Deja was trying not to think about the vast distance between what she’d planned to do over winter break, what she’d needed to accomplish, and what she had actually completed, but with the start of the new semester looming, it was all that was on her mind. She’d been counting down the days and panicking. She was teaching three classes in the spring semester, and only her Sociology of the Black Family was a new course prep, but she was doing what she normally did and tinkering with all her syllabi, not just the one that needed help. Syllabi trumped everything, which meant that the idea of writing had completely left her brain — not that she’d written much since she submitted that article — because she didn’t have time. She couldn’t walk into the first day of class without a syllabus, but she could pretend that she’d get another article submitted by spring break.

Her phone rang, and she was almost relieved to have a legitimate reason to take a break from looking at the e-campus course shell or the weekly schedule of readings, trying to divine the exact moment when her students would stop doing the coursework and make her life harder. She rushed from her office to her bedroom, where her cell phone was charging. When she bounced onto her bed, she squealed the moment she saw Alejandro’s name on her phone screen. Her finger stilled above the green button to answer the call when she processed the sound she’d just made. “Jesus, get yourself together, girl,” she mumbled to herself. “Hey,” she answered.

“Hey.”

That one word made Deja’s stomach clench. She wasn’t certain if his voice was always that deep and rumbly or if her brain had morphed it into the voice of her wet dreams because it had been so long since they’d seen each other.

“What are you up to right now?” he asked.

Once again, the world on his end of the line sounded big and noisy and lively, but she’d learned to tune it out and ignore the small frisson of jealousy that it sparked so she could just focus on him. “Just working on my syllabi,” she said.

“Working, working, always working,” he teased. “Did you rest at all?”

“Not much,” she admitted, scooting back onto her bed and lying on her back. “But I did let a boy convince me to have Skype sex a few times.”

She could just imagine the blush spreading across his cheeks. “Not nearly enough times,” he mumbled, and Deja giggled. “Hey, are you busy tomorrow?” he asked.

“Define busy. I mean, these syllabi won’t format themselves.”

“I mean,” he said, dragging that word out, “do you have any free time tomorrow to pick me up from the airport?”

Deja sat up straight, and her mouth fell open in a gasp. “Wait. What? You’re not coming back until Sunday.”