Of course, he wasn’t green enough to think that she’d just fall into his arms. He’d been lucky in relationships thus far, but it hadn’t been without some work. He was banking on his humor and offer of friendship to lay the groundwork for something more.
Theresa had quietly led him out the back door after dinner had ended. The other fifteen students, including Alex and Charlotte, had moved to the parlor with both President Campbells, but Brian was outside with Theresa.
For a few moments there was an awkward silence before she spoke. “This is the first time I’ve been to this part of Colorado.”
“Really?” Brian was surprised. “Your dad’s been the President here for ten years, and you’ve never been out here?”
Theresa shook her head and turned down another path in the garden. The scent of roses was fragile and surrounded them. “My parents had decided to base the family in New York, so there was never any real reason for us to come out here. Dad would spend the majority of the year here, but he’d fly back at least once a month to see us.”
“Wow.” Brian spotted a rose tipping off its stem and scooped it up, handing it to her. “So what do you think of Duray?”
She stroked the petals of the rose with long, elegant fingers. “It’s quaint, and it’s sweet. I like it. I like the people here, too,” she added softly, her eyes on Brian’s. “Everyone’s just been so great to my mother and me.”
“We’d heard a lot about you from your father, and we just wanted you to feel welcome.” Brian took a chance and brushed an errant lock of hair off her face.
“Dad’s talked a lot about you and your friends,” she said after a moment. “I felt like I knew you already when we met this afternoon. He really likes you, Charlotte, and—what was his name?—oh, Alex. I thought he was making you out to be more than you really were, but I was wrong.”
“Really?” Brian paused a moment to wonder exactly what Campbell would have told his daughter about him. “What did your father tell you about us?”
Theresa moved down the path to sit on a stone bench. When Brian settled next to her, she smiled. “Dad said that you were one of the brightest lights he’d seen at Duray in his ten years here. He said that you were bound to do great things with your life, be a great reporter.”
“I want to be,” Brian admitted when she looked to him for confirmation.
“Good luck,” she replied before continuing. “He said that you were a great friend and very generous with your time. That you were a talented musician. You sing?”
He shrugged a little bashfully, stunned by all the things Campbell had told Theresa. “I do. I think I’m all right.”
“All-State Choir’s not just all right.” Theresa touched her hand to his. “It’s a big deal. I did it, too.”
“Yeah?”
“The last three years, I’ve headed up the soprano section in New York’s choir.” Theresa looked down at the rose in her hand and absently plucked a petal from it, letting it drift to the ground.
Brian thought it was time to switch the topic from his accomplishments to her. It was one of the first rules of dating. Talk about her, not you. “So what was your major at Vassar? Was it music-related?”
She shook her head and studied the way fairy lights illuminated the patch of cheery daisies, gray in the moonlight. “Comparative literature. I love to read, so I turned it into my major.”
“Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?”
“In a perfect world,” Theresa replied quietly. “I know plenty of people that major in something because their parents want them to. My parents were much more flexible than that.”
Brian nodded, thinking of his own parents. “Yeah, I know what you mean. My parents never stopped me when I said I was going to be a journalism major. It’s what I’ve worked towards since I started on the school newspaper in seventh grade. My mom has every last article I’ve ever written.”
“That’s really sweet.” Another petal fluttered to the ground. “I love contemporary Eastern European literature, so I focused on that for my thesis.”
“So what are your plans now?” Brian asked. Her hair smelled like vanilla, though he had to get close to catch the scent.
When she turned to look up at him, he discovered that their faces were close. Close enough that he could, with just the slightest move, press his lips to hers the way he wanted to do. But it was too soon for that, he knew. For both of them.
“Grad school,” Theresa murmured. “At Columbia. I want to teach at the college level, so I have to get through my Master’s and doctorate. I’ve got it all planned out, though, and, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be done in three years.”
Brian’s brows lifted in surprise. “That’s pretty impressive. It takes a lot of determination and grit to get accomplish so much so quickly.”
“I like to think I’m fairly determined.” She sighed a little and broke eye contact before rising. She held out a hand to him. “We should get inside. Dad will probably be wondering where we disappeared off to. I don’t like worrying him.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Brian slid his hand into hers and smiled down at her. “This was nice. It was good to get to know you, to just talk.”
“Hopefully, it won’t be the last time,” she said as they moved off down the path, back towards the house.
Brian secretly hoped so, too, and felt the warmth building up within him. She was close to perfect, he thought. Smart, sweet, and it was obvious to him that President Campbell thought they’d go together well. After all, why else would he have told Theresa so much about him?
As they headed back to the house, neither took notice of the rose Brian had given Theresa. It lay in a pile of petals, plucked clean, on the ground beneath the bench…
“So, how’d it go?” Alex sat shotgun this time and glanced over his shoulder to where Brian sat in the backseat, staring out the window. There was a goofy little grin on his face, so Alex had a pretty good idea of how things must have gone with Theresa.
Brian sighed happily. “She’s great. Absolutely great. She’s smart and caring. President C told her all about me. I think he wants us together, too.”
“Really?” Charlotte studied him in the rearview mirror as she drove. “What did he tell her about you?”
“Just what I do at school, that I sing well.” Brian shrugged. “The basics, I guess. She seemed impressed by it, especially since she’s a part of New York’s state choir.”
“Aww, you guys have singing in common. How cute.”
Brian shot Alex a look before the goofy smile widened. “Yeah. She wants to be a professor, and she’s a comparative lit major.”
“Cool. So both of you enjoy writing,” Alex pointed out. “Things are looking better and better.”
Charlotte braked at a stop sign. “Did you ask her if she’s got a boyfriend?”
“Hmm?” Brian met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “What did you say?”
“Is she single?”
Brian opened his mouth to reply—then stopped. He hadn’t. Of course not. It wasn’t the kind of thing you asked in the middle of a great conversation. And yet…And yet, it was utterly important for him to know if she was or not. “I didn’t,” he answered Charlotte. “The thing is, we were pretty close, physically. I’m sure she would’ve said something if she did have a boyfriend back east.” Wouldn’t she?”
Alex didn’t say anything, and Charlotte merely made a hmm sound. Brian knew what they were thinking because he knew them well. Sighing, he slumped back in the seat and wished he’d found a way to ask Theresa, so that he wouldn’t be full of doubts now.
Charlotte seemed to sense the plummeting of his mood and decided to cheer him up. “Brian, I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re probably right. She would’ve said something if she had a boyfriend. Relax. Are you going out with her while she’s here?”
“We’re going to the movies tomorrow night,” Brian replied after a moment.
“Well, there you go,” Alex said with a flourish. “What girl would agree to something that is so obviously a date if she wasn’t available?”
Brian brightened. “Yeah! Oh, good. That’s a huge relief. Thanks, guys.”
Charlotte pulled the car up in front of his dorm. “Anytime. We’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast?”
“Sure, yeah.” Brian leapt out of the car. “See you then. Good night!”
“’Night,” Alex and Charlotte answered and watched him dance his way into the building.
Alex sighed. “I hope he’ll be okay.”
Charlotte simply nodded. She’d had a bad feeling about this all along, but now…
“I hope he doesn’t end up heartbroken.”
