Winter Jacket

Chapter One

"No need to thank me, but I found your future wife." My friend Troian threw her messenger bag onto my desk with her usual, dramatic flair.

I looked up from my grading with a bemused look. "Is that so?"

She sat down in the chair on the other side of my desk, the one usually reserved for my students. "Yup. I think she's a keeper," she confirmed with a crisp nod. Her eyes scanned around my sparsely decorated faculty office. I had been hired as an Assistant Professor nearly three years prior, but you'd never know it from the empty walls and bookshelves. The office still felt unsettled; I suppose I was superstitious – as if putting my personal mark on the space might jinx my good luck to have landed the tenure-track position.

"I appreciate the effort," I started, not bothering to set down the paper I was grading. I had too much grading to let Troian suck me into this conversation. Finding me a "future wife" had recently become a self-appointed duty for my friend. "Cady and I haven't even been separated for three months," I pointed out. "Isn't there supposed to be a longer grieving process before I start dating again?"

Troian waved a dismissive hand. "No offense, but you and the Cat Lady were emotionally separated long before the official break up. And for how much you used to whine about it, physically you'd both gone your separate ways a long, long time ago."

I audibly sighed. Her words weren't untrue, but that didn't make it any better.

"Also, it's totally weird that you still hang out with her as 'friends.'" She used air-quotes and everything. "That doesn't seem healthy."

"You can't judge me about that; you've never had an ex-girlfriend before. Exes can totally be friends."

"It's weird," Troian said, wrinkling her nose. "And Nikole agrees. Are you and Cady broken up or not?"

"We're broken up," I insisted. "We just hang out sometimes. And it's not even like we talk everyday. I see you more often than I see her. So does that mean that you and I are dating?"

Troian snorted. "You wish, Bookworm."

I tossed my pen onto the daunting stack of ungraded papers on my desk. Experience told me I'd never get anything done until Troian had had her peace. "So tell me about my future wife."

The smile on Troian's face broadened. She loved getting her way. She rubbed her hands together, looking eager. "So I don't actually know her name, but she's the new bartender at Peggy's."

Peggy's was the name of a horrible little gay bar across the train tracks that I sometimes frequented with Troian and her long-time girlfriend, Nikole. Of the pair, I had met Troian first, but I couldn't remember a time when she and her other-half hadn't been together.

"You don't know her name, but apparently she's my perfect woman?" I could feel my eyebrows lift toward the ceiling.

"Perfect for you, yes," Troian nodded. She leaned forward in the chair. "Just think of all the free beer!" she chirped.

"But you don't even drink," I pointed out. "You get all red."

Troian sighed and rolled her eyes. "Which is why she's the perfect woman for you, not me."

"So my soul mate is a beer slinger," I deadpanned. "You must really think I'm an alcoholic."

Troian shrugged, unaffected. "Well, you are from Wisconsin."

"Using that logic, my soulmate could also be a cow."

Troian wiggled her eyebrows. "You said it. Not me."