Out of Grief Read Online Free Page B

you’re going to be okay for a couple minutes, while I go make nice with her. Right?”
     
    “Peachy,” I said, eyeing the bar at the far end of the room. At least there would be free booze to smooth my foul mood over. The first week of classes had been harder than I’d thought, and I wondered if, for the first time in my life, I had leapt into the deep end of the pool without a life jacket.
     
    “Jameson, neat, please.”
     
    “Professor K? Is that you?”
     
    I looked at the young bartender and realized he was in my class this semester. “Afraid it is. It’s Bill, right?”
     
    “Yes.” He set the drink in front of me. “Didn’t have you pegged for the whisky type.”
     
    “Really? What did you have me pegged for, Bill?”
     
    “Craft beer. Something with a little body, perhaps.”
     
    “And you got all that from my class?”
     
    “Well…” He looked away from me to serve the next customer.
     
    “Well, what?”
     
    “There’s kind of a pool.”
     
    “You mean a bet?”
     
    He filled the next two orders waiting for me to let it go, and when I didn’t, he finally said, “It’s about which team you play for.”
     
    “Is my class that boring?”
     
    “No, not at all. We do it with all the new professors.”
     
    “Good to know.” I downed my drink and ordered another one before placing a large bill in the tip jar.
     
    I spotted Kat in the corner with her Marilyn, putting the moves on. I wasn’t really sure why I’d even agreed to this; it was hardly my idea of a good time. I was going to tell Kat I would call it a night. I was certain she would have a companion to accompany her home. I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was a text from Quinn. I wished that didn’t make my heart skip, but it did, every damned time it.
     
    —just saw a great movie, wish you were here to talk about it—
     
    I found a table near the windows, back toward the Temple and away from the crowd, and set my drink down.
     
    —At a costume gala with Kat. Would love to be anywhere else— I texted back.
     
    — Costume, huh? What you wearing? —
     
    Mind out of the gutter, mind out of the gutter. I flipped through the pics that Kat and I had taken earlier and sent her one with the simple word —guess? —
     
    — Poe. Interesting choice. How’s Kat? —
     
    — Off chatting up some blonde dressed as Marilyn, no less.—
     
    — Left you all by yourself again, didn’t she? —
     
    — Used to it by now. Not a problem. —
     
    — If I was there, I could be your Annabel Lee. —
     
    She was kidding right? Or did she know? Why not just Annabel Lee? Why MY Annabel Lee? The lines of the poem ran through my head.
     
    And neither the angels in Heaven above
    Nor the demons down under the sea
    Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
     
    I took another sip of Jameson, and tried to think of the right reply. You are my Annabel Lee seemed inappropriate, albeit true.
     
    “What are you doing in the corner over here?” Kat cooed into my ear, snapping me out of my thoughts.
     
    I quickly tucked the phone in my pocket. “Nothing. Just giving you your space. ”
     
    “Turns out Marilyn is in a long term relationship with a rather large gentleman.”
     
    “Ah, the great Katarina shot down.”
     
    “You really shouldn’t mock me, when I know for a fact you were probably over here texting Quinn.”
     
    “What do you know?”
     
    “Really?” She put her hand out. “Give me the phone.”
     
    “No.”
     
    “I rest my case.”
     
    “Without proof?”
     
    “The proof is in your pocket. The fact that you won’t show it to me, just means I’m right.”
     
    I hated that she knew me so well. “Do you win all your cases with circumstantial evidence, counselor?”
     
    “No, that I do with my brains and my charm.” She flashed her pearly whites at me. “So, I saw some people we know over there by the bar. Let’s go say hi, and try to have a nice