“If you say so.” Deep breath. “Geordie, I think you might have met Jonah Marks, from the earth sciences department? Jonah, this is Geordie Hilton. He’s getting his LLM here in Austin.”

“Pleasure,” Geordie says, with enough gusto that it passes for sincerity.

Jonah nods. “Vivienne speaks highly of you.”

Geordie smiles in surprise. “Does she, now? Then she’s being too kind.”

With his impeccable sense of timing, Arturo appears with a glass of wine in one hand and a can in the other. “This is for you, and can you take the ginger ale to Shay?”

“We’d love to,” I say, seizing the graceful exit Arturo has provided. “We’ll catch you later, okay, Geordie?”

Geordie smiles, somewhat stiffly, then turns to start pouring himself more wine.

In the town house’s living room, Shay holds court from the sofa. She’s lying there comfortably, while different guests come by to say hi or chat for a while. Her face lights up when she sees Jonah and me. Or maybe it’s the ginger ale. “Tell me honestly,” she says as I hand her the can. “Isn’t this the most boring costume ever?”

“Of course not,” I tell her. “The pregnant nun is a classic.”

She sighs as she pushes the black wimple back from her face. “I was going to go in drag as Santa, or maybe Homer Simpson if I could find the mask. But in the end Arturo just had to grab something from the costume shop. And hullo there, Jonah.”

“Hi,” he says, and his smile is easier than it’s been the rest of the night—even with me. “We’ve missed you in the department.”

“Have you?” Shay’s cheeks pink with pleasure. “Sometimes I think they don’t know what to make of me.”

“They talk about hiring you full time, when you’re ready for that,” Jonah says. “Don’t tell them I told you.”

“Really?” Shay beams even more when Jonah nods, and finally I relax a bit. At least one of my friends can get along with Jonah just fine.

I decide to help things along. “Turns out Jonah is a good friend of Dr. Campbell’s.”

Her eyes widen. “My doctor?”

“Don’t worry. Rosalind would never betray a patient’s confidential information.” Jonah grins, fierce as ever, but at the moment not intimidating at all. “Now, the same rules don’t apply to me. So if you want to hear any embarrassing stories about her—”

“Spill it!” Shay starts to laugh. “She makes me tell her how I poop. So I need to even the playing field.”

Jonah makes a face, but a good-natured one. Then they’re deep in an anecdote about the time Rosalind talked Jonah into going on a hike, then sprained her ankle at a point where he had to carry her piggyback about six miles back to the car.

Finally I can really relax. I mix and mingle, never losing sight of Jonah for long. Mostly he stays by Shay’s side; after a while, Arturo joins them, and as they talk, Arturo’s smile broadens. He’s winning them over.

Carmen whispers, “He’s hotter than I remembered.”

“Oh yeah,” I say.

“The sex is great, isn’t it? I can tell just looking at him.”

“You have no idea.”

Geordie keeps his distance, never straying far from the bar as he flirts with every unaccompanied girl who shows up. I wish he didn’t feel so awkward, but hey. Maybe he’ll find someone, and we can finally complete the last stage of “moving on.”

The only dark spot on the evening comes when I see Carmen and Arturo exchange a few sharp words. He frowns, and she hugs herself the way she does when she’s feeling hurt. But I don’t interfere. Sibling relationships can be complicated.

I think of Chloe and inwardly groan. Can they ever.

When I cycle back to Jonah, he’s completely at ease—the way he was in Scotland on our best nights. I sit next to him, near Shay’s feet, and drop a kiss on his shoulder. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“More or less,” Jonah replies, like he can’t quite believe it. “You have good friends. I’ve always thought that was the best measure of a person.”

“Never looked at it that way before—but you’re right.” How better to judge someone than by the people they choose to have around them, the ones who love them best? “So when do I get to spend time with Rosalind?”

“Soon.” Jonah turns to kiss my cheek. His eyes are gentle as he looks at me, and my heart turns over in my chest as he touches my hand. Everything’s all right between us again. Maybe it always was. At any rate, I can stop freaking out.

I whisper, “Let’s not stay too late. I wouldn’t want to tire Shay out.” A wicked smile spreads across my face. “I want to tire you out.”

“—and we’re leaving.” Jonah gets to his feet.

We’re almost to the door before I run into Kip, who has sprayed his hair into a pink faux-hawk for the occasion. He’s had even more to drink than Geordie, which is why he folds both Jonah and me in a sloppy embrace. “My darlings. My most surprising lovebirds. How are you?”

“Great.” Gingerly I try to extricate myself from Kip’s arm. “Not as good as you, though.”

“He’s sex on a stick, isn’t he?” Kip throws a coquettish glance over his shoulder at Ryan, who waves. “As are you, Professor Marks. Oh, no need to make that straight-boy terror face. I’m well aware I’m not your flavor.”

Jonah is clearly at a loss for what to say. I don’t blame him. Finally he comes up with, “Okay.”

“So glad it’s all working out! Scotland and the rest of it.” As Kip lets us go, I breathe a sigh of relief. Too soon. Because the last thing Kip says to Jonah before he staggers off is, “Shouldn’t have even bothered playing spy.”

Instantly Jonah’s expression darkens. I take his hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

But as we walk away from the house, Jonah demands, “What did he mean by that?”

I want to say I don’t know—but that’s too direct a lie. “Kip looked up all this stuff about you when he realized you and I might have something going on.”

Jonah stops in his tracks. “How do you know about it? Did he tell you later?”

Time to confess completely. “He printed out all these stories about your family and showed them to me. I read some. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“If it wasn’t a big deal, why didn’t you tell me about it?” His eyes are blazing.

I might submit to Jonah completely in the bedroom, but in real life? It’s a different story. “Because it’s awkward as hell! Because I thought you might overreact—no idea where I got that from. So you grew up in a big house! Who cares?”

“That’s not all you read.”

“No. Do you really want to talk about the rest right now?”

“I don’t want to talk about it at all.”

“Then why are you angry with me for not saying anything?”

We glare at each other for a long moment. Then Jonah’s hand closes over my forearm, hard enough to bruise. “We’re going to my place,” he says, his voice low and rough. “And we’re going to play.”

My entire body responds. Arousal lances through me so sharply I gasp. “Yes. Let’s play.”

•   •   •

We say almost nothing on the drive. It helps preserve the angry mood.

At one point, though, Jonah mutters, “You know you can say the safe word at any moment.”

Silver. “Of course I know.”

He’s going to give it to me rough. Right now I want him so badly I can taste it.

Up until now, I’ve had no idea where Jonah lives. He drives us into the heart of downtown, to the edge of Lake Austin. A few high-rises here host luxury apartments, the kind of accommodations most students can’t afford—or most professors, either. I’ve never even walked inside one. Jonah grabs a bronze-colored card from his sun visor and buzzes us into the parking garage almost without slowing down.

All the vehicles here are sports cars, status symbols; Jonah’s sedan looks modest compared to the Mercedeses and Jaguars parked in each spot. Yet one garage is very like another. Once we’re parked, we walk through the same dark, echoing concrete you’d see anywhere else.