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Chapter 1

The lecture hall never warmed up, not even after fifty bodies filed in with wet coats and breath that fogged in the air above steaming cups. David Sweet slid into his usual seat on the aisle and kept his hands in his pockets a minute longer, palms searching for the last scraps of heat his gloves had failed to keep.

A draft threaded under the tall, arched windows and found the back of his neck. He raised his collar, held it there, and tried not to show that the breeze had struck a shiver straight down his spine.

Somewhere behind him, a pen clicked three times in quick succession. Someone cleared his throat without apology.

The projector fan whined, a dry little machine voice that made the room feel even more like winter.

Syracuse in early March liked to pretend it was stubborn. Today, the sky outside had painted itself in one endless pewter smear and dared anyone to call it spring.

At the front, Dr. Wilcox capped a red marker and picked up a black one, his sleeve catching on the edge of the whiteboard. “All right,” he said, rolling on his heels to face them. “Before we discuss cognitive distortions and the self-fulfilling prophecy, I have a friendly reminder.”

David capped his pen, uncapped it, then capped it again. The habit used to drive his mother nuts when he was a kid. He told her it helped him think. She told him it made her want to hide every pen in the house.

He wrote in big block letters: GRAD CHECKLIST. Under it, he underlined a line item he’d already underlined a dozen times this semester.

“Ten hours of community service required by the end of term,” he said. “No exceptions.”

The marker squeaked on the last word. He underlined it again. Non-negotiable.

Ten hours.

He wrote the number on the corner of his tablet, then drew a square around it like he could trap it. The box did nothing to stop his stomach from tightening.

The phrase landed in David’s mind with the dull weight of something he had been stepping around for months. He had known about it in August, had known in September. October.

He had clicked past it every time he logged onto the portal, promising himself he would do it next week, or maybe the week after when he was less swamped with contracts and calls and the sort of meetings that started with congratulations and ended with cautions about dilution and strategic partners who loved the word synergy.

Beside him, Randy Easton leaned over and stage-whispered, “I told you to knock that out in September.”

David didn’t look over. “In September I was calibrating an infrared array that might actually help people not get stuck with needles anymore.” He kept his voice dry. “Time, as it turns out, is not interested in me.”

Two people in the row ahead of them snorted.

Dr. Wilcox’s eyebrows twitched, then settled.

He checked the clock. Eleven minutes of class left. He could still pretend that he wasn’t the kind of person who waited until April to remember a graduation requirement.

The professor finished with, “If you need ideas, the Student Engagement office keeps a running list. And yes, before you ask, the hours must be verified by an organizer. No, your grandmother cannot sign the form because you ‘helped with Thanksgiving.’”

Laughter rolled over the rows. David didn’t even crack a smile.

Ten hours. Of… what? Picking up trash on Onondaga Lake. Painting something for someone who would repaint it anyway. Standing in a gym counting canned goods while people with better social batteries did the talking.

David slid his tablet into his backpack and zipped the pocket with a flat, controlled pull.

He didn’t mind work. His bank account could testify to that. He minded the part where work turned into small talk with strangers who wanted his time and also a little piece of him. He minded being known before he decided what part of himself was safe to hand over.

Dr. Wilcox capped the marker and moved into a story about a patient who believed every cough meant catastrophe. “By believing it, she created the conditions for panic that looked exactly like illness,” he said, pacing. “We give our thoughts power. Learn which ones get to sit at your table.”

At your table. David’s mother used to say that with a different gentleness.

Bless your heart, choose what you let sit at your kitchen table. Mary Lou Sweet had been a nurse long enough to know what fear did to a body. She would say it while stirring gravy or wiping a counter that didn’t need wiping, soft Georgia vowels smoothing the edges of hard days.

He hadn’t heard her voice in person since winter break. He hadn’t heard his father’s in years, unless you counted the one time a voicemail had slipped through at one thirty in the morning and he had let it ring until it died.

Click. Click. The pen behind him started again.

He rolled his shoulders and breathed out slowly. Ten hours. Community service. He could do ten hours. He could do anything he decided to do. He just needed something that did not require him to stand up in front of strangers and talk about himself.

The clock struck the hour.

Dr. Wilcox dismissed them with a nod and the great migration began. Desks creaked. Backpacks thumped. Laughter popped in small bubbles that floated up toward the cold windows and burst there.

David waited a beat to avoid being swept in the center of the current, then stood and fell into a stream that aimed for the hall.

The hallway smelled like wet wool, old printer ink, and the cafeteria’s attempt at marinara sauce downstairs. The floor was slick in a way that said it had been mopped twice and still didn’t trust your shoes.

A group of students he recognized from a lab section clustered near the stairwell, jackets half-zipped, cheeks pinked by the cold. One of them shot him a quick smile, the shy kind that said she knew who he was.

He nodded back, something courteous and contained, then let the crowd carry him toward the double doors.

“You’re overthinking it,” Randy said, keeping pace easily because he had a gait that could lengthen like a good gelding’s when he felt like it. “Community service isn’t hard. You just gotta—”

“Not ride a tractor through red tape,” David said. He flattened the smile that wanted to slide out. “I know.”

Randy bumped his shoulder. “You’re impossible.”

The doors gave with a groan, metal on metal, and a gust pushed in like it had been waiting just outside for this moment. It curled cold fingers down David’s collar and under his shirt. He tipped his chin down, shoulders up, and walked into it anyway.

He liked forward motion. He liked choosing a line and sticking with it until it made a path.

Outside, the quad lay damp and open, a green that could not quite remember its own color. Patches of thin snow edged the sidewalks like old lace. Orange hats and scarves bobbed against a drab backdrop. A street guitarist near the library steps played something quick and cheerful, each note a bright bead that skittered across the stone and disappeared into the wind.

They took the stairs down from Hendricks Chapel two at a time. At the bottom, a line of student org tables had sprouted like mushrooms after rain, all clipboards and bake-sale brownies and flyers that bent in the wind until volunteers slapped paperweights on them.

Randy slowed because the Women in STEM booth had a dog, a black and white fluffball wearing a bandana that read Adopt Me. He always slowed for dogs. If horses were his first language, then dogs were the translation he carried in his pocket.

“Look at him,” Randy said, bending to let the pup sniff his knuckles. “You need a home, little man.”

“You live on a ranch with thirty dogs,” David said.

“Twenty-eight,” Randy corrected. He straightened, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And two cats who think they run it.”

“Accurate.” David’s mouth softened.

That’s when he noticed her.

She stood a few feet away, one boot toe resting on the bottom step like she hadn’t decided whether to climb or pivot. Her scarf had twisted in the gust and she smoothed it back down with a palm that moved in a quick, neat motion, like she was used to making small problems disappear before they became big ones.

Shoulder-length hair, light brown, caught what little light there was and gave it back. Her blue eyes didn’t flinch when he met them. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. The lift at the corner of her mouth looked like amusement and also like she understood exactly how much she was interrupting and didn’t mind.

David kept his shoulders even with Randy’s. Old habit. Strangers brought requests. Requests turned into obligations. He’d learned to square up before he decided if he needed to say yes.

Her gaze locked on his, bright and steady despite the gloom. “Sorry,” she said, stepping closer, voice warm and sure over the noise around them. “Did you say you’re looking for a way to get community service hours?”

David’s pulse ticked up, though he shifted subtly to stand shoulder to shoulder with Randy in an old habit. Trust wasn’t something he handed out on the first conversation. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Why?”

“I might have an opportunity.” She pulled a folded flyer from her bag and offered it to him. “Well, it’s a bit out of the way and last-minute, but I heard about a free spay and neuter outreach clinic.” She leaned forward until her hair brushed against his arm as she peered at the paper that flapped in the breeze. She pointed at the bottom of the page. “It says here that it’s in Coral Vine Valley, Texas.”

Randy’s eyebrows rose. “Coral Vine Valley? That’s my hometown.”

Her attention flicked to him, but settled right back on David, like she’d just humored a detour and returned to her intended destination. “It’s this weekend,” she added, her smile tilting in apology for the short notice. “I know. It’s bad timing for us seniors.”

David took the flyer but didn’t glance at it. Texas wasn’t on his radar for spring break. He hadn’t made plans at all, but there was something about the way she stood there, unhurried, like she was already sure he’d say yes. That quiet certainty made him want to prove her wrong… and maybe also see if she were right.

She looked back up at David and took a step back as if she just realized how close she came to him. She cleared her throat and said, “We’re desperate for volunteers to do intake paperwork and sit with animals while they wake up from anesthesia. They should be easy hours and they’ll sign whatever form you need.”

He tore his gaze from the girl’s face down to the flyer. The ink had smudged where a drop of something had hit it, probably coffee, and that tiny imperfection made the whole thing feel more real. He had seen a thousand glossy proposals in the last two years. He trusted the ones with an imperfection.

“I can probably swing it. What do you say, Randy, do you think your mom would let me come over after the last time?” David teased.

Randy clapped him on the shoulder and laughs. “I’m pretty sure Mom’s gotten over her fear of you breaking your neck from jumping the fence on her favorite horse.”

David turned to the girl. “Thanks, er, I didn’t catch your name.”

She thrust her hand out. “Sorry, I’m Amber Meier, graduating in May with the pre-vet track.”

Her hand was warm and dry. The warmth had weight. It seeped into the cold skin of his palm and then slid past the bones, a current of heat and awareness that shot straight to his chest, lodging there as if it had nowhere better to be. His fingers closed around hers with a pressure that hit firm and respectful.

His grip shifted a hair tighter at the exact moment it should have released. He held on half a beat longer than necessary. He let go because he had made a rule about not letting people read his tells.

“David Sweet,” he said.

Her eyebrows lifted like she had tucked the name away for later. Not the public version with the patent in every article, just the syllables he had to answer to when someone called him across a room. The wind caught the loose end of her scarf again and flipped it lightly against her coat. She smoothed it with one finger and looked comfortable doing it.

“Where are you staying down there?” he asked.

“To be honest, I don’t know yet. I just found out about the outreach an hour ago. I called them and agreed to help with coordinating since I have some experience with that kind of thing. I’ve been scrambling to figure out the domestic details.”

“Don’t bother looking,” Randy said easily. “You can stay at my folks’ house. We’ve got plenty of room. You can fly out with us, if you don’t mind a private jet.”

She didn’t flinch, but he caught the quick flicker in her eyes of surprise or maybe admiration before it smoothed into a breezy, “That’d be helpful. Thanks.” She hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder.

“We can carpool to the airport tomorrow after our last class,” Randy added. “If you’re okay with that.”

There it was, the flicker. It smoothed right back into a practical count of her moving parts. “Okay,” she said. “That makes it easier.”

She touched the bottom of the flyer with a fingertip that had a tiny scar by the nail, the white of it catching on the edge of a hangnail she had either ignored or decided to live with. “The website’s here. There’s a sign-up form at the top of their web page. They cap volunteer slots, so if you’re serious, do it soon.”

He looked down because looking at the URL gave him an excuse not to look at her mouth again. The letters crawled a little because the cold had crept under his collar again, or because some part of him had already started to imagine what it would look like to say yes to a week that was not on his schedule.

“Here’s my number,” she said, pulling a pen from her bag’s side pocket, leaning forward and scribbling it on the edge of the flyer. “Good to meet you,” Amber said. She offered a quick, bright smile that landed right where the warmth in his chest had lodged, and then she pivoted, blending into the flow of students that cut across the quad. Her boots hit the wet stone with a steady rhythm.

David stood there a second longer than was reasonable, watching her leave. She wasn’t trying to be provocative or angling for attention but she had it, completely. He lost her in a flash of blue scarf and a swing of brown hair near the student center doors.

Randy let out a slow breath that might have been a quiet laugh. “I guess you’re going to Texas.”

David folded the flyer and shoved it into his pocket and started walking, ignoring the fact that his pulse hadn’t settled since she’d touched his hand. He kept his face even. “Am I?”

“Yep,” Randy said. “And Mom will make cinnamon rolls. Those count as community service.”

“Do they sign the form?”

“She’ll sign a dozen.” He nodded toward Schine. “Let’s get lunch before your brain talks you out of a good thing.”

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