“Okay.” She takes a few steps before turning back to face me. “Hey, it’s horrible. I’m sorry. I wish there was… well, it bites the big one.”
“Yes, it does. But…” I rest my elbows on my knees and look past her to the view of downtown, the clear blue lake. “It’s kind of okay, Kels, you know? Like I did the right thing. I protected Liv. My reputation is intact. I’ll finish my work on the dig. I can still do independent study work, write my book. I’ll get another job one day.”
“But you still hate that you were forced into it.”
“I hate that it’s affecting my students, but it would have been worse if they’d had to deal with the investigation and been asked if I harassed them. My colleagues too. My whole reputation, my life, would have been shot to hell if this all went public, resignation or not. And then if Liv… well.”
I stare at the lake. “I’d do anything for her, Kelsey. Anything. It’s insane how much I love her. And losing my job is nothing compared to… to her.”
“I know. She feels the same way about you.” Kelsey studies me for a minute. “Hey, remember when I kissed you last fall?”
“How can I forget?” I mutter. “It’s like a bad horror movie. The Attack of the Venomous Pit Viper.”
A grin cracks her face. “You know, when I told Liv about it, she laughed.”
“Of course she did. It was so bad it was funny.”
“My point,” Kelsey continues dryly, “is that she didn’t freak out like most women would have. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to be threatened by that. Even though she had a shitty time as a kid, and her mother is a head case, Liv just… she knows you. She knows me. It’s kind of amazing that she has this… I don’t know… total trust in the people she loves.”
“Yeah. It is kind of amazing.”
“I’ve always wished I was a little more like her.” Kelsey backs up a few steps. “But don’t tell her I said that. She’d start crying.”
“She wouldn’t… well, okay. She probably would.”
Kelsey grins and gets into her car.
After she’s gone, I work for another hour before heading home. Liv is making teriyaki chicken for dinner, and the sight of her bustling around our little kitchen is a reminder that everything is still the way it’s supposed to be.
Over dinner, she tells me about the encounter she and Crystal had with Maggie Hamilton. I’m less concerned about Maggie than I am about Edward Hamilton, though I’m not surprised Louise Butler found a way to threaten Maggie.
“I guess Maggie learned a tough lesson,” Liv says.
“Ironic that she might’ve learned it from your mother.”
Liv shakes her head, a shadow passing across her face. “My mother did graduate from the school of hard knocks.”
“Hey.” I rub my hand down her back. “You’ve handled this whole situation with your mother beautifully.”
Liv arches an eyebrow at me in amusement. “Is that your way of admitting you were wrong?”
“I’d never admit such a thing.”
She leans over to kiss my chin. “Well, you are my Mr. Right.”
After dinner, Liv settles in to watch TV, and I go into my office to work. Even having handed in my resignation, I’m still a scholar with papers to review and edit. Life changes, but history doesn’t.
I study an article about Chaucer and the concept of fate as a wheel of fortune. The wheel appears throughout medieval literature and art, often in stained-glass windows and illuminated manuscripts. The wheel spins you into either luck or misfortune, all set beforehand.
And though I never believed in love as a predetermined fate, even I had to admit it was a stroke of luck when, five years ago, I happened to walk into the coffeehouse where Olivia R. Winter worked.
After the day we’d met at the registrar’s office, I thought I’d never see her again.
And when I did, I knew I wouldn’t let her go. Fate, luck, or nothing.
Liv has always been the one part of my life I got right. Everything fit with her, like sliding a button into a buttonhole. I knew I wanted her. Knew I’d wait for her as long as she needed me to. I knew it would be so easy to love her.
And even now, I have to wonder if fate, the medieval rota fortunae, was somehow involved.
I shut down my computer and put my books away. It’s almost midnight. The noise of a comedy program comes from the TV. I push away from my desk and go into the living room.
All thoughts of medieval literature disappear at the sight of my pretty wife. Liv is curled up on the sofa, her hands tucked beneath her head. Her curved body moves with the rhythm of sleep. Her shirt has ridden up to expose the pale expanse of her stomach.