Page 102 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I never used to cry, and now I can’t seem to stop leaking. I must look gruesome.”

“You’re beautiful,” he replied.

I was seriously in danger of combusting from an overload of happiness.

“Well,” I said. “Now what do we do?”

Grinning, he shook his head. “I have no idea. I just know I want to be with you.”

“So, we’re doing this? Giving us a real shot, even with me leaving?”

Jack’s face turned serious, and I wilted in his arms. “I’m sure if we combine our considerable brain power, we can figure out anything.”

My smile returned in an instant. He was right. We would figure this out. There was plenty of uncertainty in my immediate future, but I had zero doubt that Jack would be a part of it.

“Kiss her, Mr. C!” a voice called.

As one, we turned and looked down the path, finding half a dozen students watching us with intense interest.

“Yeah! Kiss her!” another student called, bouncing on her toes.

I was grinning when Jack turned back to me. “Kiss me, Mr. C.”

He pressed a chaste kiss to my lips while grinning like he’d just won first place at the science fair.

A cheer rose from our onlookers. Schrödinger’s cat was out of the box. Every student and faculty member would know within the hour that Jack and I had been seen together. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had been discreetly filming us.

I didn’t care.

Jack loved me, and I loved him. And that was the only thing that mattered—would ever matter.

Jack glanced over my shoulder at the onlooking students and then back to me. “Um… do you want to get out of the limelight?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Though, I think the damage is done. There won’t be any more hiding after this.”

“That’s okay.” He brushed a lock of hair off of my face as he regarded me. “I want everyone to know I’m yours.”

“If you’re mine, then I’m yours,” I whispered against his neck.

Jack groaned and his fingers dug into my sides through the fluff of my coat.

“Hold on,” he said. And without waiting for a reply, he scooped me up into a bridal carry. The cheers and cat calls from the students reached a fever pitch as he strode off down the path.

My arms tightened around his neck, and I pressed my face into his shoulder, laughing like I had taken a hit of nitrous oxide. “Now, they’re never going to stop talking, you caveman!”

“I really couldn’t care less,” he said.

“Me neither.”

What did I care about what the students said? I would be gone after finals. Once campus was dismissed for the holidays, everyone would forget about the rival chemistry teachers.

A pang of sadness fell over me at the thought of leaving campus, and I squeezed Jack a little tighter. It wasn’t that I was having doubts about my choice—it was only right that Jack take the job. But Newbury had once again become my home—even more so now that I was back with Jack. I would get to keep Jack, but I couldn’t have both.

Once we crossed the threshold of Brookside Hall, he set me down, and we raced up the stairs hand in hand like a couple of school kids. We busted into my apartment like the Kool-Aid man and fell onto my sofa, laughing and kissing and basking in the simple pleasure of being close.

“I missed you,” I said, and carded my fingers through his soft hair.

“I missed you too,” he replied. “I tried, but I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”