THIS IS NOT my hotel room.
First of all, it has a way better view. A busy, picturesque New Orleans street, instead of that cluttered courtyard with stacked patio furniture. Second, it smells faintly like pine and soap. Third, and perhaps most important: it’s not messy, and if I have one talent in the world, it’s turning a hotel room into complete non-vandalic chaos within the first three minutes of my stay.
Your girl has some serious splinter skills.
I sit up in the bed, which I assume is also not mine. The first thing I see is green. A particular brand of green: Levi Green™.
“Yo,” I tell him, a little stupidly, and immediately slump back on the pillow. I feel drained. Exhausted. Nauseous. Out of it. How did I get here, anyway?
Levi comes to sit next to me, on the side of the bed. “How are you?” The rich rumble of his voice is a hint of sorts. The last time I heard it was very recently. And I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe because...?
“Did I lose consciousness?”
He nods. “Not immediately. You walked with me to the elevator. Then I carried you here.”
It comes back to me at once. Tim. Annie. Tim and Annie. They’re here at the conference. Talking. To each other. I must be in Levi’s bed and the inside of my head is rotten and I’m losing it again and—
“Deep breaths,” he orders. “In and out. Don’t think about it, okay? Just breathe. Steady.” His voice is just in-charge enough. The perfect amount of commanding. When I’m like this, a hairbreadth from exploding, I need structure. External frontal lobes. I need someone to think for me until I’ve calmed down. I don’t know what’s more upsetting: that Levi is doing this for me, or that I’m not even surprised about it.
“Thank you,” I say when I’m more in control. I turn to my side, and my right cheek brushes against the pillow. “This was... Thank you.”
He scans my face, unconvinced. “Are you feeling better?”
“A little. Thank you for not freaking out.”
He shakes his head, holding my eyes, and I take more deep breaths. Seems like a good idea. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
He nods and does what he did weeks ago, after saving me from the almost-pancaking: he puts his warm hand on my brow and pushes my hair back. It might be the best thing I’ve felt in months. Years. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.”
He nods again and makes to stand. The dread in the pit of my stomach is back with a vengeance. “Can you—” I realize that I slid my finger through one of the belt loops in his jeans and immediately flush and let go. Still, all the embarrassment in the world isn’t enough to keep me from continuing. “Can you stay? Please? I know you’d probably rather be—”
“Nowhere else,” he says, without skipping a beat. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” We stay like that, in the Hostile Companionable Silence™ that’s as much a part of our relationship as BLINK, and peanut-butter energy balls, and arguing about Félicette’s existence. After a minute, or maybe thirty, he asks, “What happened, Bee?” and if he sounded pushy, or accusing, or embarrassed, it would be so easy to shut him down. But there’s only pure, naked concern in his eyes, and I don’t just want to tell him. I need to.
“Annie and I had a falling out in our last year of grad school. We haven’t talked since.”
He closes his eyes. “I’m a fucking asshole.”
“No.” I close my fingers around his wrist. “Levi, you—”
“I fucking pointed her out to you—”
“You couldn’t have known.” I sniffle. “I mean, you are an asshole, but for other reasons.” I smile. I must look ridiculous, my cheeks glistening with sweat and tears and smudged mascara. He doesn’t seem to mind, at least judging from the way he cups my face, his thumb warm on my skin. It’s a lot of touching for two nemeses, but I’ll allow it. I might even welcome it.
“Annie’s at Vanderbilt,” he says with the tone of someone who’s talking to himself. “With Schreiber.”
“You do remember her, then.”
“Seeing you like this definitely jostled my memory. Other things, too.” He doesn’t move his hand, which is totally fine by me. “Is that why you’re not working with Schreiber? Why you’re with that idiot, Trevor Slate?”
“Trevor is not an idiot,” I correct him. “He’s a sexist, imbecile dickhead. But, yeah. We were supposed to do our postdocs together. We even timed our graduations so we’d move to Nashville at the same time. And then...” I shrug as best as I can. “Then that mess happened, and I couldn’t go anymore. I couldn’t be with her and Tim.”
He frowns. “Tim?”
“All three of us were supposed to work with Schreiber.”