if we do? Or were you so desperate to get away that you checked out completely?”
That jaw muscle twitched again, and the one eyebrow that I could see drew low.
“Good to know. I’ll check in with Tom about those reports.” He squinted. “I assume you guys can handle the party without me. You probably wouldn’t want me around Scott Nash anyway.”
It was the most reasonable thing to come out of his mouth since he’d been back on Summersea. I stared at him, wondering what was next. The four horsemen, perhaps?
“Anyway. I’ll let you get back to your class.”
A quick nod, and then his long legs were carrying him halfway across the parking lot. He had no right to look so graceful, and his ass had no right to look so—well, you get the picture.
“You’re welcome,” I called after his retreating figure. If he heard me at all, he didn’t give any sign of it.
“Don’t judge me. I’m under a lot of stress. And wine is good for your health.”
Gretchen continued to stare at me as I opened up the bottle of wine, and I couldn’t help thinking her eyes looked slightly accusatory. Possibly because she knew most of those studies were about the benefits of red wine, and this was just a cheap bottle of white I’d grabbed at the liquor store on my way home. Or because she thought the glass I was pouring myself was a trifle on the large side. She might have been suggesting I find healthy coping mechanisms.
Or maybe it had nothing to do with the wine at all. Maybe it was because once I’d gotten home, I’d spent three hours on grading and lesson plans and hadn’t given her enough attention.
Which was fair. When my mind wasn’t on work, it was on Connor, and both topics provided plenty of fodder for endless obsessing. Almost two weeks after my evaluation, and Anne still hadn’t given me my results. I was compensating by overplanning every aspect of my classes for the rest of the school year, as though that would make any difference.
And Connor?
I hadn’t seen Connor since the field trip last week, but if you thought that had any effect on the amount of time I spent thinking about him, well, you were about to be sorely disappointed in me. Hell, I was disappointed in me. But it didn’t do any good.
I just couldn’t get over what a jerk he was being. It shouldn’t have surprised me, I supposed. Connor could always be abrupt, even rude, with people he didn’t respect. I’d just never thought I’d be one of them.
And honestly, what right did he have to make those assumptions about me? Did he really think I was so pathetic that I was going to keep throwing myself at him after he’d refused to even talk to me?
Don’t answer that.
And on top of it all, I still felt like he did owe me some kind of explanation. He’d disappeared without a trace ten years ago while we were still together, and you don’t get to just do something like that and then refuse to answer any questions.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Yes, Connor could be a dick, but he didn’t do it without reason. And since he was undoubtedly being a dick to me, I was beginning to wonder if it was my fault.
I must have done something. Hurt him somehow. I was the reason he’d left all those years ago—it was the only thing that made sense. And I’d hurt him so deeply he didn’t even want to look at me now.
I felt sick. How could I make it right if he wouldn’t even tell me what I’d done?
I screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the fridge, then picked Gretchen up with one hand and my glass with the other.
“Come on, kitten. Let’s go outside.”
Gretchen, I’d discovered, loved to go outside and play in the grass, jumping and pouncing on invisible prey. I’d gotten a long leash that gave her free rein over most of the yard while making sure she didn’t run away. That gave me the peace of mind to sit outside and watch dusk stain the sky a dark purple.
Theoretically, anyway. Practically, my mind was nowhere near peaceful. Still, it was nice to sit out there and pretend for a moment that my job wasn’t falling apart, that my parents wanted me in their lives, and that my ex-boyfriend didn’t hate me.