Here’s the Thing (Seddledowne #4)

Chapter 1 – Tally

one

TALLY

“I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world.”

— CHARLOTTE BONT?

A shton—ahem, in this setting, Professor Dupree—must’ve gargled a thesaurus before class. Either that or he had a secret GRE bingo card and was trying for a full house in the next twenty minutes. I needed a distraction before I was forced to cough jabs at him under my breath.

There were twenty-two of us in this class, limping through our last semester of the Creative Writing master’s program here at James River College. All we wanted was to make it across the finish line without having our brains atrophy. And for a class called Fiction Thesis Writing, there was entirely too much lecturing and not nearly enough story-telling.

Ashton sat on the edge of his desk. “When you craft your narratives, think about how this technique can add layers of complexity to your characters. Ishiguro doesn't just tell us Stevens is repressed; he shows us through Stevens' own words, allowing…”

I jerked and my eyes flew open.

Ash ley , the fellow grad student sitting next to me, snickered. “How can you fall asleep with that eye candy in front of you?” She flicked her brows up, inclining her head toward Ashton.

Eye candy? M-kay. I picked my phone back up, trying anything to make it through the last twenty minutes.

Me: Did you read the new chapter yet?

Madden’s texting indicator didn’t appear. I checked the time. 2:14 pm. And it was…Wednesday. Shoot. He was at hockey practice right now. My boyfriend of the past four years was the starting goalie for the Richmond Rockets, our state capitol’s AHL team.

“Let's turn our attention to Woolf’s, To the Lighthouse ,” Ashton said. He was wearing one of those fitted dress shirts again. The ones that strained over his back muscles and dipped in to hug his waist. The ones that made all his female students swoon. This one was black and it caused his light blue eyes to pop like glow sticks at a rave. “Notice how she employs the stream of consciousness technique not just as a stylistic flourish, but as a means of dismantling the traditional narrative structure.”

“Do you have any idea what that means?” Ashley asked.

I grunted. “Sometimes I think he uses big words just to sound smart. They need to make a Google Translate for Pretentious Professors.”

Ashley giggled and tapped a pen against her thigh.

I caught Ashton’s eye and unleashed a fake yawn, patting my mouth. His gaze narrowed ever so slightly. I leaned forward, chin on my fists, and batted my eyelashes, trying to see if I could get him to scorch me with his electric irises. Anything to liven things up.

My phone buzzed with a response from Madden. Oh, thank goodness.

Madden: I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Sorry.

I slumped in my chair. That did not smack of a man in love with a book. The new Spy vs Sigh chapter had dropped three days ago.

After months of arm-twisting, I’d finally coaxed Madden into reading the kick-butt series about CIA agents Jack Steele and Raven Nightshade, whose chemistry was so hot it threatened to detonate every mission. The anonymous co-authors, Leggolas1012 and Austentacious119, drip-fed new chapters each week on Incognito, a free site where masked writers and readers mingled. The espionage romance was hitting its stride, gathering quite the following. Madden had made it through book one— Flirting With Danger —fine, but I felt him waning in this second installment, Licensed to Swoon .

Madden: I can’t take another week of build-up. How much longer can they string the reader along? It feels like bad writing. Get ’em together already.

There was an undertone in his words that said he was on his way out if they didn’t.

My chest cinched in frustration.

Me: They’ll get there soon. I bet it’ll happen next week.

I flexed my fingers, trying to ward off the desperation that crept over me. Our relationship needed this. How could he not feel that? Over the last year, our FaceTimes had become uncomfortably dull and full of pregnant pauses. Like we’d run out of things to talk about.

Madden: Practice just ended. I’ll read it right now. Call me as soon as class is over?

The coil of anxiety loosened a bit and I smiled.

Me: Yay! Yes! That?—

I yelped when my phone was yanked from my hand. I looked up to see Ashton slipping it into his pocket as he walked away. The entire class was looking at me.

My jaw dropped. “Un-freaking-believeable,” I hissed.

Ashley giggled again. “I wish he’d take my phone. I’d tell him to put his number in the contacts while he’s at it.”

I scowled at her but she didn’t notice. She only had eyes for Ash.

At the front of the room, Ashton folded his arms across his chest, his biceps trying to bust through his sleeves. His cheeks were tinged with pink, clearly upset. What was with him lately? “As you revisit the text, pay close attention to the shifts in perspective and the blurring of past and present. How does this narrative approach reflect the broader modernist preoccupation with subjective experience?”

Great. Now I was phone-less and forced to listen to this cerebral chloroform.

Ashley had her phone out. I don’t know if she was hoping he’d take it or what—but when she tapped the record button on the TikTok app, my curiosity was piqued. I leaned in closer. She turned the screen so I could see as she zoomed in on Ashton’s eyes. She bit her bottom lip. After fifteen seconds she pressed stop and then wrote a caption that said: POV: You're trying to focus on the lecture, but the professor's bedroom eyes are like two sky-blue black holes sucking in your GPA.

She stared at Ashton and her twitterpated expression reminded me of the way teenaged me used to stare at my poster of Zac Efron every night. I had the sudden urge to tear the phone from her hands the way Ash had just done to me.

Weird. What did I care if she ogled Ash?

She whispered right next to my ear. “The one I posted of him last week got fifty-two thousand views.”

My head jerked back in surprise. Fifty-two thousand views?

“Thirty-eight thousand, the one before that.”

As she typed in some hashtags, I looked at the name of the account. PeerReviewedHottie. What the? I scanned the grid of posts. Holy crap. She’d made an entire account dedicated to videos of Ashton. I squinted, zooming in. Tens of thousands of women were following an account starring Ashton? I glared at the side of Ashley’s head. But as she sent his “Bedroom Eyes” off into TikTokland, I retracted my claws. She was probably trying to distract her way through this class, the same as me.

I glanced back at Ashton who was putting everyone into a lecture coma with his fancy words and deep, soothing voice. I slumped down in my chair, pretending to take notes for the rest of class.

As soon as he dismissed us, Ashton walked over wearing an annoyed expression. Ashley’s breath hitched when he stopped in front of me. “I want to see you in my office in five minutes.”

“Lucky,” Ashley tittered.

If Ashton heard, he gave nothing away. He was too busy scowling at me.

I bit back a growl of irritation. “Is that so?” I stood and held my hand out for my phone. “Maybe you forgot, but this is college. Not high school. You can’t be taking people’s phones away, Ashton.”

Ashley gasped.

His jaw tightened. “ Professor. Dupree .” He reached into his pocket and pulled the phone out.

I ripped it from his grasp.

His brow cocked in a warning. “Five minutes.” I could almost see the steam rolling off his head. It was uncharacteristic. We always gave each other a hard time, but not in class and definitely not with an audience of other students.

“Fine,” I agreed, but only because I’d been trying to get an appointment with him for weeks anyway. I was tired of being left on read. Of him not responding to anything—from questions about writing to hilarious memes. Exiting class so fast I couldn’t catch him. It was like he forgot he was my thesis advisor.

As he strode away, a muscle tried to burst out of the shoulder of his shirt. He either needed to size up or stop going to the gym so much.

“I can’t believe you called him by his first name.” Ashley gaped. “Or that you talked to him like that.”

“He’s not God, Ashley.” I was feeling an inordinate amount of irritation toward my classmate, I don’t know why. “He’s just a man. A boring man at that.” Her face scrunched up like she’d never heard something so concerning. Or like maybe she thought something was wrong with my mental state.

I picked up my messenger bag. “His singing voice could shatter glass, and when he dances, it looks like there’s been an earthquake and he can’t get steady.” I might’ve been overdoing it a little. He hardly ever sang and when he did, it was so quiet you could hardly hear. And his dancing was…okay. But Ashton needed to come down in her eyes a notch. Or fifteen.

Her mouth fell open so wide I could see her tonsils.

I waved my hand, hoping she’d remove the dumbfounded expression from her face. “He’s my best friend’s uncle.” And one of my best friends, or so I’d thought before he started ghosting me a few weeks ago. “I’ve known him forever.”

I regretted it as soon as I said it. Letting people know that Ashton and I were friends—former friends?—could be problematic. But I was almost done with the program, and I was definitely done with everyone fawning over him.

I heaved my bag over my shoulder and strode out of the room before a string of questions flew out of her mouth.

I dialed Madden as I came into the hall. “Hey,” I said gently, the opposite of how I’d snapped at Ashton. Madden never brought out the fire in me. Though, sometimes I wished he would.

“Hey, you,” he said. “Good class?”

“Not hardly,” I puffed. “I’m going to have to call you back in a few minutes to discuss Spy. I’ve been summoned to the professor’s office.”

He chuckled. “Tell Ash hi for me.”

Just then, a call came through from my eleven-year-old nephew. “I gotta go. Theo is calling.”

We exchanged I love you's, and I switched the call over.

“Hey, bud,” I said to Theo.

“Hi, Aunt Tally!” His voice sounded muffled and distant. He had me on speakerphone. “I’m calling because Charlie is worried you’re not coming to the game on Friday.” His cute little lisp made me smile.

“Of course I’m coming, Chuck.” Theo’s sister, my nine-year-old niece, giggled in the background. Her full first name was Charlotte but no one called her that. Just Charlie, and when I was trying to make her laugh, Chuck. Ashton, of all people, had come up with that nickname years ago. “Do I ever miss Madden’s games?”

“Yay!” Charlie cheered .

“Told you, silly,” Theo said.

“I’m not taking y’all,” Brianna, my older sister, barked in the background. “I have to work that night.” There was no compassion in her tone. “Stop. Don’t, Charlie. Pull that bottom lip back in right now.”

“You said you would,” Charlie wailed.

“Moooom,” Theo whined in a watery voice.

“No worries,” I said in a cheerful tone. “Grammy and I will take you and we can have a sleepover at Grammy’s after?” The question in my words was aimed at my sister. She got uptight if I made them promises without her permission.

“Yeah. Fine. Happily. Maybe I can sleep in for once.” I got that. Charlie was a perpetual early riser. Bri must’ve grabbed the phone from Theo because her next words were loud and clear. “It’s too much, raising them by myself, Tal. I need you and Mom to take them more.” I hated that she was saying this in front of them. “With Cam gone, I’m burning the candle at both ends. And I’ve got a job interview for a private family chef position.” My insides swooped in delight. Cooking professionally was her dream. “In New York.” My insides crashed to the ground. “Did you all look into putting them into Seddledowne schools next year?”

“Yeah, we’re looking into it but Theo is making solid progress with the speech therapist at his school there.”

“It is what it is,” Brianna said. “He’ll have to fight it out like the rest of us. Sometimes life sucks.”

My fists curled at her hardness. Theo and Charlie had lost Cam too.

“We can talk more about it later.” I kept my tone as calm as possible. Life had dealt her a crappy hand. It had dealt us all one. Things were good when I was a kid. Before my dad died. But I could barely remember it.

“Talk all you want.” Brianna’s voice shook and I could tell she was about to cry. “Next year needs to be different. I need more help. Period.”

“You’ll have more help. I’m graduating in May, remember? Just four more months. If you can hold on until then…”

“Fine.”

“Bri,” I said softly. “I’m so sorry for the way things have turned out. You deserve better.”

I heard her stifle a sob. “I’m s-sorry for being short with you. I’m just exhausted. You deserve better too. We all do.”

“I hope you get the job. I really do.” My chest tightened at the thought of her leaving the kids behind. But this was her dream.

“Thanks, sis. I appreciate that.”

We hung up and I slipped the phone into my coat pocket.

Then I took the stairs two at a time, ready to take my slap on the wrist.

It couldn’t be that bad.

It was just Ashton, after all.