“Sure about that?” Toni asked. “Anyway, come on, we’re heading to the Provost’s faculty town hall. We’re gonna sit in the back and act like undergrads, but we’re hitting up Brews! first.”

“You two are coming, right?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Deja said, slipping her right hand into Alejandro’s left.

He smiled down at her and squeezed.

“Oye, Profé’s got a girlfriend,” someone yelled from elsewhere on the Oval.

“Is everybody and their mama out here today?” Deja mumbled, trying to hide her face behind Alejandro’s arm.

Mike and Marie laughed and started following Toni toward the Union.

“Mind your business, Tomás,” Alejandro yelled at a cluster of students he recognized from the LSU.

They laughed in return.

Deja pushed him to follow their friends. “This is why there’s no kissing on campus.”

He smiled, “We can discuss it later.”

She rolled her eyes at him with a smile. She wasn’t exactly back to normal, but in that moment, she felt more like herself than she had in days, especially with him by her side.

Twenty-Six

April

Deja really needed a coffee. A big one.

She might have made one at home, except she’d slept at Alejandro’s house last night, and while she’d remembered all the essentials — her satin bonnet, toothbrush, makeup, setting spray, and leave-in conditioner to style her hair — she’d forgotten her favorite coffee. That wouldn’t have been a problem, except Alejandro — this perfect man she’d been dating for five months and nine days, not that she was keeping exact track — only seemed to have two real flaws; he dunked his wings in ranch and he had the worst taste in coffee.

She wished she had time to run by Brews!, but by the time she realized her mistake, she had ten minutes to get to campus for her office hours and no time to waste. She held onto the faint hope that she’d have time to make a cup of tea before her student arrived. She didn’t.

“Hi, Amber,” she said as soon as she pulled open the door from the stairwell and saw her student sitting on the ground next to her office door, with a novel in her hand.

Amber looked up. “Hey, Dr. Evans.”

“How are you?”

“Alright. I shouldn’t crash until two, I worked the overnight shift last night.”

Deja didn’t have favorites among her students, but if she did, it would have been a tie between Jerome and Amber. “Just one more month,” Deja said, pulling her keys from her purse.

“I know. I can’t wait.” Amber shoved her book into her backpack and stood as Deja unlocked her office door.

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do after graduation? This’ll be your last summer to do as little as possible before graduate school eats all that up.”