My Straight Husband by Spencer Spears

1

Brooklyn

“…And I know it needs a lot of revisions, and the methods section could stand a second look, and I’m fully aware of how terrible the writing is in the last three chapters, but I swear, it’ll be better in the second draft.”

I paused to catch my breath, but when it looked like Jeff was about to start talking, I jumped in to finish.

“I just knew that I’d promised you a copy, like, a month ago, so I just wanted to get you something so you could react to it and really, any criticism you have is so appreciated, and I just—wait, why are you laughing?”

I glared at Jeff until he held his hands up in surrender.

“Brooklyn, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you.” Jeff paused to chuckle again, and I huffed angrily. “Or, well, I am, but not in a malicious way. You just seemed so worked up about it. You know I don’t need to see your first draft for another two weeks, right? It’s barely after Labor Day. You’re not defending until the end of November. You’re fine, man.”

I flushed, shifting in my seat in front of Jeff’s desk. “Well, excuse me for thinking my advisor might actually want to read my dissertation and, you know, advise me on it.”

“Oh, don’t get all pissy on me. It’s fine. I’ll take a look at it over the weekend, okay?”

Over the weekend. I tried to hide my panic. I wanted Jeff’s feedback on my dissertation desperately. But now that he was promising to read it in the next seventy-two hours?

What if he hated it? What if it was garbage? What if he decided to kick me out of the program at the eleventh hour?

Thanks for playing, Brooklyn, but it turns out, you’re an utter embarrassment to Chatham University’s biology department and never should have dreamed of getting a PhD. As a consolation prize, here’s a gift certificate good for seven years of self-loathing and a bucket with the remaining shreds of your self-esteem.

“Okay.” I gave Jeff a smile that reached for confident but fell somewhere between sickly and terrified. “If you have any questions, or comments, really anything at all, you can email me. Or call. Or text. Really, anything, please let me know, and I can—”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at your friend’s wedding this weekend? Aren’t you the best man?”

Jeff gave me a doubtful look that barely concealed the mirth in his eyes.

“Yeah? So?”

“I think you might have more important things to do than worry about your dissertation.”

“More important than my entire future? The one thing I’ve worked for my entire life? That I almost threw away and only got back through extreme groveling and your divine intervention?”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Stop being so dramatic. I’m sure the draft is fine. I’ll get you your revisions, but not before the weekend is over, so don’t even think about pestering me for updates. Just enjoy yourself, for once. Relax. When’s the last time you even went out on a weekend?”

“I go out. Sometimes.”

Jeff raised an eyebrow and gave me a level look.

“I do! So I’ve been a little busy lately, so what?”

“Lately?”

“It’s not like I’m a hermit or something.” I crossed my arms and stared back at him.

“Life is about more than just academia, Brooklyn. You know that, right? There’s more to the world than burying yourself in research and books.”

“I am perfectly aware of that, thank you very much. My life is plenty full, for your information. I’ve got my work with Human Nature, my shifts at Cardigan Cafe. I even go to those queer alliance student mixers, God only knows why, since it’s all undergrads. And for the past two weeks, I’ve been doing nothing but help Jesse and Mark plan this insanely rushed wedding. Trust me, the dissertation is practically relaxing compared to that.”

“I’m talking about having fun, Brooklyn, not just what other responsibilities you have.” Jeff leaned back in his chair behind the desk and raised his right hand, ticking off points on his fingers. “Your work with Human Nature doesn’t count, since that’s still part of your dissertation. Your work at the coffee shop is work, so that doesn’t count either. Same for helping plan this wedding. And if the queer alliance mixers are truly your only social life, that’s just sad.”

“I thought you were supposed to be my dissertation advisor, not my life coach,” I grumbled.

“Well, I’m advising you that if all you think about is work and writing, you’re going to burn yourself out. I mean it. You need to have a little fun.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I tried to blow Jeff’s words off, but the truth was, they hit a little close to home. I’d decided I wanted to be a biology professor when I was fourteen years old, and I’d spent every day since working towards that goal. Well, except for a mortifying interlude in late college that I didn’t like to think about.

But now that I was in my seventh year of a biology PhD at Chatham University, with my goal so close I could almost taste it, it had suddenly begun to lose its luster.

I tried to tell myself it was just a stressful time. Not only was I trying to finish my dissertation, I was on the job market, preparing packages and sending out applications for the few mid-year positions that were opening this spring. They were mostly slots filling in for professors on parental leave or sabbatical, but I needed something to pay the bills and I’d take what I could get.

I wanted to believe I’d feel better, more relaxed, once I’d secured something, anything, for the spring. But the truth was, it wouldn’t stop there. On top of a full teaching load, I’d have to immediately start applying for new jobs for next fall.

Plus I’d have to pump out one academic paper after the next. If I couldn’t publish in the top peer-reviewed journals in the field, I could kiss any chance of a tenure-track position goodbye. I supposed I’d better get used to the stress and low-grade sense of panic now, since that would probably be my life for the next ten years.

“Brooklyn, when’s the last time you went on a date?”

“A date?” I blinked, Jeff’s question pulling me out of my gloomy thoughts and back to the present moment. “Why? What does it matter?”

“Because it might loosen you up a bit, remind you to relax. Are you bringing someone to the wedding?”

“What? No. I’m the best man. Well, one of two. I don’t need a date.”

Jeff looked me up and down. What he was assessing me for, I didn’t know, but he seemed dissatisfied with whatever he found. “No. You definitely do.”

“What do you mean, I definitely do? I’m fine. I don’t need a date, for this wedding or otherwise.”

“You’re the most in-need-of-a-date person I’ve seen in a long time.” Jeff leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk, and smiled. The look on his face was almost gentle, which I didn’t like. It made me feel like he was about to tell me I had stage four life-cancer. Prognosis grim.

“Trust me,” Jeff continued, his voice low but fierce. “The life of an academic might seem easy, might seem cushy, but it can eat you alive if you let it. The competition, the angling for one of a few coveted jobs. Trying to make yourself stand out against a crowd of hundreds of other newly-minted PhDs, whose resumes and references are every bit as polished as yours. The publish or perish churn. It wears on you, man. Take it from someone who knows.”

“And dating’s the solution to all that? I’m supposed to go out with a different guy every week to preserve my sanity or something? Or are you saying I need to find a boyfriend to pour my troubles out to?”

If Jeff was bothered by my bitter tone, he didn’t show it. In fact, he laughed.

“Boyfriend? Who said anything about that?” His eyes lit up as he laughed some more. “Brooklyn, when I said you looked like someone who needed a date, what I meant was that you needed to get laid. I was just trying to be polite.”

“You—I—that’s not—” I flushed, angry and embarrassed at the same time. “Ugh, why the hell did I pick you as my advisor? I bet Diane Madison’s students don’t have to have their love lives examined under a microscope.”

“Yeah, but that’s because they work for a researcher who’s never studied anything more complex than a paramecium and they’re stuck in a lab all day, peering into petri dishes and slowly dying from lack of vitamin D.”

“Might be a fair trade, if it meant I got to keep my personal life to myself.”

The truth was, Jeff was an amazing advisor, and most days, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get to work with him. For one thing, he was young-ish, gay-ish, and an academic hotshot. So, basically, my idol.

For another, he’d saved my academic ass. Suffering from the kind of sudden dementia that only being twenty-two and in love can cause, in the spring of my senior year of college, I’d suddenly decided to turn down all the grad programs that I’d gotten into and instead, follow the man I loved to his hometown of Wichita, Kansas and work as a paralegal.

I had barely finished sending in all my ‘thanks, but no thanks’ emails when I discovered what a huge mistake I’d made. Turns out that before you plan to follow someone you love across the country, you should make sure the feeling is mutual. And that they’re not cheating on you. That helps too.

If Jeff hadn’t taken pity on me and pulled major strings with the dean of graduate studies at Chatham University, I’d probably be living back with my mom in whatever hippie commune she’d currently alighted to. So yeah, you could say I owed him.

Besides that, Jeff actually cared about his work making the world a better place directly. He studied the way humans interacted with their environments and had founded Human Nature as a charity that worked to get public school kids outdoors. Human Nature did most of its work in Savannah, where Chatham University was located, but over the summer, we’d started working on Summersea as well, a small island off the Georgia coast about two hours away. My dissertation measured the way that being in nature lowered stress hormone levels in our blood, and it turned out that data collection with Human Nature was my favorite part of my academic life.

I just loved getting to know the kids and hanging out in the woods and meadows around Savannah—and now the beaches of Summersea, too. If I were being honest, I’d probably delayed finishing my degree by a year or two so I could spend more time volunteering at various schools and collecting data. I didn’t like to think about the fact that I’d be moving in the spring and saying goodbye to all the students.

But I’d never admit that to Jeff, who’d been on my case about finishing for years now. I knew he wanted what was best for me. And frankly, his advice was usually good. But the fact that we were similar in so many ways meant that he sometimes had opinions about how I should be living my life outside the academic sphere as well. And he wasn’t shy about expressing them.

“Alright, alright, I’ll back off.” Jeff spread his hands helplessly. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you explode from pent-up frustration.”

“If the university ethics committee could only hear you now.” I raised my eyebrows. “They’d probably think you were hitting on me.”

“I’m just looking out for the well-being of my advisee. Besides, I don’t fuck my students. The whole point of getting laid is to take your mind off the stress of your work. Getting involved with someone in your department—hell, even just in your own field—is only asking for trouble.”

“So I should find a guy at the wedding this weekend, screen him to make sure he’s a construction worker or an investment banker, and then have a random hookup?”

“Exactly. And get some sleep, too. You look exhausted. In fact, maybe sleep first. It’ll probably be better for both you and the random guy if you don’t fall asleep in the middle of fucking his brains out.” Jeff’s grin couldn’t have been more self-satisfied if he’d tried.

What was I supposed to say to that? I mean, he wasn’t wrong. I was exhausted. But I didn’t really see a way to avoid that. With everything I had to do, I had no time to sleep. That was another thing I kept telling myself would get better in the future.

But a random hookup wasn’t really my style. Of course, neither was any other kind of dating. After that disaster at the end of college, I’d more or less sworn it off. I couldn’t risk getting attached to someone again and letting my emotions lead me to do something stupid. But how was I supposed to explain that to Jeff? He’d just laugh and say I was overthinking it.

I settled for a long sigh instead. “You know I could quote you a million studies right now on how our societies evolved around pair-bonding and encourage long-term, stable commitments over one-night stands.”

“And I’d quote you a million right back that explain the virtues of humanity’s selective promiscuity. But that would be boring. So let’s just assume I’ve won that argument and you promise me you’ll try your very hardest to get twelve hours of shut-eye tonight, not think about work this weekend, and at least keep an open mind about any handsome strangers you happen to cross paths with.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“Am I your advisor or not?”

“You’re obnoxious is what you are. But fine. Open mind, beauty sleep, try not to work, all that jazz. I’ll do my best.” I glanced down at my watch. “Oh shit, I have to book if I’m going to make it to Summersea in time for the nature walk with Julian’s class this afternoon.”

Jeff raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Why? You’re done with data collection, aren’t you? If you want me to read a draft of your dissertation, it had better have results in it.”

“It does.” I shook my head. “I just promised Julian that I’d come by and help. It’s so early in the school year, and I know he could use an extra set of hands, so I figured I could—”

“What were we just talking about, Brooklyn? You’re supposed to be finding time for fun, not filling up your time with more responsibilities.”

I snorted. “Are you actually telling me to stop volunteering with the charity you founded?”

“Eh, no one’s ever accused me of being a good business manager.”

“That’s for sure.” Human Nature functioned despite Jeff’s haphazard approach to organization, not because of it. “Besides, the wedding is taking place on Summersea, so I’d have to go there this afternoon anyway.”

“If you say so. Just try to have some fun this weekend, okay?”

“You got it, boss.”

I grabbed my bag and waved goodbye to Jeff as I walked out the door. I tried not to think about the fact that walking out of Chatham’s biology building felt like walking out of a prison, and that the anticipation building in my stomach on the way down to Summersea was the happiest I’d felt all week. I did like my field of study. I did. I just…needed some help remembering that.

But I didn’t need to solve that issue this afternoon, and I was more than happy to push the thorny mental knot out of my mind as the ferry docked on Summersea a couple hours later. I rolled my bike off the boat, shouldered my weekend bag, and headed for Adair Elementary. I could hear the shouts of the kids running around the playground behind the school, and a smile spread across my face as I locked my bike up. Julian and I hadn’t decided which route to take for the walk, but it was such a nice day out, it seemed like anything would be perfect.

The great thing about Summersea was that so much of it was still undeveloped. There were parks everywhere, plus wild stretches of beach and tangled coastal forest. There was even a running path that started by a little section of scrubby woods right next to Adair Elementary itself.

The island was full of so much life, both animal and vegetable, that it was a biology PhD’s—or science teacher’s, for that matter—dream. A couple of weeks ago, we’d visited a pond with the kids and talked about the life cycle of a frog. Last week, we’d looked at wildflowers and grasses. No matter what we did today, we were certain to stumble across something interesting.

I was just about to turn the corner of the building when a flash of bright orange caught my eye. I paused, doing a double-take when I realized it was a runner coming up the sidewalk towards the school, decked out head-to-toe like a tangerine. A cute runner, to be exact.

Not that I was looking. Or interested. Just because Jeff thought I needed to get laid didn’t mean I had to go and throw myself at the first semi-attractive guy who crossed my path.

I mean, not that this guy was only semi-attractive. Shaggy blond hair spilled into his eyes and his tan skin was pink at his cheeks from exertion. With his big blue eyes and pointed chin, his features were just short of being delicate, but that only made the contrast with his lithe, muscular body sexier.

But again, not that I was looking. He looked like he was at least five years younger than I was, and with me at 29, that put him firmly in the too-young-for-me camp. And what was I going to do, just launch myself into his path as he ran by?

Not that I could do that anyway, since he slowed to a stop before he even reached me. The sidewalk ended when it reached Adair Elementary’s parking lot and even from the far side, I could see the confused look on the guy’s face. He put his hands on his hips and spun around in a circle, clearly unsure of where to go.

“Looking for the path?” I called out before I was even aware of opening my mouth.

The guy looked up in surprise and he seemed to see me for the first time. Thank goodness for small favors. That meant he hadn’t noticed all the not-looking I’d been doing.

“Uh, yeah.” He smiled, and even from fifty yards away, I could tell it was stunning. “The map said there was supposed to be a running trail that started here? It goes into the woods or something?”

“A hundred feet behind you,” I pointed. “Right next to that little maintenance shed. The path picks up on the far side of it and then goes into the woods.”

The guy turned around to follow my gesture, which gave me a great opportunity to not look at his ass. So I definitely didn’t notice how round and practically perky it was, draped in the light fabric of his running shorts. Too bad he’s not wearing spandex was a thought I definitely did not have.

“Thanks, bro!” the guy said as he turned back around. Fucking hell, did he have lightbulbs for teeth? How could a grin be so dazzling from that far away? “See ya!”

He waved, and I had just enough time to realize I should have acknowledged it before he spun and jogged back in the direction he’d come from, his mind undoubtedly already thinking about something else. Well, at least that made one of us.

“No problem, bro,” I said softly when he was out of earshot.

Just as well. Did I really need to have a crush—even a misbegotten, completely pointless crush, given that I’d never see him again—on a guy who called people ‘bro’? Hard pass.

Besides, I had a nature walk to lead. And a bachelor party to get to after that, and then a wedding tomorrow, and job applications on Sunday, and then a week of rewrites on my dissertation and, and, and. Too much to do. Definitely didn’t have time to be thinking about a cute, orange-clad bro.

And I wasn’t.

Really.

I wasn’t.