She released Eddie and glanced down at her watch. “I’ve got to get going,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I have a meeting with Derek and the wedding planner.” As she gathered up her things, her hands shook. Antonia closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. Get a grip, Toni.

“Make sure you save your document,” Eddie said, gesturing to her computer screen.

“Oh! Yes, thank you.” She quickly saved and closed the browser.

“By the way, when are you going to let me look at that?”

Antonia shook her head as she stuffed her files in her satchel. “It’s really nothing.”

“If you don’t share it with anyone, it won’t be. You’re an excellent writer, Toni. At least you were in college.”

She scoffed as she flung her bag over her shoulder. “That was a long time ago, Ed.”

He wasn’t swayed. “The stuff you write is far better than the stuff we’ve been publishing. I wish you believed that.”

Antonia didn’t have time to think about her story. Her brain was already full of things that she couldn’t keep track of. One day, the storm in a teacup that was her life would settle long enough for her to breathe. If that day came, then she would give the manuscript more attention. Until then, she’d keep staring at the same miserable two chapters that had remained unchanged since Derek proposed to her. Later. I’ll work on it later.

Chapter Two

Aiden was late for his last class of the semester and tried not to look like he was speed walking the crowded hallways to get to his office. He had only ten minutes to get his teaching materials straight before he performed for the department chair. His mentor and the resident Medieval scholar, Robert Lewison, thought the last day of classes was an appropriate time to observe Aiden’s American Literature class. Of course, it wasn’t, but he wasn’t going to argue with the old man about bad timing. It wasn’t Robert’s fault that Aiden didn’t go to bed until 4 a.m. after completing rushed edits on a revise and resubmit journal article. Nor was it Robert’s fault that the traffic between Claddagh and the National University of Ireland, Galway was heavy with the early onslaught of tourists.

As he mentally catalogued the key points of his last lecture on Invisible Man’s race issues and the review of the final take-home exam, Aiden mistook the young woman who stood at his office door for a student. “I can’t do office hours right now,” he said.

When the woman turned around, he froze. With a glossy red smirk on her face, she cocked her head to the side. “Not even for an old colleague?” she asked.

Pulling an all-nighter and sitting in terrible traffic were playful irritations compared to the kick in the balls of seeing his ex-girlfriend, Lisa Brennan, outside his office. Her empty office was across the hall. Was she here to take a stroll down memory lane? “Lisa,” he breathed. Anxiety and anger coursed through his body as he fished his keys out of his pocket to unlock his door. “What are you doing here?”