“Thank you,” Michael said in a low voice. “Thank you for being my friend even when I didn’t expect that anyone could be.”

“So does that mean that you’re going to talk to Anna about her friend at the university?” Adam pressed with a grin.

“Yes,” Michael laughed. “I’ll ask her. But don’t get your hopes up. Usually a college professor has to die before their job comes up for grabs. Besides, I’m not really qualified to accept a position like that.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You were in line to be headmaster at Lineage, you can certainly teach at a university.”

“That was only because I was the son of the headmistress, not because I was qualified for the job.”

“I don’t know,” I said as I shook my head. “I think you have a penchant for it. I think that you would make a great leader in a university setting.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly had the best role models for that sort of thing,” he said.

His comment reminded me of what he said during my pregnancy scare. He said the same thing about being a parent. I thought that he was much too hard on himself about all of it.

“The fact that you even recognize that your role models sucked, already shows that you can, and want, to do better. I think that would make you perfectly suited for it. Sometimes it’s those of us that come from the shittiest situations, that end up making the biggest and most inspiring comebacks that lead others.”

“Since when did you get so wise?” Adam joked as he gently poked me in the side of my ribs.

Time passed much faster now than it had when we were back in Charlotte. It seemed like the days at Goldshire and Lineage dragged on and on with no end in sight, but now they were flying by at record pace. I guess that was because our time in Charlotte was so wrought with turmoil and I spent so much of it wanting to just run away. But now, I had a life that I didn’t want to run away from, and every day seemed like it was racing by in the blink of an eye. There was one thing though that didn’t seem to be as settled as I had hoped.

“Are you happy here?” I asked Michael as we sat on our small couch in front of the open window.

It was well into spring now and the nice, cool breeze that came through the open window was fragrant and refreshing. I had started a little rooftop garden and the smells from newly-opening blooms were starting to waft down into the apartments.

“Of course,” he answered, with one hand on my knee and the other holding a half-filled wine glass that teetered between his fingers. “Aren’t you?”

I answered without hesitation.

“Yes, I am—completely. But I can’t help but notice that it seems like you have a lingering feeling about you.”

“A feeling?” he asked. “What kind of feeling?”

I shifted closer to his lap and laid my head against his shoulder.

“I don’t really know exactly. It just seems as if there’s something that isn’t quite right. Like there’s something that you’re missing or that you aren’t quite content with yet. I just wish that knew what it was. I want you to be as happy as I am here.”

“I am,” Michael said.

He smiled, and kissed my head, and it felt for the first time since I’d known him that he seemed to have lost some of the passion behind his eyes. I wasn’t at all convinced that he was okay. There was something wrong, and I was determined to find out what it was and fix it.

“You know,” I said in a contemplative sigh, “there is an opening at the university that I overheard Anna mentioning at the shelter. She was talking on the phone to Adam I think, about how her friend at the university was asking around to see if she knew anyone who might fit the role.”

“What’s the role?”

“Headmaster.”

“Lisette,” Michael said with exasperation. “We’ve already been through this. I’m not qualified to be a headmaster at a Canadian university.”

“But what if you could get the job anyways?”

“And how, exactly, would I be able to get a job that I am completely unqualified for? I know Anna wants to help, but she owns the shelter, not the university. There’s not that much she can do aside from put in a good word for me with her friend. Whoever does their hiring will take one look at my application and toss it in the trash.”

“See, now I think you’re just being dramatic,” I said. “No one is going to toss your application in the trash.”

“They will unless they are looking for a very specific skill set.”

“What skill set would that be?” I asked.

“Trying to take down corrupt organizations of power?” he said sarcastically.

“You’re impossible,” I said with a bit of chuckling at his last comment. “Okay, will you at least go on an interview for the position if you’re called?”

“Sure,” he said. I could tell that he was just humoring me at this point.

But the next morning, I was betting that he wished he hadn’t humored me. Because all it took was one phone call to Anna and he was offered an interview. I didn’t know who her friend at the university was, but it must have been someone pretty high up.

“An interview?” Michael asked as I poured him a hot cup of coffee. “How in the world did you get that to happen? And how did you manage it so quickly?”

I shrugged and grinned impishly at him.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said as I put my coffee cup to my lips. “You said that you would go if you got called for an interview. You’ve been called. You need to go.”

“I said that because I didn’t actually think it would happen.”

“I know,” I smirked. “But it did. You aren’t going to go back on your word to me, are you?”

Michael sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Of course not. I’ll go. But I can promise you that it’s a waste of time, and that all I’m going to get out of going to this interview is a load of embarrassment when they show me the door and wonder why the hell I applied for the job to begin with.”

He stood up and reached for the coffee pot. It was impressive how quickly he downed that hot caffeine.

"Wait a second,” Michael said as his hand paused in its reach for the pot. “How did I apply for this job? They wouldn’t be calling me for an interview if I didn’t have an application in. But I’m pretty damned sure that I never applied for the position.”

Damn it. I was hoping we could just breeze over that part.

“Just bring your resume with you,” I said as I quickly took my coffee with me to go finish getting dressed in the bedroom.

I could feel his eyes boring a hole into the back of my skull as I walked out of the kitchen without answering his question. I was pretty sure that he already guessed that I had Anna snag him an interview using her connection at the university. And I knew he didn’t like it. But I didn’t care. There was something bothering him, and maybe it was the way that our lives had calmed down. Maybe Michael missed the craziness and adrenaline that we had pouring over us all the time before coming to Canada. And maybe being headmaster at the college here would at least fill a purpose for him.

I had read about protagonists in books, and heroes in movies, who once they got to their happy endings, decided that they missed the thrill of their old life so much that they couldn’t settle down. I was really hoping that wasn’t the case with Michael. I would do anything for him, and to be with him—even if it meant going back to the States. But I really didn’t want to. I wanted to think about the other things. The kinds of things that went along with Adam’s question about marriage.

“What time is this interview anyway?” Michael asked as he cornered me in the bathroom while I was brushing my hair.