“Aw hell,” he finally says. “You do love him.”
I hang my head. “Yes.”
“But you haven’t told him.”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because…” My face collapses again. “Because I’m trying to make this as easy as I can for him. Love complicates things, and shit is complicated enough right now. And…”
“And what?” Dean asks.
And I don’t know if he loves me back.
Sometimes I think he does, but in the back of my mind there’s always a little nugget of doubt. I’m honestly not certain if Tucker wants to be with me because he loves me, or because he thinks we should be together for the sake of our baby.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say hoarsely. “You’re right. This baby is screwing up his plans.” I wipe my face again. “The least I can do is make sure it doesn’t ruin more than it has to. I’ll take on the bulk of the responsibility. That’ll free up a lot of his time so that he can open a business he loves.”
Dean hesitates. “What about Harvard?”
“I’m still going.” Bitterness joins the sorrow clinging to my throat. “Don’t worry, you’ll have three more years to hate me and call me a bitch.”
“Actually, I won’t be there,” he confesses.
I frown. “Since when?”
“I accepted a teaching job at a private school in Manhattan.” He shrugs. “I realized law school isn’t where I want to be.”
“Oh.” I wonder why Tucker didn’t mention that, but I guess it doesn’t surprise me. He’s already admitted that Dean hasn’t exactly been Mr. Supportive about the baby.
“After Beau died,” Dean starts, but his voice cracks and he stops to clear his throat. “After he died, I kind of went batshit crazy for a while. But then I crawled out of the hole I dug for myself and really took stock of my life, you know?”
I nod slowly. Joanna Maxwell had done the same thing. So had I. Beau’s death made me realize how important life is, how short it can be. I wonder if losing Beau was a game-changer for everyone who knew and cared about him.
“It changed stuff for me too,” I confess.
It’s Dean’s turn to nod. “I can tell.” He pauses ruefully. “Sometimes I can’t believe you and I ever hooked up. It seems like a million years ago.”
I manage a laugh. “Yup.”
“You really love Tuck, huh?”
“I do.”
He lets out a heavy breath. “You should tell him.”
“No.” I swallow. “And you’re not going to tell him either.”
“He needs to know—”
“No,” I repeat, firmer this time. “I mean it, Dean. Don’t say anything to him. You owe me.”
Humor flickers in his eyes. “How do you figure?”
I jut out my chin. “You didn’t deserve that A in Statistics sophomore year.”
“Ah. So keeping my mouth shut is my punishment for the undeserved grade?”
“So you admit it was undeserved!”
“Of course it was.” His tone becomes pained. “Trust me, I did everything I could to try to get the professor to fail me.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. After I aced that project we teamed up on and you only got a B, I realized the TA was fucking around with my grades. I asked the prof to go over all my tests and papers, and turns out I was supposed to be failing.”
“Oh my God. I knew it.” Though I don’t feel as smug about it as I thought I would. My beef with Dean suddenly feels incredibly unimportant. And, like he said, as if it happened a million years ago.
“Well, I didn’t,” he says frankly. “I know you think I was boning the TA for the grades—” He flashes a grin, “—but I was boning her because she had a great rack and the sweetest ass.”
I pretend to gag before going serious. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”
He snickers. “Because we’re not friends.”
I snicker back. “True.” I mull something over. “But maybe we should call a ceasefire.”
“Jesus. Has hell frozen over?”
Embarrassment tickles my belly. “You’re one of Tucker’s best friends. I’m about to have his kid. It makes sense for us to try to co-exist.”
“Makes sense,” he agrees.
Dean hops off the floor and holds out a hand.