Page 22 of Falling for Mindy

“A slide deck is fine. Twelve slide maximum. That is one introductory slide, one conclusion, three obstacles and two sub slides explaining each.”

“That’s eleven.”

“You’ll have a graphic you want to include or a citation slide. Either way. I like to use an even number,” I said with a half smile.

She smiled back, “Thanks for your help. I’ll get the objectives emailed to you tomorrow in case you can look them over before we meet on Thursday.”

“Well done. I’ll see you Thursday at the same time. If you have questions, you have my email address,” I said.

She put away her computer and slung the bag over her shoulder. I busied myself with my notes, adding in a bullet point for my meeting with the Chambers intern tomorrow to make sure that his objectives were measurable. When I looked up, she wasn’t gone. She was struggling with my door.

“I—it’s stuck,” she said, giving me a self-effacing smile.

“The university was given the land grant in 1868 and I’ve often wondered if that door was original to the first structure,” I said ruefully, “it’s old and it gets stuck. There’s a trick to it.”

I rounded my desk and went to help her. There wasn’t much room between the leather guest chairs and the door itself, it being a small private office. I went to reach around her so I could wrench the brass knob all the way to the right to see if I could yank the door open. As I reached for the knob, she jerked on the door again and it flew open. She went reeling back into me, arms flailing.

“Shit!” she said, staggering into me.

She crashed into me, my chest taking the blow of her weight as she was flung backward into me. The contact of her body thrown against mine was like an electric shock jolting through me, every nerve responding to her warmth, to the shape and size of her, my body registering every curve and dip and hollow of her form as she fell back into me. I grabbed her arm to steady her and ease her back onto her feet. She turned around, her face pink and her eyes blinking fast. Mortification was written on every feature.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I yanked on the door and fell on you, and I’m sorry I yelled shit. It startled me, and I know it wasn’t—proper. To talk like that in front of you. Are you okay?” she asked.

I wanted to laugh that she was concerned for my well-being at that moment when my entire brain had been disconnected by the way her body had touched mine. A few seconds of fumbling over her loss of balance was all it had been, but it felt like a branding iron all over my skin.

“I’m fine, Ms. Sayers. Are you hurt?”

“No, just embarrassed. I’ll be more careful from now on. I could’ve blacked your eye or something,” she said, still concerned.

“It’s fine. Just an accident. I’ll see you Thursday,” I said briskly, and I shut the door behind her.

It had been going so well, only a few minor missteps in formality in our meeting until the door incident. Until she’d staggered into me and my body started shooting off fireworks like it was the Fourth of July in response. I tried to tell myself it was no different than when Drake bumped into my shoulder as we left the bar the other night, except that it was completely different.

A friend, a man, had brushed past me to get outside. I had barely registered that he even bumped my arm. This was her whole body rocketing into mine, and me having to fight the instinct to wrap around her, to curve my shoulders and arms around her and hold her and keep her safe. It was so damn inconvenient to have those feelings of attraction and protectiveness at all, but especially where a student was concerned. I was going to have to do a lot of extra push ups at the gym.

CHAPTER 11

MINDY

Katie was going to laugh at me, I knew it. Before she even got home from her classes on Friday evening, I had taken a shower and was in my pajamas, ready for the night off I’d been looking forward to all week. It had been insanely busy, and the internship, even though I only worked at the job center two days a week, was definitely on my mind all the time.

It took a lot of mental energy to do that work, engage with those brave women and somehow keep it from taking over my whole life. I had a full course load going on as well, and I was tutoring a couple of first year students in women’s studies, too. So even though I loved my classes and my internship, I was beat by Friday afternoon.

It was no surprise that I looked forward to my jammies and a glass of wine the way other women my age looked forward to a hot date or concert tickets. Katie would crack up when she came in and got a load of me curled up on the couch by six o’clock like I had the bedtime of a first grader.

When I heard her key in the lock, I looked up and saw my sister balancing a carrier bag from a Chinese restaurant and another from the liquor store down the block.

“Surprise,” she said, grinning at me. “I’m staying in with you and I brought food and wine.”

“Okay, hands down that makes you the best date I’ve had in at least a year,” I laughed. I got up and helped her sort through the paper cartons of food and then we opened the wine and poured it.

“You got white,” I said, taking a drink.

“It goes with chicken and stuff,” she said, “seafood. You know, the food we’re gonna eat.”

“I like a good merlot,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. You’d drink it with a damn Happy Meal probably,” she said, “but it’s good to branch out.”

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