The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #1)

Chapter Twenty


FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Callum

Iset the stack of exams on Dr. Ashkar’s desk. “Hey, Mike. I’m going to have to recuse myself from grading these.”

He looks up at me, lowering his glasses. “Oh yeah? What’s up?”

Mike Ashkar is the newest faculty member in our department and the one professor I am sure to be friends with long after I finish my doctorate. I have resigned myself to tell him this much, and no more: “I’ve got a thing for one of the students.”

“Which one?”

“No way.”

He laughs. “All right. I’ll do them. You owe me lunch.”

“I owe you lunch and a bottle of Aberlour, but just the twelve.”

He laughs and I turn to leave, but he stops me. “Callum, wait. Did I hear right that Mikkelson is taking over your TA role for the rest of the term?”

“Yeah, I swapped over to his neurophys section.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Same reason?”

I grin. “Same reason.”

“You’re really not going to tell me who it is?”

“Hell no,” I say and turn for the door again. “Because if she rejects me, you’ll never let me live it down.”

“You got that right. Good luck.”



From the second Terra walked out of the classroom, I wanted to see her again. Immediately. I have this buzzed, vibrating feeling in my limbs. No matter how fantastical it sounds, it feels like we were destined to run into each other in some truly unbelievable way.

I suppose I don’t have to wait. I could email her right now and tell her who I am, but I saw the way she was in class. She’s nervous with me—she admitted in an email that she finds me intimidating—and if I told her now who I am, I worry that dynamic would dominate. I don’t want that between us after everything.

Unfortunately, as soon as I leave Mike’s office, I realize that I’ve just inadvertently quit the one space where I’m sure to easily run into her. I’m neck-deep in worrying about how to manufacture a chance run-in when I look up in line at the soup-dumpling counter at Franklin’s and see her only a few places in front of me.

You’ve got to be kidding me.



“Mind if I join you?” I ask.

Terra startles, jerking her attention away from the pile of journal articles spread around her Styrofoam food container. “Oh—hey!”

I gesture to the crowded food hall around us. I have the perfect excuse that nearly every other table is occupied. “Okay if I sit?”

She scrambles to clear the papers and make room for me. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

I sit and look across the table at her. Her neck is pink, her cheeks flushed. She’s nervous, but she really is so beautiful. I’d never really thought too much about what she might look like, but somehow I can still say she looks just like I imagined she would. Strong and scrappy and unpretentious and sexy. I want to soak up every physical detail about her now that she’s right here in front of me: her plush lips, the scattered freckles across the bridge of her nose. Dark hair covered with a red-and-blue Penn beanie, the ends flipping up beneath the hem. Long neck, long fingers, unpolished short nails. The swell of her breasts beneath the tight fabric of her long-sleeved thermal shirt.

My mouth goes dry.

I clear my throat, blinking back up to her face and grateful she’s still too distracted by stacking her papers in order to notice me staring. “How did the test feel today?”

She reaches up, pulls the hat off, and self-consciously drags her fingers through her cute, staticky hair. “Okay, I guess? I’m not sure. I feel comfortable with the material, so hopefully that shows.” She laughs a little, meeting my eyes. “I guess you’ll know soon enough.”

“Actually, I’m not the TA anymore, as of about a half hour ago.”

“Why?”

“I swapped with Bryan.” At her frown, I add, “Mikkelson?”

She nods. “Yeah, I know who he is. I just didn’t realize TAs switched midterm.”

I look down at my plate and grab a dumpling with my chopsticks. “We do sometimes.” This is a lie. “You’re done with the cortical unit, and he’s in a neuroendocrine lab and knows the upcoming material better than I do.”

Terra narrows her eyes at me, suspicious. “You sure it isn’t because I know all about your sexual prowess?”

I’m unable to keep my laugh in. This is exactly how T would have teased me, and I fucking love seeing her relax. “Yes, you’re right. Having a reputation of being an amazing lay is just too great a burden for me.”

Her giggle is cute. “Well, we’ll miss you. Bryan is a mansplainer.”

“You’re not wrong.” I watch her finally take a bite of cucumber salad. A small bite. Maybe she’s still a little nervous with me. “Where did you do your undergrad?”

She chews, swallows, covering her mouth. “Um, at Boston College?”

I go still. When T told me she played lacrosse, I did what any self-respecting man of my generation would do: I googled the NCAA rankings. BC is second in the country. And T hoped to be captain? Wow.

“You have an athlete vibe . . . ,” I begin, wondering if she’ll tell me.

I’m relieved when she grins and says easily, “Yeah? I played lacrosse.”

“Was BC any good?”

She tilts her head, side to side. “We did all right.”

Humble liar. I fight a grin and hold another dumpling in front of my mouth. “Where did you grow up?”

“Southern California,” she says, and I stare directly at her, mentally daring her to volley the question back at me. “Where did you go to school?” she asks instead.

I watch her carefully as I toss the bite in my mouth and speak around it. “Madison.”

Her eyes go wide. “Seriously? One of my good friends from back home went there!”

“Oh yeah?” I ask, swallowing, and I realize I’m stuck with the next part of this script. “It’s a big school, but maybe I knew him? What was his name?”

Her dark brows pull together in a skeptical frown. “I didn’t say it was a guy.”

Oh shit.

But would it be the worst thing for me to come out, right here in the middle of Franklin’s, and tell her? Now that I’m sitting across from Terra, it feels so obvious, so inevitable, so easy. “Yeah, well—”

“But it is a guy,” she says, laughing. “So you’re off the hook.” She plucks a dumpling from her plate, sliding it between her full lips. I watch her chew and swallow, trying not to let my expression show that I’m imagining kissing her. “This is going to sound really weird,” she begins. I know exactly what she’s going to say, and now I’m dying to hear our story from her soft, plump lips.

“Hit me.” I lean in.

“But I don’t actually know his name.”

I huff out a laugh. “Is that right?”

“It’s a long story and I won’t bore you with it,” she says, “but basically when I was fourteen, he accidentally emailed me instead of his teacher, and we’ve been in touch ever since.”

“That’s cute.”

“But because we were minors at the time, we didn’t share info, and now it’s sort of a thing to not divulge personal information. Like, not a bad thing, but our thing.”

“So I guess that means he’s not your boyfriend?” I ask, and she looks back at me, dark eyes widening with surprise.

She must see that I’m invested in this answer.

“Well . . . no. But . . . maybe eventually he will be? We’re going to finally meet up this summer.”

“Not until summer? Where does he live?”

She slaps a hand over her eyes, laughing. “Why are you asking the hard questions!”

“I don’t know!” I laugh, too, wanting to apologize but also . . . wanting to keep sitting here and eating soup dumplings and flirting with her for the rest of the day until she figures it out.

Terra peeks at me from between her fingers. “I don’t know where he lives.” She drops her hand, laughing. “He’s originally from Irvine, like me. We have this thing, okay?” She picks up a dumpling and holds it aloft, studying it. “We get soup dumplings when we’re thinking about each other.”

She was thinking about me.