Page 6 of Drift
“‘Indicate’ is weak,” he interrupted. “Use ‘demonstrate’ instead.”
I kept my gaze on the keyboard as I continued to type. “But they don’t.”
He stayed quiet until I finished typing, then muttered, “You’re overly cautious.”
“Accurate,” I corrected, adding a period with a neat tap that felt like a small victory. “Let’s jump to the survey language. The revised consent statement?—”
“Can you move closer to your camera first?”
I froze, my brows drawing together. “Why?”
“You always sit so far back. Makes it hard to see you while we’re talking through things.”
My scalp prickled with unease as I shifted an inch closer to my laptop. That would have to be enough.
“Consent statement,” I repeated, scrolling. “I changed ‘may’ to ‘might’ and removed the extra ‘voluntary’ since it’s redundant with ‘opt-out at any time.’”
He skimmed, then nodded. “Fine.”
By the time we reached the bottom of the section, my cheeks ached from being polite. Ethan’s creepy factor kept increasing each time we worked together.
“There, all caught up.”
His jaw flexed. “If we fall behind again, it’ll be because you refuse to meet in person. Send me your address, Alanna. I’ll swing by tomorrow. We’ll get the rest knocked out, and you can stop worrying.”
“I’m not worried.” I exported a copy of this version to my hard drive. “You’re using a password on your local copies, right? In addition to having one on your laptop? I don’t want to inadvertently violate IRB rules since we’re using human subjects.”
He smirked at me. “So you like to keep files on your personal device.”
My cheeks heated, but from irritation instead of embarrassment. “Yes, for redundancy. Like any responsible researcher would.”
“Same.” He clicked his pen a few times. “And of course my files are password-protected.”
“Good.”
He leaned closer again, his face getting bigger on my screen. “You seemed distracted tonight. Looking off-screen a lot. Were you texting someone? New boyfriend?”
I wished I could honestly say yes…and that Chance was the man in my life. But the reality was that I didn’t even have permission to use his real name. Out loud he was Drift.
“I thought I was quite focused,” I disagreed. “We got through everything we planned for tonight, and it only took a little more than an hour. And I’m sure we’ll make good progress again tomorrow.”
“Even more if we meet in person.”
I was getting tired of him pushing to see me, but I was stuck with Ethan until the end of the semester, so I forced myself not to bite his head off. “I’ll let you know what my schedule looks like, but for now, another video call works better for me.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled before signing off.
When the screen went black, I exhaled, my shoulders slumping. “Finally.”
I closed the laptop and pushed to my feet, padding barefoot to the fridge. Yanking open the freezer door, I decided that eating my feelings sounded like a good plan and pulled out a pint of caramel-swirl ice cream.
The first bite was cold enough to make my teeth ache, but it beat thinking about Ethan’s smug face. I sank onto the couch cushions, curling my legs beneath me and letting the spoon dangle from my fingers.
Maybe this was what freedom tasted like. Sweet, messy, and a little lonely.
My parents would’ve hated it. They’d spent years pretending Jaxton’s move to Crossbend was temporary, that he’d eventually “come to his senses” and leave the motorcycle club behind. When he didn’t, they’d tightened the leash on me instead. They had ordered me to go no contact with my brother, but Jaxton had never been good at following orders. And I loved him too much to walk away.
We met whenever we could, hiding it as if we were plotting a crime rather than just seeing family.
