His nose tickled my ear. “I’m going to tell you every last thing, I swear. But my head is still spinning, and I’m not sure where to start.”
“He must have gotten your letter.”
Hartley’s lips brushed my cheek. “He did. But it came right in the middle of his divorce.”
I looked up at Hartley. “I read about that. He was married for fifteen years?”
“Yeah,” he said. “When I read that article, it made me wonder if he got the letter at all.”
“But he did.”
Hartley nodded. “His wife…ex-wife, whatever, she told him over the phone —‘you got an envelope from someone named Adam Hartley, it’s marked personal and confidential.’ And that’s when he told her about me.”
My head jerked back as I looked up at him, and it destabilized us for a second. My foot slipped off Hartley’s shoe and onto the floor. “She never knew?”
He shook his head. “But he said that when she told him about the envelope, he didn’t even hesitate. He said that if he’d always been straight-up with her about that and a lot of other things, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten a divorce at all.”
“Ouch,” I said. “Sounds like he has quite a bit of shit to shovel.”
Hartley’s hands skimmed my back. “I got the impression today that he needs a bulldozer and a back-loader for all his shit. But it sounds like he’s working on it.”
“What did you talk about?”
“A little of everything. We spent about an hour and a half, I think. And I’m going to see him again next month.”
“Wow.”
“I couldn’t stop staring at him, honestly. It was like looking in a funhouse mirror — he looked just like me, but different.”
“Hartley, I’m sure he couldn’t stop looking at you, either. You’re yummy.”
He snorted. “You’ve got it bad, Callahan.”
The slow dance ended, and the band began to play something faster, a swing dance. We needed to leave the dance floor. Hartley held out both his hands and walked backwards, and I pushed down on them, using Hartley for my crutches. My gait on the new braces would never be graceful. But it was a hell of a lot more natural than it had been before.
“Whoa, sorry!” Hartley said suddenly. He had bumped into Dean Darling while walking me backward.
The dean looked at us and then did a double take. “Miss Corey Callahan!” he exclaimed. “I did not expect to find you on the dance floor — which is yet another ridiculous error on my part.”
“I didn’t expect me there either,” I admitted. “But I was told the Beaumont Ball was nonnegotiable.”
“As it should be,” the dean smiled at us. “Carry on.”
Hartley tucked me to his side, lining up his hip against mine. He wrapped one hand around my waist, and the other he brought across his own body and in front of mine, where I leaned on it. We had a few new tricks, he and I. It was more fun to go to parties than it ever had been before, with my personal spotter to lean against. And nibble on.
Bridger gestured to us from a doorway that I’d never seen open before. “What’s over there?”
“A terrace,” Hartley said. “Want to walk out there for a minute?”
“Sure,” I reached for my crutches, but Hartley stopped me. “Walk with me. I won’t abandon you.” He stood up in front of me, his hands by his sides, bent back to reach for me. I took both of them in my own hands, pressing down on him for support. It was only about fifteen feet to the door. I had a little trouble with the threshold, which was a stone ridge in the floor. So Hartley picked me up by the hips, made a half-turn and set me down on the other side. Then he grasped me around the waist, giving me his other hand for support, and we inched forward towards our friends in the darkness.
When I looked up, there was an unfamiliar guy watching me, a quizzical expression on his face. “I’m not wasted,” I said to him. “This is a permanent condition.”
“Uh, sorry,” he said, breaking his stare.
I shook my head. “I’m just having a little fun with you.” Then I heard the telltale sound of a popping cork, and caught a flash of Stacia’s blond tresses as she turned around, a bottle in her hand. “Colin, the glasses?”
The guy who’d been staring at me held up a stack of little clear plastic cups, and Stacia began pouring a small serving into each glass. Hartley held me to his side, and I sniffed the April evening. Spring was coming. It seemed impossible to believe, but my first year at Harkness would be over in six weeks.
Colin passed cups around, but when he offered them to Hartley and I, Hartley declined. There weren’t any chairs outside, and it took all our free hands to keep me standing.
“Hang on,” Bridger said. He disappeared behind us, then reappeared a moment later with a dining hall chair, which he set down behind me.
“Thanks, Bridge,” I said, sitting.
Stacia came over then, with two cups for us. “You look great tonight,” she said.
When I realized she was talking to me, I was almost too stunned to respond. “Thanks,” I stammered. “So do you. But that goes without saying.”