We hadn’t planned to end up in a one-bed motel room on the side of the highway after the departmental awards dinner. He had offered to drop me off but the rain had other ideas—and by the time the storm turned the road into a river, it was either this… or stay stranded together in his car all night.

The rain hadn’t let up for over an hour.

It beat against the motel roof like a war drum, relentless and cold—completely at odds with the heat simmering in the small, dimly lit room.

I stood near the window, watching the water trail down the glass in messy rivulets, pretending I...