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“You don’t have to want him.”
Jamie takes the pill with his water.
I take the glass from him. “Good boy.”
His eyes lift to mine. He still looks angry. “When do I meet him?”
“Tomorrow.”
“You’re not waking me up when you get back?”
“No.”
His mouth tightens. “Don’t bring him in my room.”
“He has his own room.” I stand and collect our plates. “You’ll meet him when I decide.”
CHAPTER 12
Heather
Oliver reads with his glasses off.
He doesn’t always. He wore them through the entire reading last month, but that was prose. Poetry is different. He takes them off after the first few pages and leaves them folded beside his coffee while he reads.
I like him better without them.
His eyes are dark enough that I can’t tell exactly what color they are from the fourth row, even though I’ve tried. Tonight, he won’t be far enough away to keep anything from me.
Oliver reaches the end of the poem and lets the silence sit.
Nobody moves.
That’s one of the things I like about watching him. Jamie fills empty spaces without realizing he’s doing it. A smile. A curse. A question he pretends he doesn’t care about the answer to. Oliver controls them.
The house needs both.
He looks down at the book in his hands. “What changed?”
A girl near the front raises her hand.
Oliver looks at her over the top of the pages. “You don’t have to do that.”
She lowers it. “The speaker knows he’s going to lose her.”
“He knew that on the first page.”
A few people laugh.
The girl smiles. “Okay. He admits he’s going to lose her.”
“Better.” Oliver closes the book around one finger and leans against the desk.
He’s wearing the charcoal sweater tonight. I’ve seen it twice before. The sleeves are pushed to his forearms, and his watch has slipped low enough that he has to shake it back when he reaches for the water beside his coffee.
He doesn’t drink coffee while he’s reading. I know because I’ve watched five of these.
The coffee comes with him from the little shop across from the humanities building. Large. Black. He sets it on the right side of the desk and forgets about it until everyone leaves. Then he stacks whatever books he brought, takes the coffee, and walks to his car.
