He Wanted My Research, She Wanted My Seat, I Wanted Out Chapter 02

He Wanted My Research, She Wanted My Seat, I Wanted Out Chapter 02

I held up my phone. “Not alone. You and Tessa. Your flight booking app is still linked to my number and the confirmation texts come to me, remember?”

Henrik’s face tightened. “Camila, are you monitoring me?”

Tessa jumped in fast. “Camila, don’t blame him. I wanted to get away and didn’t want to distract you from your research, so I asked Henrik to come with me.”

Her eyes went wide. “You’re not mad, are you? We could… we could wait and all go together?”

I looked at both of them. One word at a time. “Sure. Let’s wait until my research is done. Then we’ll go together.”

Tessa’s smile froze. She blinked, caught off guard.

Then her eyes reddened. “I already booked the hotel… the site says no refunds…”

Henrik reached for a napkin and dabbed at Tessa’s eyes, gentle, practiced.

She tilted her face into his hand like she’d done it a hundred times.

He didn’t even seem to notice how natural it felt. He turned on me, frowning.

“Camila, come on. You can’t hold her back just because you don’t want to go.”

“I’ll take her this time, and when your research is done, we can go together.”

I tapped the screen on my phone. “Your flight’s tomorrow morning.”

“So if I hadn’t found out, when were you going to tell me?”

“Or were you not going to tell me at all?”

Tessa’s poor-me mask cracked. Henrik’s hand froze midair, the napkin still pinched between his fingers.

I grabbed my bag and stood up.

“Did you ask me here to see me or to get something else?”

The second I got home, my phone rang. Henrik.

“Camila, what the hell was that today? You were so passive-aggressive.”

“You really don’t get it?”

His voice shot up. “You’re not jealous of Tessa, are you? I was doing this for you, so you could focus on your research. I agreed to keep her company!”

“I’m bending over backward for you, but you don’t get it at all! You’re just getting jealous over nothing!”

“And don’t get me started on your research project! I’ve asked you a dozen times to let me back files up, but you never send them over! You’re acting like you don’t trust me one bit!”

I hung up.

Then I opened my laptop. Pulled up the college application page again.

Stanford.

This time, I didn’t hesitate.

Tessa started posting vacation photos.

Beaches. Food. Couple shots with Henrik.

Someone commented: [Damn, you two look good together!]

Tessa replied with a shy emoji.

Every day, Henrik sent me a text.

[Don’t let petty jealousy mess up your research project. Tessa and I left you out only because we didn’t want to hold back your important work.]

Important work. He really cared about my research.

I opened my project files and added one more line of code.

A week later, the acceptance letter from Stanford arrived.

I’d just torn open the envelope when Henrik and Tessa showed up at my door.

“You’ve been ignoring us for days. What, trying to guilt-trip us?”

“Is the research done yet?”

I held up my acceptance letter. “Finished.”

“Didn’t want to bother you while you were having fun.”

Henrik’s whole face relaxed when he heard “finished.”

“I heard Harvard’s accepting early submissions now. Send it to me. I’ll submit it for you!”

I waved my acceptance letter. “Why would I submit my research to Harvard?”

Henrik’s eyes bulged. He snatched the letter out of my hand.

“Stanford? You’re going to Stanford?”

Tessa’s face went pale.