Page 41 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Hallie started to answer, then she saw the crinkle of laugh lines around his eyes kick in. “You don’t really want me to give you the answer to that, do you?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” They laughed together.
Hallie laughed a lot with Fitz. More of that being utterly comfortable with him magic. It was all going too well. They liked the same music, shows. They both loved to argue, even when ultimately agreeing on a subject.
It was too good to be true.
Was it all an act on his part? Hallie didn’t feel like she was being hoodwinked. On the other hand, the man was a professional politician. It wouldn’t be hard for him to fake enthusiasm.
Going more personal was the only way to get at the truth. “What was your favorite class in undergrad?”
He shrugged a shoulder dismissively. “Nothing in my major.”
“Okay…that’s not an answer.”
He shifted in his seat. “How badly do you need to know?”
“After that attempt at a dodge and weave? Very badly.” Not to savor the potential salaciousness of it. Hallie wanted to dive deeper into the layers of the man. Not even for her strategic plan to suck him dry of all campaign knowledge.
Just…because.
Fitz got up and cleared the plates. With his back to her, his voice had no trouble carrying across the open floorplan. “Social psychology.”
Not at all what she’d expected. Although Hallie knew just enough to recognize there was far more to Fitz than met the eye. “That sounds like more than a simple one-hundred-level class to knock off a science requirement.”
“Yep. Don’t worry, I did the pre-req. No skipping the line for me, ever.”
She was beginning to learn that about him, too. Fitz definitely didn’t behave like his mom and dad, who expected the entire town to bow at their feet. They weren’t mean about it, but they did accept the attention as their due.
Fitz didn’t cut corners. Or abuse his mayoral powers. Or, from what she could tell, ever use the power of his last name. If he somehow lost his pinkie finger in a freak accident at the Superbowl? He still wouldn’t use the spouting arterial blood as a reason to jump the line to the bathroom.
“Why a psych class, though?”
“It’s what explains how the whole world works. Who you are and why you do what you do. Fascinating and necessary.” He slammed shut the dishwasher.
Necessary?“You…took this to be better at public administration? That’s a reach.”
He sat back down after refilling her water glass from a chunky, hand-blown glass pitcher. “I took it because a kid in my dorm overdosed. First semester beat him up, he was homesick. Unprepared for the level of work required, couldn’t find friends. Everett and I ate with him a couple of times, tried to talk to him in the elevator, but he was too miserable to make any effort.”
“God, that’s awful.” It wasn’t a unique story, but it still twisted Hallie’s stomach. “Did he live?”
“Yeah. Transferred out the minute he was discharged from the hospital, but we helped him pack his things. Nobody else even offered. Like his misery was a contagious disease.” He spiked his fingers through his hair. “Garrett thanked us. Can you imagine? We did the bare minimum as humans, after not doing nearly enough for weeks on end—and he thanked us.”
The naked pain, even after all these years, that darkened his eyes till they were almost all pupil, was hard to watch. Hallie couldn’t let Fitz beat himself up when he’d actually stepped up.
She took his hand and sandwiched it between hers. Hopefully, he could feel her empathy being squeezed into him.
“Your ‘not enough’ was much more than anyone else’s efforts. I’m sure it did make him feel better, even if only for five minutes. An act of kindness is a powerful thing.”
“I know that now, but I was pretty hard on myself at the time. Wanted to make damn sure I never failed someone again.”
Her heart broke for the eighteen-year-old version of him who’d suffered, as well as today’s wiser, but still repentant, version. “Oh, Fitz. You didn’t fail him.”
“Not just him. Me.” Fitz pulled back his hand to thump his breastbone with his knuckles. “I failed myself. I wasn’t aware enough. Didn’t pull my head out of my own ass-full of problems to make more of an effort. That’s not the kind of man I wanted to be.”
Talk about high-level self-awareness. Hallie’s respect for him skyrocketed. “You were just a kid, still learning all these life lessons.”
“Don’t cut me any slack. I did screw up, but I used the whole thing as a springboard to do better. Joined PAWS.”
