I usually take the campus shuttle.His reply takes all of two seconds.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: ChivalryI’ll meet you on the steps.I close my laptop as the PA system crackles, and a bored-sounding woman announces that the library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Suddenly, my heart is pounding, my stomach fluttering, and I am very, very awake.* * *“Are you usually here this late?” he asks as I walk down the concrete steps, zipping my jacket up to my chin, the chilly autumn breeze bracing at this time of night.
“Usually I manage to leave around midnight,” I say. “But it’s midterms, plus I missed that week of classes, so I’m behind.”
Caleb’s standing off to one side of the stairs, wearing a black peacoat and a red plaid scarf, a bicycle leaning against his hip, a helmet hanging from the handlebars.
“Are you usually in your office this late?” I ask.
“Midterms,” he says. “I’ve got a lot of students trying to get caught up before the test, plus I’ve been going home weekends.”
Together, we start walking down the brick path across the quad, buildings looming around us, stars and moon above. It’s a clear night, which is probably why it’s so cold. I shove my hands into my pockets and scrunch into myself, trying to get warmer.
Tomorrow’s a scarf and gloves day, I think.
“Cold?” Caleb asks.
“I’m fine,” I say.
He’s already pulling at his scarf, unlooping it from his neck.
“No,” I say.
“I can’t watch you shiver all the way back to your apartment,” he says, pulling it off.
“I’ll warm up in a minute, now that we’re walking.”
Silently, he holds it out to me. I don’t take it, just keep walking.
“Are you going to freeze just to prove a point?” he teases. “I’m not even sure what point you’re proving.”
“That I’m independent and self-sufficient and don’t get cold easily?” I say. My fists are clenched in my pockets, but my fingers are going numb anyway. “That I didn’t forget to check the weather report this morning, I chose not to?”
“It’s just a scarf, not a moral judgement,” he says. “C’mon. It’s wool. From my mom’s friend’s sheep.”
It does look really, really nice, and I’m still cold.
“Don’t make me carry it like this all the way back,” Caleb says. “My shoulder’s gonna cramp up.”
I sigh, then reach out and take the scarf, then pull it tight around my neck.
It’s still warm from his body heat, still smells like him, like pine and pencil shavings. The tiniest shiver makes its way down my spine despite my best efforts in that arena.
“Thanks,” I say, tucking the ends under my jacket. “You usually get your way, huh?”
He looks at me, one hand in his pocket, the other on the seat of his bicycle, guiding it alongside us.
“It doesn’t feel like I do,” he says.
“Then it’s just with me?”
There’s a long pause, and I mentally smack myself on the forehead. He just gave me a scarf. Why am I being a jerk? Why didn’t I just say thank you for lending me this scarf made from some sheep of your acquaintance and leave it at that?
“I’m fairly sure I’ve never had my way with you,” he finally says, his voice so low it feels like it’s bumping along the path below my feet. “I think I’d remember.”
Suddenly, this scarf is way too hot and I think again, for the thousandth time at least, of being pushed against the wall at the botanic gardens, his lips on mine, his body pressed against me, the way I felt like my skin was electrified.
I stop in my tracks.
We’re right where the brick walkway meets the sidewalk, though the street is empty this time of night, a single stoplight changing endlessly from green to yellow to red even though there are no cars to obey it.
“Gotten, not had,” I say after he also stops, two paces ahead of me. “Don’t get it twisted. There’s an important semantic difference.”
“Then tell me how I’ve been getting my way with you, Thalia,” he says.
“I’m wearing your scarf even though I said I didn’t want it,” I say, pointing at my neck. “You emailed me and informed me that you were taking me home and I didn’t even get to argue.”
“I’m walking you home,” he points out. “There’s an important semantic difference.”
Just like that, my temper flares.
“Right, because walking me home is the sort of completely above-board thing that any nice professor would do but the minute walking becomes taking it’s wildly inappropriate for you to be doing with a student,” I say. “And you would absolutely never be inappropriate.”
Even in the dark, his eyes flash.
“Have I been?” he asks, taking a step closer.
I swallow hard, stand my ground.
“Because if I recall correctly, you’re the one who came and found me at the Madison Scholars banquet while I was sitting alone and minding my own business,” he says, his voice low, nearly a growl. “You kissed me in the hospital. You wrote Love, Thalia on that email and you gave me a bottle of wine.”