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

“I could ride you. I’d ride you so good, Cally.”

I have to swallow to not release the laugh-wail that seems to expand in my throat. She’s never called me that before and would have no way of knowing I hate that nickname. “Not here.”

“No one makes me come like you,” she says, leaning in, smelling my neck. “Every time. Better than I do alone.”

“I’m sorry . . .” Squeezing my eyes closed, I set my hands on her shoulders, carefully urging her back.

“You’re serious?” she asks, stepping away and looking at me with new clarity.

“Yeah.” I swallow, nodding. God, it is going to be so awkward in the lab tomorrow. “I’m sorry, Kristen, but I do think we should stop for real.”

She stares at me for three endless seconds. “You’re an asshole, Callum.” She turns and leaves the room. Silence rings out.

Silence, except for a tiny rustle. A miniature squeak. Another sound that I now register seems to be coming from the closet.





Chapter Fifteen


FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Terra

Callum? my brain screams, a high-pitched, internal shriek. Callum Sundberg? The graduate student in our program a few years ahead of me and Elise? The literal embodiment of charisma? The capable-yet-intimidating TA for our neuroanatomy seminar? The man so tall and hot and untouchable we peek at him around objects—trees, books, doorways—like looking at an eclipse? Callum is in the room on the other side of this door? As soon as I heard Kristen say his name, everything clicked into place. God, of course Callum is the man who “gives good dick,” who made her come like no one else, who just turned down sex so absolutely, so decisively, that she left without another word.

I smother my horrified laugh and bend, pressing my face to my knees. I cannot fathom being turned down like that by a man like Callum Sundberg. Truthfully, I cannot fathom having the nerve to proposition him in the first place, but then to be so summarily rejected! I feel Kristen’s humiliation as a spike in my own pulse. How could any mortal come back from that? I would sooner dig my own grave out in Death Valley, climb in, and slowly desiccate to death.

But in an instant, that humiliation is nothing. Because the closet door swings open, and Callum Sundberg is right there. Well over six feet, beautifully fit, with light-brown hair and gleaming hazel eyes, he’s looming over me, staring down with a mixture of surprise and horror to where I’m curled up around my half-empty bottle of wine.

“Holy shit. I thought I heard someone in here.”

Like an idiot, I wave. “Yes, hello.”

“Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

“I’m fine. I came in here to escape the party and then heard someone coming and panicked.”

“Dylan wouldn’t care if you were in here.”

“That’s nice but I have no idea who Dylan is.”

He smiles, looking more closely at me, and my humiliation deepens when he asks, “Isn’t your name Teresa? You’re a first-year?”

“It’s Terra, actually.”

“That’s right.” His eyes fall closed, and he takes a deep breath. “You heard everything, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

The words You give such good dick seem to reverberate between us.

“You’re in a class I TA,” he says mournfully.

“Indeed, I am.” I swallow. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be weird.”

How, self? I wonder. How will it not be weird?

No one makes me come like you do. Every time. Better than I do alone.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” he says quietly. And what man in the history of time would ever want his prowess in bed kept a secret? Please. But my heart does a tiny, swooning flip when he adds, “Kristen would be mortified.”

And even as the words “I promise I won’t” flow from my lips, I know I’m lying. Thank God it happened on Valentine’s Day, because the second I get home, I’m going to email C and tell him all about this.

Callum reaches down, extending his hand to me, and I take it. He pulls me up and when our eyes meet, his thumb passes, warm and smooth, over my knuckles. “You sure you’re okay?”

Revision: I will tell C everything except the way I feel that thumb stroke everywhere. “I’m sure I’m okay,” I tell him, knowing I’m not okay at all.





Chapter Sixteen


FEBRUARY 14, 2024

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Tonight was boring until it was BONKERS.

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Bonkers? Tell me.

Also, I’ll be home June 3–11.

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

We are finally leaving in like 10 minutes, so I’ll email you the entire story when we get back to the apartment. I think we are the last 3 people here, and somehow, I still haven’t seen the person who owns this house.

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sounds like we both had an interesting evening.

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

There is no way your story wins.

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Well, now I’m intrigued.

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

Date: February 14, 2024

Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!

Okay, so I told you how my friends were dragging me to this party. It was just as boring as expected. I’m sure everyone was very nice, but it was pretty fancy and not at all the mood I was in. I only knew a few people there, and my friends ended up deep in conversation with other people, etc., you get it: I was bored.

So I went wandering around. It’s this huge house in this really nice neighborhood of the city I live in, and let me tell you: this is not usually my thing. I don’t usually wander around a stranger’s house. But again: BORED. Also, I had wine. SO I’m in this library alone and I hear someone coming so I panic and instead of just staying in the chair like a normal person and being like, “Hi, yes I’m just hanging out and getting away from the party for a few minutes,” I hid in the closet.

Two people came in. They were clearly former lovers. She was begging him to bang her, C. Begging. He was very firmly like “No, I will not bang you.” It wasn’t until the very end when she said his name that I realized it’s my TA. MY VERY HOT, VERY INTIMIDATING TA. And the worst part was that I MUST HAVE MADE A SOUND BECAUSE WHEN SHE LEFT IN SHAME AND SHAMBLES, HE WALKED OVER AND FOUND ME IN THE CLOSET.

I knew everything that she’d said. And he knew I knew. And now I think he’s proctoring an exam on Friday morning, and I definitely want to feign illness.

Help.

T.

PS: Since we’re talking about meeting up . . . should we finally exchange names? Numbers?





Chapter Seventeen


FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Callum

Ido not think disbelief is the right word. I don’t even know what the right word is.

I read T’s email again, and then again, and I really think that no matter how badly I want to lie to myself right now, there is no universe in which we just happened to experience two sides of the exact same encounter in different places in the country.

T and Terra are both first-year graduate students.

T and Terra were both hiding in a closet earlier.

T and Terra both overheard her TA being propositioned, and I was propositioned, and I am a TA of a graduate class.

T is Terra.

Her name is Terra.

A class list crystallizes in my mind, and I mentally scan down toward the bottom.

Terra Solace.

t.sol.

I just met her, but she has no idea she’s just met me.