“Landon?” he said, and neither of us moved or responded. “Jacqueline?” he added, confused. All at once, he appeared to register what time it was, and the fact that the two of us had just exited his tenant’s apartment. There could be no tutoring excuse—not that it was appropriate for us to meet in the apartment for tutoring, no matter the time of day.
No one spoke for one long moment, and then Dr. Heller’s shoulders sagged. He sighed before pinning Lucas with a resolute expression. “I’ll need you to meet me in the kitchen when you return. No more than thirty minutes, please.”
Lucas’s hands were tight around the helmet. He gave Dr. Heller one sharp nod before putting it on. When he turned to make sure I’d strapped mine correctly, our eyes met once but he didn’t speak and neither did I. During the ten-minute ride back, no clarity rushed in. No magic words, no exoneration for his lies. I couldn’t think of anything to say or do other than wait for him to tell me why.
We arrived and I climbed down from behind him, awkwardly removing the helmet and the hair tie with my gloved fingers. Still straddling the bike, he removed his helmet, too, and stored them both away as though he had no plans to put his back on. When I faced him, he was staring at his hands, tight on the wide handlebars. “You already knew, didn’t you?” His voice was low, but I couldn’t tell his frame of mind.
“Yes.”
He looked up at me, frowning and searching my eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why didn’t you?” I returned. I didn’t want to answer questions. I wanted my questions answered, and I was ticked off that he was going to make me ask them. “So your name is Landon? But Ralph calls you Lucas. And that girl—other people call you Lucas. So which is it?”
His gaze returned to his hands for a moment, and my anger expanded like a balloon inflating beneath my ribs. He seemed to be deciding what to tell me and what to withhold. The Harley rumbled softly, ready to rocket away at a second’s notice.
“It’s both. Landon is my first name, Lucas the middle. I go by Lucas… now. But Charles—Dr. Heller—has known me a long time. He still calls me Landon.” His eyes swung up to mine. “You know, I think, how difficult it is to get some people to stop calling you what they’ve always called you.”
Very logical. All of it. Except the part where he pretended to be two different guys with me. “You could have told me. You didn’t. You lied to me.”
He turned the bike off and swung his leg over, standing in front of me and gripping my shoulders. “I never lied to you. You made assumptions—based on what Ch—Dr. Heller called me. Look through our emails. I never called myself Landon.”
I shrugged from his grasp. “But you let me call you Landon.”
His hands dropped but he stared down at me, keeping me from moving. “You’re right, this was my fault. And I’m sorry. I wanted you, and this couldn’t happen as Landon. Anything between us is against the rules, and I broke them.”
I swallowed thickly, combating choking up. I heard what he hadn’t said, yet. He was telling me it was over, just like that. The awful reality of desertion that Kennedy had begun weeks before came rushing back as though a dam had broken, and with no notice I was drowning in it. My parents had deserted me, Kennedy had deserted me, my friends, except for Erin and Maggie, had deserted me. And now Lucas—and Landon. Two different relationships, both of which had become significant.
“So it’s just over.”
He stared, and I couldn’t have felt it more if his fingers roamed over my face. “Your grade could be at stake otherwise. I’ll take responsibility for this, tonight, when I get back; Dr. Heller won’t hold you accountable.”
“So it’s just over,” I repeated.
“Yes,” he said.
I turned and walked into the building, and didn’t hear the engine of the Harley rumble to life until my foot was on the bottom stair.
Chapter 16
“Ms. Wallace, please see me for just a moment after class.”
I glanced up to meet Dr. Heller’s gaze at the end of the lecture Monday, and nodded my assent.
“Ooohhh,” Benji said. “You little troublemaker.” His smile fell when he saw my face. “What’s the matter? You aren’t actually in trouble are you?” He glanced to the back of the classroom, zeroing in on the only reason I could be in hot water with the professor. “Did he find out about—you know.” He inclined his head in Lucas’s direction.
“Yes.”
His eyes widened and he lowered his voice. “Oh, shit, are you serious? How?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. He found out, and it’s over.”
Pinning his lips together, he stuffed his notebook into his backpack and sighed. “Oh, man. I’m sorry.” His hazel eyes were full of sympathy. “Anything I can do?”
I shook my head again, needing to redirect the conversation. “I’ll be fine. How did the coming out go?”
Smiling broadly, he held his arms wide. “As you can see, I’m still in one piece, with all essential parts accounted for.” He waggled his brows, tossing his backpack over his shoulder after I gave him a shove. “It was good. Getting everything out in the open was a relief—to both of us, I think.”
“Good.” I was happy for him, though I’d not had the same experience with recent public revelations. I wouldn’t glance back at Lucas. He’d stared at his sketchbook when I’d entered the classroom, resolutely against even looking at me.
“Hey, Jacqueline.” Kennedy smiled as we passed in the aisle, as though he was proud of himself for finally remembering my name.
“Hi,” I returned, slipping by him on my way down to the front of the lecture hall.
When I stopped on the lowest step, Dr. Heller glanced over the heads of the students clustered around him and requested that I come in during his afternoon office hours to pick up my paper. His unflinching expression said it wasn’t an invitation as much as a directive. My face warm, I told him I would be there.
***
“You haven’t done anything wrong, so you have nothing to be worried about. Probably he just wants to make sure Lucas-Landon-Sideshow Bob-whoever the hell he is didn’t take advantage of you.”
I appreciated Erin’s reassurances, as mistaken as they might be.
Reclining on my bed, booted feet hanging off the end, I stared at the square of leaden sky visible from our single four-by-four window. Even in our overly warm room, I shivered. Erin and I discovered last winter that the ancient central heating would pump hot air into our little room until it was a sauna, only to click off and resume a slow slide back to frigid before rebooting back to sauna. It was a wonder we hadn’t both ended up with pneumonia by February.
“Landon was the perfect tutor. What’s between Lucas and me is no one’s business.”
“Except mine,” Erin quipped.
I turned my head and half-smiled. “Except yours.”
She added the finishing touches to a glitter-covered, sorority-themed poster. “What time are you supposed to be there?”
“Between 3:30 and 4:30.”
“You’d better scoot. I’m heading to work as soon as I finish this thing. Text me and let me know if I need to kick anyone’s ass. Don’t forget—tomorrow we’re getting dresses for the Bash this weekend.”
My roommate’s ability to change subjects rapidly was legendary. “I remember.”
***
Dr. Heller regarded me from the opposite side of his desk for the second time this semester, and I struggled not to squirm in the chair. I’d never been a kid who earned teachers’ disapproval; finding myself in this position twice in a matter of weeks was unbelievable.
He’d not looked at me since inviting me to have a seat. Rifling through a stack of folders and papers, he pulled out my research paper with a muttered, “Ah-ha.”
My hands clenched in my lap as he perused it, skimming through the stapled pages. I wondered if he’d already written a grade on it, or if what I said or didn’t say in the coming minutes would influence it.
He cleared his throat and I flinched. “I’ve spoken with Mr. Maxfield, which I assume you know.”
I took a nervous breath. “No, sir. We haven’t spoken.”
His eyebrows rose, eyes widening. “I see.” He frowned as though he was confused. “Well. I’ll ask you what I asked him, and I would appreciate your honesty, please. Did he assist you in producing this paper?”
I returned his perplexed frown, unsure what, exactly, he was asking. “He gave me some leads on research sources. And he read the completed paper and pointed out a few errors I needed to correct before turning it in. But the work is mine.”
He nodded and sighed. “All right. There’s also a matter of a quiz you may have been given some… let’s say notice of… ahead of the other students?”
I swallowed. “He suggested that I do the worksheet he’d sent.” Dr. Heller examined me with a direct look and one raised, bushy eyebrow, and I amended, “He suggested very strongly that I do it. But he never told me there was going to be a quiz, and frankly, I just thought he was being bossy—I didn’t even pick up on any hint—” Shit.
“He’s taken complete responsibility for his error in judgment, Ms. Wallace.”
I couldn’t breathe, my thoughts rioting. From the first moment I saw him—facing Buck in that parking lot after, I can only assume, pulling him off me—he’d been protecting me. Was he in danger of being fired from his job because of our relationship, whatever it had been?
I moved closer, my hand on the desk. “Lucas didn’t—he didn’t take advantage of me in any way. He was very helpful as a tutor. I have another class during his group sessions, so I couldn’t attend them, but he emailed the worksheets to me.” Breathless, I stopped, not wanting to make this worse than it already was. I couldn’t resemble some infatuated girl or my declarations wouldn’t carry any weight at all. “He shouldn’t be in trouble because of me.”
My professor stared at my paper, still in his hands. If anything, he looked more concerned than he had moments ago. Forehead creased, he raised his eyes and stared at me a moment. “He also says that you weren’t aware of the fact that the boy you were… seeing… was your tutor. That your academic relationship was carried out through email only.”
I nodded, unwilling to contradict anything Lucas said.
He sighed again, sitting back in thought, one hand covering his mouth. Finally, he slid the paper across the desk to me. “Your research and the conclusions reached were impressive for an undergrad. Good job, Ms. Wallace. If you do well on the final, your grade in the course shouldn’t suffer from the, um, emotional upheavals you faced mid-semester. A word of advice, though. This won’t be the last time you have to deal with something in life that throws you off your game. In future courses, as well as in the real world—such as it is—professors and employers won’t always be accommodating. We all have to—what’s my daughter’s terminology—suck it up and deal?”
