Read Online Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid - Free Book Online

curse words and changed directions, rushing past the nursing students and hearing just a snippet of their conversation, “...it was absolutely awful. I even asked to speak to the manager, and I
never
do that...”
    Only now, while running through the courtyard, did he realize that his muscles were sore from his night with Leila, wonderfully sore.
    Finally, he turned a corner and reached the building entrance. He scanned the directory and rushed up the stairs to the second floor. Hudson felt himself relax a little when he saw the office empty save for a matronly woman sitting at a receptionist’s desk. She was large, her hair up in a bun, her eyes rising from her book to look at Hudson. Maybe it was because she looked like an embodied cliché of a teacher, but Hudson thought he recognized her for a second.
    â€œHi,” Hudson said, trying to offer a polite smile and not seem as if he’d just sprinted up the stairs. “My name’s Hudson, I have a meeting with Dean Gardner. An interview.” He cleared his throat a little and folded his hands in front of his stomach, as if that might hide his clothes.
    The woman sighed and put her book down on the desk, turning to her computer screen. She played with the mouse a little bit and then hit the keyboard until the monitor came back to life.
    â€œHmm,” she said after a moment. “You’re late.”
    Hudson nodded, making sure to look ashamed of himself. “I know. I’m terribly sorry. I’ll make sure to apologize to the dean. There’s no excuse for it.”
    â€œToo late,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry, hon. The dean waited twenty minutes. Then he had to go to a meeting across campus.”
    Hudson’s immediate reaction was to hang his head. He kept it there for a moment, trying to think, until the receptionist asked if he was okay.
    â€œThere must be something I can do,” he said. “When’s his next open slot? I’ll explain as much as I can in however much time he has.”
    The woman shook her head, angling her eyebrows sadly. She turned to the computer and made a show of scrolling up and down the calendar in front of her. “You were his last meeting here. He’s across campus now, then at lunch with the school president, and then he’ll be driving back to Oxford straight from there. Nothing I can do.”
    Despondent, Hudson turned away. He crossed the courtyard slowly, trying to think of how he could possibly explain himself to his dad. The two women were still chatting on the bench, steam rising from their coffee, thick like smoke from a train wreck. Leila had parked on the far side of the lot, her red car pointed away from the campus. She was sitting on the hood, her knees up and legs crossed in front of her, looking out at the road, which was as quiet as you’d expect on a Saturday morning. She looked tired but happy. There was some light bruising where her collarbone met her neck, a hickey Hudson hadn’t noticed because of the morning’s hectic mood.
    Finally she noticed him and slid off the car. “What happened?”
    â€œI didn’t make it in time.”
    She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him in tight. “Shit, I’m so sorry.” It was weird how he could recognize the hug’s physical comforts yet not be comforted. “Maybe you can reschedule?”
    He returned the hug briefly, then pulled away from her. “No, I can’t reschedule. I just no-showed the most important interview of my life.” He felt like hitting the car.
    â€œMaybe if you—”
    â€œDamnit, Leila, no.”
    The harshness of his voice surprised them both. He turned so that he was facing the road, Leila’s pretty face and whatever expression it was contorted into—sadness, shock, disbelief—just out of sight, where it couldn’t weaken the anger he wanted to be feeling.
    A loud cackle echoed through the parking lot.