Personal Jurisdiction (10 page)

“No,” Whitney said. “It’s just—”

“Just nothing!” Elise interrupted. “Look, I think Kate’s an awful person, and if Ben and she are a thing then I feel badly for him. And I think he’d be an idiot to choose her over you. But you have to start believing in yourself. I think you’re awesome, but if you insist on not believing in yourself, eventually no one else will, either.”

Whitney sighed. Elise had a point. And maybe it was unfair of her to assume Elise and Jamie thought less of her because of her bank account. They had been nothing but wonderful to her. “I don’t want to go back there, Elise. I can’t stand to watch Kate flirting with Ben.”

“So, let’s just stay here. These barstools are prime real estate, anyways.”

Whitney giggled. “I can’t believe you told that guy off!”

Elise laughed and held up her glass. “It was an emergency. Come on, let’s toast. To us, to the start of a lifelong friendship!”

Whitney smiled as their glasses clinked. “Cheers,” she said, and forced herself not to look in Ben’s direction. She would try to forget about him and have a good night out with Elise.

A few hours later, when Alex made his way over to their barstools, Whitney realized that she had perhaps been having a little
too
good of a night out. She and Elise had been drinking and laughing nonstop, and the room was starting to feel a little fuzzy. A huge plate of nachos sat mostly picked over in front of them. Whitney had to admit, the Mexican food and drinks here were not as awful as she had feared.

“Hey, Alex!” Whitney said, then laughed for no reason. “You were right, these margaritas aren’t too bad!”

“I can see you ladies have been enjoying them,” Alex said. He raised an eyebrow in Elise’s direction. Elise, who was also pretty liquored up at this point, just giggled. Her dangling earrings whipped around her face as she tried to stop laughing.

“I just wanted to let you know we’re all taking off, in case you wanted to share a cab” Alex said to Elise. He looked tired.

“Oh, yeah, I guess we should get going. We do still have class tomorrow,” Elise said. “But I think I’ll walk Whitney home first and then catch a cab.”

Alex considered this for a moment and then shook his head. “Why don’t you just head out with the others? I’ll make sure Whitney gets home.”

Whitney wanted to argue that she did not need help getting home, but all she could manage to do was giggle.

Elise started to protest, but Alex was firm. “Go, Elise. I don’t exactly trust you to make sure Whitney gets home, since you’re not in much better shape than she is.” Elise did not argue further. She paid their tab and then hugged Whitney goodbye before heading out.

The night air was chilly as Whitney and Alex left the bar, and Whitney shivered. Without a word, Alex took his jacket off and wrapped it around Whitney’s shoulders. She hated dragging a coat around in a bar, and had decided earlier to just brave the six blocks from her house in her long-sleeved shirt. She had not realized how much colder it would get as the night wore on.

Whitney chatted for the entire walk to her apartment. First, she recounted some of the funny stories Elise had been telling all night. Then, she started talking about Christmas, and how she was looking forward to getting a break from school and going back to Texas. Alex just listened the entire time, barely acknowledging Whitney’s rambling, one-sided conversation. When they arrived at her apartment building, Whitney took off Alex’s jacket and handed it back to him with a dramatic flourish.

“No funny business tonight, mister,” Whitney said, then burst into a fit of giggles.

“Oh, come on, Whitney. That didn’t work out so well the first time I tried it. Besides, I’m not going to go after a girl my buddy is interested in.”

Whitney stopped giggling and tried through her tequila haze to focus on Alex’s face. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Ben?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t think he’s into me. I’m pretty sure he and Kate are a thing.”

Alex stared off into the distance. “I’m not so sure.”

“He invited her to the bar tonight.”

“No, he didn’t. She invited herself. She’s been stalking him since school started.”

Whitney tried to process this information. Was it possible Ben was not interested in Kate after all? Did she still have a chance?

“You think he likes me?”

Alex sighed. “I don’t know, Whitney. All I know right now is it’s late, and I’m tired. I probably should not have stayed out this late so soon after being sick. I need to get home and get some rest.”

“Okay. Sorry. You’re welcome to crash here if you want. I have a really comfortable couch if you don’t want to bother with getting a cab home this late.”

Alex was silent for a moment, and Whitney thought he might take her up on the offer. But he just shook his head and gave her a hug. “I really should get going. Good night, Whitney.” Then he turned and walked off into the night before she could reply.

Whitney had heard that law school was hard on your liver, but lately things had just been ridiculous. After definitively proving at margarita night that Texans could not always handle their tequila, Whitney decided to lay low for a while. The next afternoon, once all of her classes were over, she headed to the library and, as usual, chose a table by the window overlooking Lake Michigan. The weather was gray and cold, and the happy boaters from last month were long gone. The lake was quiet as the daylight faded quickly into darkness.

Whitney opened her laptop and tried to focus. With midterms next week, and the specter of searching for a summer job haunting her, she needed to focus on processing the massive amounts of legal information she still was not confident she understood. Elise and Jamie had tried to convince her to study at a coffee shop with them, but she declined. If she spent the evening in a noisy shop with her two chatty friends, she was almost guaranteed to get nothing done. She forced herself to start outlining the concepts that she had been learning in her contracts class, but paused every few minutes to stare out the window at the blackness of Lake Michigan.

She toyed with the idea of texting Ben, justifying her desire to see him by telling herself that he would make a good study partner. She hesitated, wondering how he would react. If he agreed, that was a good sign, right? But if he declined, it could mean so many things. Maybe he was tired, or already had plans with Alex. Or maybe he had plans with Kate. Whitney played different possibilities over in her mind, and several times she reached for her phone to text him, only to change her mind and put the phone back down before hitting send. Her laptop’s screen remained mostly blank as she flipped mindlessly through her Civil Procedure casebook.

In the end, Ben made the decision for her. As she reached for her phone for the umpteenth time, she looked up and saw Ben walking across the library toward her. He was carrying a box of coffee and a couple of spare Starbucks cups. She set her phone back down as he set the box of coffee on the table.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound casual. She felt nervous and hoped that her hair and makeup were not a complete disaster. She would have primped some if she had known he was going to show up.

“Hey. I thought we had a deal that you were going to let me know when you needed a library study partner.”

“
That was before you spent the entire evening yesterday with Kate
,” Whitney wanted to say. Instead, she just shrugged and evaded the question. “How did you know I was here?”

“Elise told me. I ran into her and Jamie at Starbucks. Hence the coffee.”

Whitney wished she could hug and punch Elise at the same time. She had tried today to act like Kate’s constantly hanging onto Ben’s arm last night had not bothered her, but she knew that Elise and Jamie both knew better.

“May I?” Ben asked, gesturing toward the chair across from Whitney.

“I don’t have snacks,” Whitney said, a little too sarcastically. She mentally kicked herself. What was she doing? Trying to drive him away on purpose? Her nervous streak was going to end any chance she had with Ben. She started to say something to soften her reply, but before she could get any words out, he spoke.

“I do. I figured it was my turn.” Ben smiled and fished a small bag out of his messenger bag. He opened it and began placing an assortment of snacks on the table, mostly nuts and chocolate. Expensive looking chocolate. Whitney reached for a piece labeled as salted caramel and unwrapped it. The dark chocolate hit her tongue and she savored the way the salty and sweet flavors blended in her mouth.

“Okay,” she said, smiling coyly. “I guess I’ll let you stay.”

Ben sat down across from her, looking pleased. “Now I know the best way to bribe you,” he said, and started pouring out two cups of coffee from the coffee box. The aroma from the coffee hit Whitney’s nose, and she realized how tired she was. Last night’s shenanigans had been a bad idea. She sipped the coffee, grateful for the comforting feeling the warm liquid gave her.

“Where’d you disappear to last night?” Ben asked as he fired up his laptop. “I barely saw you.”

“Oh, um, Elise and I snagged seats at the bar, so we decided to hang out there,” she said. It was technically true. Ben accepted this explanation without pressing for further details, and Whitney wondered if he knew the real reason. She tried to remember if she had said anything incriminating to Alex on the walk home that he might have passed along to Ben, but her memory of that whole conversation was hopelessly fuzzy. Alex had barely spoken to her today, and she hoped she had not said anything to make him angry. She made a mental note to text him later.

The library was almost empty, since most students seemed to prefer studying at home or in coffee shops. Sitting alone with Ben in the dim light felt almost romantic, and Whitney wanted to postpone studying for a while to chat with him and enjoy the spread of snacks and coffee he had brought. But Ben was all business tonight. He started flipping through his books, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Whitney told herself that this was evidence that having Ben around for a study partner would indeed keep her focused. There was no need to feel guilty about spending time with a crush if that crush was contributing to her legal education, right?

The next few hours passed quickly, and Ben and Whitney barely spoke. The coffee and pile of snacks on the table slowly dwindled, and Whitney managed to get a fair amount of work done. This should have made her happy, but as 11 p.m. neared, she was feeling irrationally upset. The few times Ben had spoken, it was only to ask Whitney what she thought of a specific case or legal doctrine. The evening felt businesslike, and lacked the friendly banter that had defined their last study session together. Whitney was convinced that Alex was wrong. Ben was not interested in anything more than friendship with her. Given the choice between Kate, with her money, pedigree, and perfect body, and Whitney, with her disorganized career path and lack of any real social connections, who could blame Ben for choosing Kate?

Whitney slammed her casebook shut. “I have to go,” she said tersely. “The library is closing soon, anyways.”

Ben looked up, surprised. He glanced at his watch. “Oh, wow. It’s late. I’m so sorry. I know it’s a bit of a trek home for you. Let me pack up my stuff. I’ll help you catch a cab.”

Whitney shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’m just going to catch the bus.”

“Whitney, you can’t be serious! It’s so late, and the bus is going to take forever to get back to Lakeview. And I’m not sure it’s safe for you to be riding public transportation alone at this hour!”

Whitney felt like snapping at him that not everyone could waste money on cab fare whenever they felt like it, but she managed to keep her frustration in check. “I’ll be fine. I’ve ridden the bus home this late several times already.”

“I feel badly for keeping you out so late.”

“Don’t worry about it. I would have been here anyways.” This was a little bit of a lie. Whitney probably would have headed home much earlier if Ben had not been here. She had been hoping he would finish working at some point and suggest they grab dinner again, and she was irritated that this had not happened.

“Well, in any case, this has been great. I’ve managed to finish a lot of the work I wanted to get done.”

“Good.” Whitney was almost done packing up her things, but Ben had not put a single book back into his bag. Whitney’s irritation grew. She was dreading the bus ride home, and she was not going to wait around any longer while he took his time leaving. She felt like a fool for spending so much of the evening anticipating some sort of indication from Ben that her feelings toward him were mutual. Whitney’s heart ached as she took in Ben’s gorgeous blue eyes and thick, mussed up hair. He was out of her league, in so many ways. She could not torture herself like this anymore. Tonight was the last time she was going to spend hours studying with him. She should have never allowed herself to have feelings for him. She should have listened to Rachel, and to her own better judgment, and focused solely on acing law school. That was what she came here to do.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked. Whitney’s face must have betrayed some of the frustration she was feeling.

“I’m fine,” she said. “But I have to get going. Now. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”