I throw another glance over my shoulder. Professor Douche is still in the coffee shop, now chatting with another man who looks like he’s probably faculty. “Did you just get off the phone with . . . your man?” Since I know she’s afraid the word will get out about their relationship before she’s defended her dissertation, I don’t use his name.

“No.” Her brows pull down together and her lips pucker in the cutest fucking pout. Fierce possession claws at me. He doesn’t deserve her. “Why do you ask?”

I wave toward the windows to the view of the man in question. “I just saw him in there. He was having an interesting phone conversation with someone he called Buttercup.”

“Okay . . .”

“Is that what he calls you? Buttercup?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re being weird, Easton.”

“If you’re not Buttercup, I wonder who is.” I fold my arms. “I wonder who he was just talking to on the phone.”

She sighs and grabs me by the arm to pull me away from the library entrance and around the side of the building. She tilts her head to the side. “Listen. I know you don’t like him, but I’m not asking you to. I don’t need your approval or your friendship. If you recall, I’ve lived just fine without it for over a decade.”

“Not quite a decade,” I whisper, thinking of that night in Chicago. She hadn’t talked to me in years, but when she needed someone, she came to me. That meant something.

Her eyes narrow to slits. “Are you planning to rub my nose in my mistakes?”

“Shay—”

“I don’t care if you like George or if you think my relationship is doomed to fail, but I’m not going to let you stir up trouble where there is none.”

“I’m not stirring anything. I’m just stating facts. I heard him on the phone, and he—”

She holds up a hand. “Stop. Just . . .” She shakes her head, her jaw tight. “Please just stop.”

“I don’t want him to break your heart.”

“Right. Because I guess that’s your job.”

The blow lands just as she intended it to, and I flinch. “I never wanted to break your heart either.” The last word sounds as broken as I feel.

She tilts her face up toward the sky, and I can’t help but notice how pink her cheeks are in the cold, how red her lips are. “You think that just because you’re back here, just because you’re not married, we should go to dinner, catch up. I should dump my boyfriend and let you be part of my life. Hey, maybe when it’s convenient for you, I could take you back to my place and we could find out if I’ve picked up any new skills in bed in the last seven years?”