The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #1)

I nod, numbly, and when he holds out his hand, palm up, I carefully set my mittened hand down upon it.

Callum laughs again. The sound is addictive. “No. Give me your phone, Terra.”

“Oh.” I reach into my pocket, pull my phone out, and hand it over.

He texts himself and hands it back. “Text me your address. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

In shock, I watch him walk away.

I look down at my phone. He’s created a new contact with his number.

The Hot TA.

Oh my God.

Until you’re able to be right in front of me, connecting my face to my initial, don’t feel guilty for spending time with other people and wondering about them, even romantically.

Suspicion rears its head again, and I have to shove it away, climbing on my bike and pushing off.

My heart hammers the entire ride to the lab. When I get there, my phone pings with another email from C, and I tap my phone awake with electricity flowing through my fingers.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: February 17, 2024

Subject: Re: Emerging from the hungover study cave Four things, now? Okay: my middle name is Jude, after the song. My first concert was the Jonas Brothers with my oldest sister, Annika. Other than the guinea pig, Freckles, we had an adorable but really (I mean truly) stupid cocker spaniel. And I currently live in Philadelphia.

C.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: February 17, 2024

Subject: Re: Emerging from the hungover study cave C . . . my hands are shaking right now. I am freaking the hell out.

I live in Philly, too. And I think you know that.

He replies with a phone number. And when I enter it into a text box, an existing contact pops up on-screen.

The Hot TA.





Chapter Twenty-Three


FEBRUARY 17, 2024

Terra

Getting ready for my date with Our Lord and Savior is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. While I prop my foot in the sink and carefully guide a razor up my leg, Jamie runs the flat iron through my hair and Elise attempts to put makeup on me. I screamed my way into the apartment an hour ago, sending Elise diving for her phone to get Jamie here for reinforcement. It took nearly a half hour of them shouting, “Callum Sundberg is Terra’s pen pal!” at each other before it seemed to sink in for any of us. And yet! How on earth is it even possible that I am going on a date with Callum Sundberg, who also happens to be my longtime valentine?

“Bonkers,” Elise whispers again, sweeping some blush across my cheeks.

“Insanity,” I agree again.

“This feels like a dress situation,” Jamie says. “Are you going to wear a dress?”

Even I concede that this situation calls for a little dressing up. I put on a black long-sleeved, scoop-neck dress that is much sexier than it sounds and pair it with my favorite booties and a few necklaces so I don’t look like I’m part of a string quartet or attending a memorial service.

When I step back and look at myself in the mirror . . . I have no idea what Callum will think. He saw me in a dress just three days ago, but I was crouched in a dark, cramped closet looking up at him like a bush baby caught in a hole in a tree trunk. He had lunch with me while I wore a plain gray thermal long-sleeved shirt and no makeup. He asked me out while I was wearing my puffy red Fj?llr?ven jacket with pillow creases on my face and my bedhead shoved under my beanie. I realize he doesn’t need me to dress up, per se, but I can’t really get that thought cemented in my brain.

As if it isn’t enough that it’s Callum Sundberg picking me up in—oh, shit—five minutes, it’s also that it’s C. It’s the boy who thanked me for replying to his typo email and who sent me a note the following year to make sure I got at least one valentine. It’s the guy who gave me advice about going away to school and asked me how my mother was doing after having breast cancer. It’s the man who lost his father to cancer in the depths of the pandemic and worried about how to best support his mom and his sisters while still pursuing his dream of going to graduate school. It’s my soup-dumpling buddy. It’s my conundrum wrapped in a mystery tied with a puzzle shoved in a pickle jar.

It’s the only person with whom I ever wanted to share Valentine’s Day even if, this year, we’re three days late.

At seven sharp, I’m an antsy, uncool mess, and I cannot deal with Elise and Jamie’s hovering excitement any longer. I walk out of my building just as Callum climbs out of an older Audi parked at the curb. He walks around the hood and sees me at the same time I see the cupcake box in his hand.

Forget flowers; give me a cupcake and it’s a perfect date.

After all this time, he remembered? With my thumping heart scaling my windpipe, I jog down to him, where he and that sparkling, widening smile are walking toward me, faster now, and I throw my arms around him. He catches me with one arm, holding me so tight, and exhaling the most amazing sound into my neck.

Callum pulls the small box from where it’s trapped between us and wraps his other arm around my waist. He lifts my feet off the ground and laughs, low and rumbling. The sound vibrates down my spine.

He is tall, arms long and muscular, and his skin smells soap-clean . . . My mind keeps reverberating back and forth between the disbelief that I am meeting C . . . that I am hugging Callum . . . that I am meeting C . . . that I am hugging Callum . . . and when I manage to merge these two realities, I become wildly aware of the heat and mass of his body. He feels incredible against me.

“Is it really you?” I ask into his neck.

“Yeah. It’s really me.”

“No way.” I squeeze my eyes closed, holding him tighter. “I cannot believe this.”

“Realizing it was you in the closet was the wildest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he agrees, his breath warm against my skin. “Let me see you. Come here.”

He sets me down, stepping back, and as I sweep my gaze over his face, rewiring everything I imagined with everything I know, I am overcome with the urge to cry. This is the person behind the computer for the last ten years. It’s crazy, I mean, it is c-r-a-z-y, but certainty lands when he says, “Woodbridge,” and I reply, “Uni High,” and he says, “Terra Bernice,” and I reply, “Callum Jude,” and he says, “Rowing,” and I pause and then reply, “You already know I played lacrosse,” and then he cups the side of my neck with his non-cupcake-holding hand and leans in. “Too soon?” he asks, breath minty, his lips only an inch from mine.

“I don’t normally kiss before the first date,” I tell him. “But you’re the exception to the rule.”





Chapter Twenty-Four


2025


From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: February 14, 2025

Subject: Happy Valentine’s Day I win.

I love you.

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: February 14, 2025

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day CURSES! You distracted me with orgasms and then got up to get me water, like a real prince. I love you, too. SO much. I also forgot that I had an alert chime for this email, and the sound of it just gave me a shot of endorphins.

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: February 14, 2025

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day That you have any endorphins left right now is a shock, woman.

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: February 14, 2025

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day Right? Kristen was no fool. You give good dick.

Come back to bed.





Epilogue


2026


From: [email protected] To: [email protected]

Date: February 14, 2026

Subject: What did you say . . .

. . . when I asked you to marry me exactly at midnight?

From: [email protected] To: [email protected]

Date: February 14, 2026

Subject: Re: What did you say . . .

You’ll never forget what I said because I think you are still deaf from how loud I screamed YES into your ear.

Are we still going to be emailing each other from the same couch on Valentine’s Day in fifty years?

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: February 14, 2026

Subject: Re: What did you say . . .

Without question.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS