Page 151 of Boiling Point
“There’s plenty of places I could go. MIT, Georgia Tech, Michigan.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “But I was thinking… I’d really love to go abroad.”
Cal looked up from his drink, eyebrows raised. “That’s rather vague. Did you have a country in mind, or are we throwing darts at the map?”
I sucked in a breath. “Switzerland.”
He sputtered into his beer. “Switzerland?”
I shrugged, trying for nonchalance. “Zurich ETH. It’s one of the best engineering schools in Europe. Top-tier aerospace program. It’ll be intense, but?—”
“You’re brilliant. You’ll keep up.”
“Do you mean that?”
His face softened. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” He took a long drink and gave me a look—not quite sadness, not quite nostalgia.
And then I remembered—too late, of course—Switzerland was Claire.
The beautiful disaster. A continent-sized wound that had taken a decade and an ocean to scar over.
I tried to backpedal, but my tongue tripped on the handoff. “Unless you… I mean, Zurich’s not the only option. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s stupid expensive, the winters are brutal, and?—”
“Switzerland is perfect.”
I wanted to stitch up the moment with something witty—my usual arsenal of sarcasm and defense-mechanism humor—but all that came out was an apology. “I’m sorry, Cal. That was thoughtless. I didn’t mean?—”
He caught my hand, fingers warm around mine, and shook his head before I could spiral. “Darling, if you’re worried aboutmy delicate emotional state, don’t be. You haven’t reopened an old wound. If anything, you’re the reason it ever healed.”
I stared at him, searching for the wince, the shadow, the ghost. But it wasn’t there. The memory was present, and always would be, but it no longer cast him in grayscale.
A strange effervescence bubbled in my chest—pride and gratitude, bright and giddy. I squeezed his hand. “You’re really okay with it?”
“Of course I am,” he said. And then a sly smile crept in, like he was savoring a private joke. “Switzerland keeps coming up. Third time in as many months, actually. Maybe the universe is telling me something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t going to act on it, but back in April, I was approached about a one-year research associate position at CERN. I turned it down, obviously. But I still have the contacts. There might be something for me yet.”
My jaw practically hit the table. “CERN?TheCERN? Home of the supercollider? The physicist’s wet dream?”
Cal laughed—genuinely laughed—and his gray eyes sparkled. “I’d have called it the physicist’s Olympus. But yes.” He leaned back in the booth, lines creasing at the corners of his eyes. “Slight hitch though. CERN is in Geneva. ETH Zurich is, well, Zurich. Bit of a schlep, even by Swiss standards.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, waving off the logistics. “I have to get in first.”
He looked genuinely affronted. “You’ll get in. You’re one of the most gifted students I’ve ever taught. And I’ve taught at three universities, so that’s not hyperbole.”
I blushed and drowned in a long pull of my beer. “Too bad I studied French and not German.”
“That’s right. I’d forgotten.”
I nodded. “Four years in high school and two advanced semesters at Page.”
He flicked the rim of his glass. “If I end up in Geneva, I suppose I’ll finally have to learn the bloody language.”
I reached across the table, walked my fingers up his forearm, and gave him my best attempt at coy. “I could teach you…”
A slow, wolfish grin unfurled. “You realize you’re tempting me with one of my more persistent boyhood fantasies.” He took my hand and grazed his lips across my knuckles. “Not my French instructor at Eton. She was ghastly. But you…” He kissed the inside of my wrist. “I could be persuaded to be a good student foryou.”
I dragged my fingertips along the inside of his collar. “Just so we’re clear”—I bunched his shirt in my fist, tugging him closer—“I’m not above giving you homework.”
