Page 60 of The Professor's Wife

“What’s wrong with being a singer?”

“The second you make something you’re passionate about your job, it turns on you.”

I considered that for a moment. “But if it’s your passion, why would it turn on you?”

“Because it becomes work. Something you need to do to survive. Then you start worrying and obsessing and living to please other people, and you forget why you ever loved it in the first place.”

I looked at him curiously. “Spoken like you were a professional singer.”

“Nah. Not me.”

He smiled at me, and there was something about Tristan’s smile I’d hardly seen before in a grown man. It was a carefree sort of smile. The sort of boyish smile that reached his eyes and made me feel special, especially when he looked at me as he did it. Like I was the centre of his world.

I looked away from that smile, determined not to get swept up by it. “I understand what you mean.”

“You can relate?”

I paused, close to saying yes, but that would have been a lie, and I didn’t want to lie to Tristan. At the same time, I didn’t want to tell him the truth, either.

“So when you busk, that doesn’t destroy it for you?”

His smile waned a little, catching on to the fact that I was dodging his question. “Busking is fun. I’ve got enough saved that I don’t depend on it.”

“You don’t?”

“I’ve got the clothes on my back, the van’s in good shape, and all I really pay for is fuel and food. This is enough for me right now.”

I mulled that over as he turned the music back up. The road stretched before us, bright and endless, while the mountains loomed on either side. I watched the scenery pass for a while, trying to imagine a life in which nothing held me down. No mortgage. No schedule. No rooms that belonged to someoneelse. No one waiting at the end of the day to question where I had been or what I had done wrong.

It sounded like freedom.

It also sounded lonely.

About an hour later, Tristan pulled into a roadside stop with a gas station and a small diner attached. The parking lot was crowded with motorcycles, pickup trucks, and dusty cars carrying families farther into the interior.

“I need fuel,” he said. “And coffee.”

“Youalwaysneed coffee.”

He glanced at me, one corner of his mouth lifting. “Someone’s been keeping me up.”

My cheeks burned. “You didn’t seem to mind.”

His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth. “I certainly don’t mind.”

He pulled beside one of the pumps and shut off the engine, but the heat in his stare lingered.

“Go stretch your legs, Daze,” he said, voice low. “Before I forget why we stopped.”

“I’m comfortable.”

“You’ll say that until you stand up and your knees stop working.”

I gave him a look, but when I climbed out, a sharp stiffness ran through both legs.

His mouth twitched.

“Don’t say it.”