Page 80 of The New Place

“So can you say something?” Ned presses.

“I’ll email her,” Abbot says. “Today.”

Ned looks far from satisfied, but he says, “Thank you.”

“And I’ll ask her what the next steps are, too.”

Ned offers a small smile. “That means a lot.”

“And we’ll meet with Sandy next week?”

“Yeah,” Ned says on a sigh. “I guess.”

“You don’t want to?”

“I want a job next fall,” Ned says. “So yes, we’ll meet with Sandy, if that’s what Beverly needs from us.”

You can have a great relationship and not have a future, Claire had said.

No. He and Ned have one. They’re fine. And—and Abbot is suddenly sure that if he presses on the topic of a house, Ned will push back about Beverly, and they’ll keep this conversation going, to its downward detriment.

So Abbot says simply, “I’ll email her too.”

Ned nods. He looks tired.

The thought of the highway pulls at Abbot, but he can’t leave like this. “Ned…”

“Yeah.”

Abbot relaxes when Ned holds out his arms. He steps into him and hugs him back. They can come together and agree they won’t say goodbye with this distance between them. They never have, and they won’t start today.

“I love you,” Abbot whispers into Ned’s neck.

“I love you too,” Ned says and squeezes him. “Thank you for taking Baxter.”

“I was happy to.” He breathes Ned in like he always does in these moments, as if by imprinting the memory solidly enough, he can bring Ned with him when they part.

It never works. The hug ends, and the kiss they share does too.

“Drive safe,” Ned says. “Text me when you get there.”

“I will.”

Ned offers a smile Abbot tries to memorize before he has to walk away.

Sometimes you just know, Claire had said.

Know what? Abbot should have asked, because he’d have answered that of course he knows Ned is the one, but it feels altogether more complicated than it used to, as they begin to pick apart exactly what that means.

19

NED

Ned stands across the street from Newbury’s campus and adjusts his tie. He’s not nervous. He gave a job talk just last year. Did rounds of interviews with faculty and smiled and chatted his way through lunches. Met undergrads and graduate students and shook hands and laughed at jokes, and he landed a job from it, didn’t he?

Though that had been at Adams, not at Newbury University. And he wasn’t showing up begging for a position because Abbot is simply so amazing that he can negotiate an entire second salary.

Of course, Abbot got him the connection to Steve that landed Ned an interview at Adams. And Abbot had to help Ned finish his dissertation when he couldn’t do it on his own. And he had to drag Ned through that statistics course when Ned could barely understand the first assignment.