In Too Hard (Freshman Roommates Trilogy, Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

mine, he asked, “But was I pretentious as hell?”
    I didn’t look away, didn’t hesitate as I said, “A little. But most profs are.”
    He laughed. Not the big laugh of earlier, but still a nice sound that let me know he appreciated my honesty. And that it was okay to bust his balls a little.
    When his smile dimmed, he looked around the office, not really at just the numerous boxes, but seeming to take in the office itself. “Prof. I’m a prof—if not in credentials, certainly in duties.”
    “Yes,” I said softly. It didn’t really feel like he’d said it to me.
    “Jesus, how did I get here?”
    I stayed silent. It certainly wasn’t my place to answer him.
    He may not have liked the path which brought him to Bribury—the maze of boxes, and lack of a second novel, indicated that it’d been a frustrating route—but I was happy he was here.
    He stepped away from the desk and immediately I missed the warm presence of his body next to mine. “Okay, Billy, enough self-pity for today,” he said as he walked around the desk. “I’ve got three whole weeks with family that will trigger that particular emotion.”
    A small sound of part laughter and part commiseration escaped from me.
    “You too?” he asked from behind me.
    I turned to find him picking up his phone and scrolling through it. “Doesn’t everybody?” I answered.
    He looked up from his phone to me. “I suppose so, but it’s the self-absorbed, pretentious fools like me that think it only applies to them.”
    He stared at me, almost challenging me.
    “You’re not…” I started. He raised his eyebrow at me. “A fool .”
    For a split second his face didn’t change, and I thought that maybe I’d blown the whole thing. That he’d say it wasn’t going to work out. That I wouldn’t be able to afford staying here for the summer and instead be forced to take care of the boys and not be able to take any kind of paying job.
    But most devastating of all, I wouldn’t get to work so closely to a man I greatly admired—pretentious and self-absorbed as he might be.
    Then he burst out laughing and returned to his phone. “Oh, Syd, this is going to work out just fine.”
    As he clicked away, I relaxed, and mentally noted that he liked when I told him what was what. Looking at the boxes around me, I wondered if that would apply to his work as well.
    He held his phone out to me. “Here, put your number in so I have it, okay?”
    “Of course.” I took the phone from him, our fingers not touching at all. He’d already set up a contact page for me and all I did was add my number. I added my email too, although he would have had that on his class roster, but this saved him a step.
    And really, wasn’t that why I was earning a badly needed ten thousand dollars? To save Montrose a major step of sorting through five years of notes? Though by the number of boxes, it looked more like fifty year’s worth.
    I handed the phone back to him and he called me. I took my phone out of my back pocket and started to add the new number to my contacts.
    “Syd,” he said and I looked up. “Say cheese.” He was holding the phone out, in a camera-holding way.  
    I automatically smiled. After all the social media my generation had been exposed to, when a phone was pointed at you…you posed.
    “Is that okay?” he said after he took my picture. “I just like keeping photos on my contacts. I tend to forget names sometimes and this helps me.”
    “Sure,” I said. Then held mine up and took a shot of him as he was looking down at his phone. He looked up, startled, when he heard the click. A corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-grin. He tipped his head a little in my direction, as if to say, “touché.”
    “Okay. I’ve got to get going or I’m going to miss my train.” He looked as if maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Then he let out a big sigh and said, “Yeah. I’ve got to go,” as if trying to convince himself.
    He came around to my side of