Thomas kissed my cheek and then left us alone to track down the water. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get used to his lips on my skin. I hoped I never would.

“How long have you worked for the college?” Jim asked.

“This is my first semester,” I said.

He nodded. “Is that a nice campus out there?”

“Yes.” I smiled.

“You like San Diego?” he asked.

“Love it. I lived in Chicago before. San Diego’s weather is preferable.”

“You’re from Illinois originally?” Jim asked, surprised.

“I am,” I said, trying to mouth the words precisely so that I wouldn’t have to yell so loud.

“Huh,” he said with a chuckle. “I sure wish Tommy lived closer. But he never really belonged here. I think he’s happier out there,” he said, nodding as if in agreement with himself. “How did you two meet?”

“I moved into his building,” I said, noticing a woman speaking to Thomas by the beverage table.

His hands were in his pockets, and he was staring at the floor. I could tell that he was being purposefully stoic.

Thomas nodded, and she nodded. Then, she threw her arms around him. I couldn’t see her face, but I could see his, and as he held her, his pain could be felt from where I stood.

The same deep ache from before burned in my chest, and my shoulders pulled in. I crossed my arms over my midsection to camouflage the involuntary motion.

“So, you and Thomas…this is new?” Jim asked.

“Relatively new,” I said, still staring at Thomas and the woman clinging to him.

Trenton was no longer dancing. He was watching them, too, almost exactly parallel from me.

“Is the woman with Thomas…is that Camille?”

Jim hesitated, but then he nodded. “Yes, she is.”

After a full minute, Thomas and Camille were still wrapped in each other’s arms.

Jim cleared his throat and spoke again, “Well, I’ve never seen my boy so happy as when he introduced me to you. Even if it is new, it’s in the present…unlike other things…that are in the past.”

I shot a small smile in Jim’s direction, and he pulled me to his side with a squeeze.

“If Tommy hasn’t told you that yet, he should.”

I nodded, trying to process the dozens of emotions swirling within me at the same time. Feeling such hurt was quite surprising for a girl who was happily married to her job. If I didn’t need Thomas, my heart didn’t know it.

Chapter Seventeen

THOMAS’S EYES POPPED OPEN, and he looked directly at me. He released Camille, and without telling her good-bye or even giving her a second look, he walked past her, sweeping up a bottle of water on his way to where Jim and I stood.

“Did you interrogate her sufficiently while I was gone, Dad?” Thomas asked.