Page 20 of Not Your Girl
Elliot smiles. “I’ve met your brother before, and he introduced himself as Gabe.”
“You’ve met him? Like, at a tech thing?”
Elliot shakes his head, his expression growing serious. “Your brother is friends with my older brother. A few years ago, my brother’s fiancée died.” He pauses, swallowing hard like saying that out loud is still painful. “My family went to Pittsburgh for the funeral, and my younger brothers and I stayed with him for a couple weeks afterwards. I met Gabe at the funeral, and he, Molly, and my brother’s other friends were around a lot during those weeks. They’re a really tight group.”
My brain works to catch up and make all the connections. “Hang on. Your brother is Jordan?”
Elliot brightens, like he likes to talk about his brother, and how fucking adorable is that? “Yeah, you know him?”
“No, by the time I made it to Pittsburgh to visit my brother and Molly, Jordan had already left, but I’ve heard his name a lot, and I know the rest of their friends pretty well now that Gabe and Molly have been back together for a while.”
“Yeah, he left a couple months after Allie—his fiancée—died, and he spent some time in New York, but now he’s back in Boston with his girlfriend, Jo.”
“The girlfriend who needed the cinnamon roll this morning?”
Elliot grins. “The very same one. Turns out we’re a bit of a tangled web, Mystery Girl. It’s almost like we were meant to be.”
When he saysmeant to bewith those earnest eyes of his, butterflies swarm in my stomach, but then I remember all the reasons why that is a terrible idea. “Do you know how hard it is to be a woman in STEM?”
He nods. “I wouldn’t presume to know how it feels because I’m not a woman in STEM, but I’m in STEM, and I have a front row seat to the uninformed and, frankly, horrifying way women are often treated.”
“Good answer. Since you do know, you’ll understand why, from the time I was in the damn engineering club in ninth grade, everyone has assumed I got where I am because of my brother,like it’s impossible I could have made it on my own. And people are always watching me, just waiting for me to screw up so they can tell me I never should have been there in the first place. There are always eyes on me, no matter where I go or what I do, and I’m constantly being compared to my brother, even though if you ask him, he’ll tell you that I’m the smarter Sullivan in STEM, and he would be right.”
Elliot nods like it’s obvious to him that I’m smarter than Gabe, and something about the way he just takes that on faith sends warmth careening through me. But I ignore it and plow ahead. “No one has ever believed I’ve gotten anywhere on my own merit because everything I’ve done, my brother has done first, and he’s been wildly successful. This PhD program is the first thing that Gabe hasn’t done before me. If it got out that I was dating my professor, it would be the sameyou don’t deserve to be hereassholery, just a different flavor. And to be honest, I’m fucking sick of that. I know there are easier ways to learn what I need to know, but I don’t want easy. I chose this, and I’m going to see it through. Look. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t attracted to you. That I didn’t think of you in the last six months. A lot. I won’t even lie and tell you I’m not attracted to you right now. But this…” I wave my hand between us. “This can’t happen. I’ll be damned if I become a punch line.”
Elliot unhooks his ankle from mine and sits up straight. “Then I’ll be the best advisor you’ve ever had.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, Ames, just like that.” Elliot’s eyes soften when he looks at me. “I like you. I would never mess you up. When you walked into my classroom this morning, it felt like a kind of miracle. If the way I get to have you in my life is by being your professor and your advisor, then I’ll have you that way. You’re here, Amelia, after I spent a really long time trying to find you. That’s enough for now.”
I blow out a breath, feeling an unexpected wave of emotion at his words. At the way he is wholly focused on me, like I’m the most important thing in his world right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like the most important thing in anyone’s world, and it occurs to me that keeping a professional distance might be harder than I think it will be. But that’s a problem for future Amelia. “Thank you,” is all I say, my eyes never leaving his.
“Anything for you, Mystery Girl,” he says, his tone matching the intensity in his eyes. But before I have time to figure out what that means, the waitress comes back, dropping at least five plates on the table. I glance over them and then back up at Elliot.
“Uh, none of these are cinnamon rolls.”
He grins at me. “Those are coming later. I wanted to feed you, and I knew if I mentioned a full breakfast you would protest, so I ordered when I walked in, before I sat down.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Is that why you dropped me off first? So you could come in after me and stealth order breakfast?”
His grin grows even wider. “You bet it is. Anyway, I didn’t know what you would want, so I ordered everything.”
I study the plates, my stomach growling. “Well, now I kind of want everything. Breakfast is the best.”
“Sure is. So, let’s eat breakfast together, Mystery Girl, and you can tell me all about what you want to study. We’ll get a head start on all this advising.”
I take the last sip of my Diet Pepsi, giving the waitress a grateful smile when she sets a new mug down in front of me. “When you’re doing the advising, my name is Amelia.”
He smirks at me. “Will there be a time when we’re together that I’m not doing the advising?”
Shit, I really like him. I can’t like him. Fuck. “Nope.”
He looks at me like he knows exactly what my train of thought looks like. Like he’s enjoying the hell out of it. “Okay then, Amelia it is.”
The way he says my name in that low, rumbly voice of his has tingles racing across my skin and as I look into his sparkling blue eyes and the way he just looks so damn happy to be sitting here with me, I realize this whole thing is going to be a lot more complicated than I bargained for.
CHAPTER SIX
