He Mistook Me for My Roommate, So I Called a Stranger Husband novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Fourth Floor

June meets Quincy in the law library and refuses to let him pay. His question about her exit plan lands. Back at the dorm a Cartier box from Brett waits on her bed.

I got dressed in the dark and walked across campus in a hoodie, with my hair still flat from the pillow.

The law library never closed. A security guard at the desk looked at my student ID and waved me up.

The fourth floor was almost empty.

Quincy sat at a long table by the window with a casebook open and a paper cup in front of the chair across from him.

He didn't look up when I came in.

"You're late," he said.

"You texted me at three in the morning," I said. "I was early for the worst idea of my life."

He pushed the cup an inch toward me. "Coffee."

I sat down and took out my wallet.

His eyes followed my hand. "What are you doing?"

"Paying you back." I laid two dollars on the table. "That's what it costs at the machine downstairs. I checked on my way in."

He looked at the bills, and then at me.

"It's a free coffee, June."

"Nothing is free. Take the money, husband."

"I'm not your husband."

"You're sitting with me at three a.m. You're doing the job."

He took the two dollars and folded them into his pocket. The corner of his mouth moved, and he put it back.

I drank the coffee. It was hot and black and exactly how I took it.

I hadn't told him that either.

"Lucky guess," he said, when I looked at him.

"You guess well."

"I'm good at details."

He went back to his casebook. I took out my thesis notes. We worked in silence for twenty minutes, and it was the easiest silence I'd had with anyone in months.

Once I looked up and found him already watching me.

He looked back at the page without any hurry.

"What's your thesis about?" he asked after a while.

"Letters between people who never met. Epistolary fiction." I tapped my pen. "I know. Too on the nose for me this week."

"What happened this week?"

"A boy I talked to online for six months dumped me for my roommate."

Quincy's pen stopped.

"He thought I was her," I said. "A friend of his gave him the wrong handle. He found out at a party and picked the girl with the better face. I found out from an anonymous screenshot."

"What's his name?"

"Brett Bingham."

Quincy set the pen down on the table very slowly.

For a second his face went completely blank. His hands rested flat on the casebook.

I waited.

"Lacrosse," he said.

"You know him?"

"I know of him." He picked the pen up again. "Everybody knows of the Binghams."

I let that stand. It made sense. Brett's family owned half of a street in Manhattan, and the law school had a building with their name on it.

"Did he hurt you?" Quincy asked.

"He ghosted me for two weeks and then dated my roommate." I shrugged. "I was about to leave him anyway."

"Why?"

"I always leave. That's my whole plan."

I hadn't meant to say it so plainly, but his eyes were steady and I kept going.

"I'm a runner, Quincy. I keep my bag packed in my head. I never let a guy pay for anything, because then nobody can say I owe him a reason to stay."

He leaned back in his chair.

"What's your exit plan?" he asked.

"For what?"

"For me."

I laughed, too loudly for a library.

"You have to be something before I need one," I said.

"I'm a husband. You said so."

"For three months. Then the experiment ends."

"And then you vanish."

"Then I reassess."

He didn't smile, but he moved his chair a few inches toward mine. It was a small, quiet move.

He might have needed the light. I told myself that.

When the sky outside turned gray, I packed my notes and stood.

"Thank you for the seat," I said.

"It's your seat now." He didn't look up from the casebook. "Come back."

"I'll think about it."

"You'll come back."

I didn't answer. I left, and my heart was beating in my throat, and I told myself it was the coffee.

The dorm was quiet at dawn. Zara hadn't come home from the Hamptons yet, and the roommates were out cold.

On my bed, centered on the pillow, sat a small red box with a gold ribbon.

My name was printed on a card tucked under the ribbon.

I opened the card.

It said: Zara can't find out. Plan her birthday dinner like the others. I'll pay whatever you want. B.

I stood there holding it.

Someone had let him into my room.

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