Page 6 of Natural History

I swallowed to loosen my throat muscles.

“Your father accused me of trying to steal his letters.”

Alexis crossed the threshold, still dressed in her pajamas.

“Why would he think that?”

“Because they somehow managed to slip into my drawer without my knowledge.” I noted her shifting feet and her darting glance. She’d run crying from the beach last night.

Could she have been angry enough to do this?

“Did you plant them, Alexis?”

She blinked. “What?”

“You were upset last night. I would understand if you wanted to get back at me for refusing to kiss you.”

“How can you ask me that?”

The hurt in her gaze pierced like an arrow, but those letters winding up in my drawer threatened everything I had spent the last decade working toward. I had to be sure.

“Just tell me if you planted them. I promise I’ll forgive you if you’re honest about it.”

She backed through the doorway, shaking her head.

“Fuck you, Gavin” she said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t plant those letters, and I can’t believe you would even think to ask.”

She ran back to her bedroom and slammed the door. I left the Kelley’s beach house as soon as my bags were packed, and I never saw Alexis again—until tonight.

True to his word, Frank did try to have me kicked out of my PhD program. Thankfully, the history department chair at the time believed my claim that it was an accident and allowed me to finish my dissertation under his advisement.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about those letters, how they got into my drawer. In the end, I had to accept that I may never learn the truth.

But I know now that Alexis couldn’t have put them there. That’s not who she is.

“I’m sorry I accused you of planting those letters.” I’ve been waiting so long to say the words that uttering them feels like reciting a poem from memory. “I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

She stops in front of a driveway leading to a three-story, half-brick, half-shingled building. “Thank you, Gavin. I wish my dad had done the same for you. I know you two were close.”

It’s true, Frank and I were close once. I didn’t just lose an adviser that summer. I lost a mentor and a good friend.

For as long as I’d known him, I wanted to be just like Frank Kelley. A brilliant mind, lauded and respected by my students as well as my peers.

If I’m honest, letting go of that dream felt a lot like getting over heartbreak.

“I appreciate that,” I say. “But I know how damning the situation looked from his perspective. I couldn’t expect him to be more gracious toward me than I was toward you.”

Alexis nods in understanding, then points to the building behind us. “This is me. Do you, um, want to come in for a drink?”

The tone of her voice takes on a breathy quality that raises my internal temperature by about ten degrees. It’s a sudden shift that reminds me why I agreed to walk her home.

I’ve never felt attraction like this, the kind of scorching heat that sears into my bones.

The street light pours over Alexis’s figure, highlighting her luscious curves. I want to be naked with her so badly it’s like a compulsion. I have to consciously tell my hands not to pull her closer.

What’s even more surprising is that I’ve somehow managed to stop dwelling on today’s mediation meeting with my soon-to-be ex-wife and our lawyers. Bonnie and I were only married for two years when I discovered she was having an affair with an architect at the interior-design firm she’d founded on my dime. I moved out of our East Side colonial eight months ago—the same house Bonnie now wants seventy percent of the sale on.

There’s nothing but scorched earth and charred ruins between us now, but she’s delusional if she thinks I’ll part with less than my half of the rubble.

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