We ended the call as I saw Patrice finally get to the door at the back of the building. Before he went in, he stepped back and looked right up at where I was. Seeing him still made my stomach flip, even as hopeless as things felt right now. He was in a black parka, his locs unbound and hanging down his back. He looked as stark and as lonely as I felt. Our eyes locked for a few breaths, and I saw the same regret in him that I’d been swimming in since last night. I wanted to lift my hand in a wave or call for him, but I just stood there until he finally dipped his head and walked inside.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Patrice

“Can I come in?” I asked after I’d rapped twice on the door of my department’s chair office. He looked up from behind his cluttered desk and waved me in. He was the exact type of man you’d expect to find chairing an economics department in an Ivy League school. In his fifties and had the absent-minded professor look down pat, complete with the coffee stain on his shirt.

“Patrice, please take a seat.”

I lowered myself onto one of the black leather chairs in front of his desk, unsure of what was about to happen, but almost certain it would not be pleasant. I looked down at myself and realized I’d missed a button on the vest I was wearing, and sighed. It had been two days since the stop and almost by the hour my regret for the way I’d handled things with Easton doubled. But since I was pretty sure I was about to get reamed out, I needed to stay focused on this particular fire and not the others actively burning in my life.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said, snatching me out of my pity party, his voice all awkward, as if we didn’t both know I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.

“Of course,” I said, wondering if he was going to straight-up tell me to stop tweeting or if he was going to tiptoe around it for the next hour.

He cleared his throat and looked at me, as if he was trying to figure out how to take the first bite out of me. “I saw that you were involved in a traffic stop this weekend.”

Had to give it to him, he could spin.

I dipped my head in a nod as my skin tightened from the mention of the stop. “Yes.”

He sighed and shifted in his chair, awkward as fuck.