers captured Montrose’s attention, like he purported mine had? After skimming a few of them, I picked up the last pile of book notes from the other end and got to work.

  I was done about two hours later, and put the notes in a box, labeled it by book title and stacked it on top of the others in the corner.

  I spent another hour working on the notes I’d transcribed, then transferred the file to a fresh flash drive and placed it in the center of the blotter. I didn’t bother leaving a note, it was obvious where I’d left off.

  I packed up my laptop, and pulled my coat off the hook. I took my shoes back to the desk to sit while I laced them up.

  As I slid into my shoes, my eyes were drawn to the photos on Montrose’s desk as they so often were.

  I wanted this job. I needed the money, and I loved being just a little inside the mind of Montrose. But it was hard being here, seeing his smiling face as I worked. Knowing that old leather couch had been the site of the best kisses I’d ever tasted.

  I grabbed a sheet of paper from the side of his desk and scribbled a note, saying some—but not all—of what I was feeling, before I could think better of it.

  Billy,

  As you can see, all the materials that were in the office have been completed. The last of it is on the drive on your desk. This might be a good time for me to break away from the project. You’ve paid me for January and February, already, so we could call it even.

  If you’d like to have someone else finish up the job, I’ll completely understand.

  If I don’t hear from you by Monday at four, I won’t plan on coming in and will consider our professional relationship fulfilled.

  I didn’t apologize for going after him about the whole rape/violation tantrum. And I added in “professional” when describing our relationship, though it probably wasn’t necessary.

  Professional was the only type of relationship we had.

  I half hoped when he came in on Monday morning that he’d text me right away and tell me to plan on working, that he’d brought a couple of boxes from his apartment and I could begin with phase II. My other half, my less masochistic side, wanted to receive no such text. To be done with the torture of being so close to him, and yet so, so far away.

  Before I could grab the note and tear it up, I quickly left the office.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I grabbed some lunch by myself at the caf and decided to get in a few hours at the library before I needed to get back to my room and start getting ready for the night out with Jane.

  Around three, I got a text. Because I had my phone on silent, it was just sheer luck that I saw the light go on out of the corner of my eye. Probably Jane, wondering when we should be ready to go out.

  I started to pack my bag as I swiped my phone. It was like my hand holding my laptop hovered in the air and froze when I realized that it was Montrose, not Jane, who had texted.

  First text in over a month from him. It had all been short notes on his desk since that Sunday night before classes started.

  Are you on campus?

  I set my laptop down, and took a deep breath before answering yes, and that I was in the library.

  Can you come back to the office for a little while?

  I didn’t hesitate. Yes. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Are you there now?

  Yes. See you soon.

  I threw my stuff in my bag and made my way quickly through the stacks and out of the library.

  He hadn’t mentioned why he wanted me to come, nor for how long he thought we’d be there. But, he’d obviously seen my note. So, either he wanted to fire me face-to-face, or he was going to tell me that I was still on the job.

  But why not say that with a simple text or email?

  It would be the classy thing to do to let me go in person. Realizing that was probably the reason for the summons, my footsteps slowed. Crap. The last thing I’d want to do after being dumped (again!) by Montrose was to go out and party with Jane in our slutty red dresses.

  I could just see myself getting drunk and being the girl who spends the night crying into her beer, telling her sad tale of woe to anybody who would listen.

  Which of course I could never be. My tale of woe with Montrose could not be made public.

  I texted Jane and told her I was sorry, but I had to work tonight, and to go without me. She responded quickly that it was no big deal, and she was cool with staying in.

  Again I wondered about the ponytail guy from Betsy Stratton’s wedding, and if he was the reason Jane seemed to be a bit mellower this semester.

  And had no plans for Valentine’s Day.

  I debated quickly running back to Creyts to change my clothes or at least put on some makeup. Knowing there wouldn’t be a chance of running into Montrose during my “visitation” hours of the office, I’d just thrown on some Lulus, a knit top and sweater this morning. I’d twisted my hair up in a messy bun and left, figuring I’d shower later, before getting ready for the party.

  But if there was a slight chance of Montrose getting tired of waiting for me and leaving, then I would risk showing up as I was.

  Dusk was falling now, and as I approached Snyder Hall I could see the light
s on from Montrose’s window, though the blinds were closed.

  I knocked on his office door instead of using my key. To hear his voice tell me to come in sent a chill through me. I had missed that deep, husky voice.

  “Hey,” he said as I entered and closed the door behind me. “Thanks for coming on such short notice. Especially since you’ve already been here today. Take off your coat, have a seat.”

  I nodded as I moved into the office, noticing several new boxes on the credenza, which had been empty when I’d left a few hours ago. I took my coat and hat off and hung them on the hook next to his long coat. “No problem,” I said. I motioned to the new boxes. “Are these the ones from your apartment?”

  He nodded, not rising from his seat. “Some of them. There are still a few left, but…you can get to those last.”

  I raised a brow at his use of me in the future tense, at least as it pertained to the job.

  “I don’t want you to leave the job, Syd. You’ve done a great job so far.” He looked down at the top of his desk, then back up at me, the dim light from his desk lamp reflected off his grey eyes. “Unless, you’d rather leave?” He tried to keep his voice level and indifferent, but I heard it. That tiny tone of questioning, of…insecurity.

  “I’d like to stay on. I’m really enjoying the work.”

  He visibly relaxed, sitting back in his chair. I felt a huge sense of relief myself, and sat down in the guest chair in front of his desk. Normally, I wouldn’t like the dynamic of the seating, like I was being interviewed or a student of his or something. But the truth was, that’s all I was, his employee, waiting for further direction.

  Yes, this was the seat for me. Not on the couch with him by my side. Not sitting on the edge of his desk in front of him. And certainly not sitting on his lap.

  Still, it felt oddly…formal.

  I looked across the desk at him. He was wearing a Brown University hoodie and jeans. His hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it, his regular stubble had at least another day on it, and I suspected that I wasn’t the only one who had skipped the shower this morning.