by Penny Reid
Over three weeks had passed since I’d been assigned an advocate, a graduate student named Gloria. She was nice. We’d met thrice. She’d administered my test this week and had collected my paper on mice.
Ugh. I’m rhyming. Sorry.
Anyway, all assignments went to Gloria, were graded by Gloria, but I attended Dr. Hanover's lectures as normal.
Except, no! Not normal!!!
But actually, yes. Ms. Crazy Brains, yes! Normal. So very, very normal.
And the normalcy was what made everything not normal. Dr. Hanover treated me just like he had before. He called on me every so often. He challenged me, just like he did with all students when it was warranted, or moved on swiftly when I answered correctly. Seemingly, nothing had changed for him.
Whereas, based on my conversation with Dr. Ford, I’d thought having an advocate assigned would free Dr. Hanover to do . . . whatever he wanted to do. I’d had daydreams about him asking me to stay late after the lecture. Or maybe he’d show up at my work—he was a member, after all—and ask me out. He wouldn’t have to worry about bias or ramifications because I had an advocate. Voila!
More daydreams of us going out, both of us getting stage five, four, three, two, one, naked.
When nothing happened by the end of the first week, I’d assumed it was because he wanted to ensure the advocate was working out.
When nothing happened by the end of the second week, I’d assumed it was because he needed a little more time.
When nothing happened by the end of the third week, I had to face facts: Dr. Hanover wasn’t going to make a move and all my fantasy imaginings were just that. Fantasy.
A big, furry, googly-eyed fantasy. My fantasies were like spiders, just with more legs and less venom.
I should have moved on. I should have let it go. But I couldn’t. The door had been opened. What had been seen—namely, Dr. Hanover’s possible interest in me as more than a student and his previously cloaked smarty-pants sexiness—could never be unseen!
Worse, I noticed things about him during class that I’d never noticed before. He encouraged his students to be better. He was passionate about knowledge and education, and deeply, truly wanted us to apply both to our lives. I’d already known he was smart before, but now his subtle wordplay and nerdy puns made me swoon in my seat.
I liked him. A lot. Dammit.
I thought about him. A lot. Even when I tried to flex my self-control muscle or try to distract myself, I still thought about him. Meanwhile, he . . . didn’t think about me. At all. He didn’t even have to grade my papers.
Oh the humidity!
No. Seriously. Oh the humidity. It was hot as Satan’s armpit in the faculty office building. I pulled at my shirt, trying to get some air movement. The AC must’ve been broken. Or maybe I was just so nervous, I’d given myself a hot flash.
“What am I doing?”
Lurking like a lurking lurker in the hallway, sweating, staring at Dr. Hanover’s closed door on a Wednesday night when I should have already been on the road to my mother’s.
Wiping at my forehead, I sighed, feeling ridiculous yet galvanized. The debate within me was supersized. I couldn’t stay, but I couldn’t get my feet to carry me away. Clearly, I was cray-cray.
Oh no, I’m rhyming again!
“Just . . . leave!” I whispered to myself, pacing a few steps closer to his door. “Leave.” I lifted my hand, licking my lips. “Go, go, go.”
I heard movement within, and I tensed. Footsteps. A second later, the sound of two voices speaking to each other, faint murmurs, met my ears. My heart dropped. He wasn’t alone.
What are you doing? Really? What’s the plan here?
I sighed.
I shook my head.
I turned.
Then the sound of “Misirlou,” by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones carried out of Dr. Hanover’s office and I froze.
Pulp Fiction. He was listening to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. The earlier voices weren’t Dr. Hanover and someone else. The voices were two actors from the movie. It had been the Honey Bunny scene, right before the robbery. Which meant Dr. Hanover was alone.
“Oh, well,” I whispered. “That changes nothing. You still need to leave.”
I did need to leave. I knew it. I had no right to be here. I’d been the one to agree to the advocate. He wasn’t my professor anymore. He might’ve (possibly) had an interest in me at some point, but clearly me being a student was a hard line for him.
Plus, my intentions were murky. I wanted things. Selfish things. And he’d been unselfish. He’d been honorable.
I took a step, and then another, and another. They were slow, but they were in the right direction, and I was just on the edge of being proud of myself when I heard a door opening behind me.
Oh noes!
A shock of adrenaline tightened my throat, caused my steps to falter, and then quicken.
“Emily?”
Ahhhhhhhcrap. It was too late.
I stopped. Not because I wanted to stop. Oh no. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to run. But, as usual and was my habit, I froze. Straining my ears, I waited and hoped. I hoped he’d—oh jeez. I didn’t know what I hoped.
But what I heard was hesitation, insomuch as one can hear hesitation, and then footsteps.
“Emily,” he said my name rather than asked this time. The sound of his voice saying my first name was very nice.
I listened as he came closer, saw in my peripheral vision as he drew even and passed me. I watched helplessly as he came fully into my field of view and faced me, his movements relaxed, confident, assured. Tangentially, I noticed he’d changed. Gone were the brown pants, yellow and brown plaid button-down, and pocket protector. Instead, he was wearing dark blue jeans, gray socks, and a white undershirt.
But I didn’t see his eyes move over me. I felt their path instead because I couldn’t seem to lift my gaze higher than his neck.
His hands snagged my attention, they looked restless at his sides. For a split second I thought he might touch me. He didn’t. He stuffed them into his jeans’ pockets.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice dichotomously both gruff and smooth.
I stalled by taking a deep breath and glancing over his shoulder, attempting to arrange my face into something resembling calm. “Um,” I said. It was higher pitched than my usual voice, which only served to fluster and tongue-tie me further.
He waited. And while he waited, I smelled him. Don’t worry, I didn’t sniff him or anything. It’s just, I could smell him, so I did. He smelled great, like before, like the time we’d been alone together at the Pinkery, and he’d touched the silk of the kimono and me with his fingertips.
Abruptly and despite the heat, goose bumps rose over my skin, starting at my arms and racing toward my chest. Curiosity elbowed my anxiety out of the way and my gaze flickered to his. As expected, he was watching me. Unexpected, his eyes were hot. I sensed the same restlessness there that had been present in his hands, the way he was staring felt like a touch, and I finally understood what people meant when they said a person’s gaze could smolder.
“Emily,” he said my name a third time, capturing and holding my gaze. “What do you want?”
“I . . .” My lips parted as I struggled with my brain, and his eyes dropped to my mouth.
SAY SOMETHING!
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because either it was my imagination, or he’d just leaned forward, his smoldering stare still on my mouth. My eyes widened, unable to look away from his handsome face as he grew closer. A big hand slid around my waist, heat seeping through my shirt as fingers pressed against the small of my back, urging me forward. “Misirlou” continued to reverberate from his office, a soundtrack to what was about to happen, what was happening between us.
My lashes fluttered, I held my breath, and my brain told me, this isn’t real, I’m imagining this, just before his extremely real and soft and warm lips touched mine.
Chapter 8
*Emily*
>
A simple kiss, a press of his mouth to mine, held for six beats of the heart. Cresting confusion followed by a surge of deep, lush heat. The beginnings of a melting surrender a split second before the kiss was broken, just as it ceased being simple. Its end punctuated with the barest of caresses, a brush of lips, a tantalizingly light touch, back and forth once. Our noses bumped softly. Stubble from his day beard sandpaper against my chin. His barely audible sigh. A sense of hesitation.
I felt it all, and the echoes of feeling lingered as he leaned away. His hands remained on my body, one on my hip, one curled around the side of my torso just below my ribs. His palms and fingers were hot, hotter than the hot hallway, hotter than the smoldering low in my abdomen. I waited—my eyes closed, my face angled upward—for him to return.
When he didn’t move, I opened my eyes and found him there, peering at me. He didn’t look pleased or displeased, more like . . . cautiously unrepentant. The stubborn angle of his chin and matching glint in his gaze—as though he dared me to be upset—made me smile.
“Hello,” he said, the single word dry as dust, and I wondered if he was bracing himself, apprehensive of what I might do next.
“Hi.” I grinned and knew I sounded moony, and yet I was incapable of caring about my mooniness.
Victor’s glare narrowed by an infinitesimal amount, growing impossibly sharp, giving me lovely little heart flutters. I’d never met a person with such tangible intelligence behind their gaze. His eyes seemed to be brighter, more reactive than other people’s, where both meanings of the word brilliance could be applied at once. It was, I decided, the sexiest thing about him (. . . so far).
You have beautiful eyes.
One of Victor’s eyebrows rose suddenly, and he blinked twice, the sharpness in his gaze morphing into something softened by confusion. “I have beautiful eyes?”
OHNOES!
My mouth fell open and I flinched, leaning back on my heels. “Did I . . . did I say that out loud?”
He nodded, his expression unreadable (at least, unreadable to me), and his fingers on my hip and torso flexed for a beat before sliding away. He took a half step back.
“Yes. You said that out loud.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No reason to be sorry.” Victor’s tone was so steady, so entirely calm—remote even—I doubted my own memory for a millisecond.
Did we just kiss? Or did I imagine that?
I brought my fingers to my lips and nodded faintly to reassure myself. Yes, we’d kissed. Objectively, it might have been short and chaste by most standards, but nothing about it felt chaste to me. The aftereffects still held me in their disorienting grip.
“Emily,” he said, drawing my attention. His gaze—less piercing than before, but no less brimming with arresting cleverness—conducted a quick sweep of my person, finally landing back on my face. I sensed a struggle within him. “We need to talk.”
“Yes.” I nodded, still in my moony daze.
He lifted his thumb and forefinger to gently tug at his bottom lip and glanced over my shoulder to the direction of his office, his eyebrows pulling low in a thoughtful line. “Not here. Are you hungry?”
I nodded. Or, more correctly, I continued nodding. “I could eat.”
“Fine. Good.” The words were spoken in abrupt staccato, a tone I recognized from class when someone gave the right answer. “Do you like Ethiopian food? Or we could go—”
“I love Ethiopian food.”
“Do you have a car? I have some things to finish here first, but I can text you directions and we can meet later.” Victor pulled out his phone from his back pocket, unlocked it, and held it out to me.
Still nodding, I snatched his phone and navigated to the contacts section, speed-entering my information using both of my thumbs. “I have a car. And yes, I’ll meet you later.”
I had to fight the murky moony-toon impulse to click on his messaging icon and send myself a text so I’d have his number ASAP. Instead, I returned his cell. This interaction was going well, so much more and better than I’d allowed myself to consider possible, I didn’t want to do anything overeager that might send him running.
“Shall we say, eight o’clock?” Victor glanced at his phone before switching it off and returning it to his back pocket. When his gaze lifted, it moved past me again to his office.
“Yes. Eight. Sounds great. See you then.” I stepped to the side and around him, walking backward slowly so I could see him as I moved away.
I didn’t dwell too much on his stern expression as he turned to watch me go. I was too busy doing an internal jig of self-congratulations and debating whether to rush forward, to steal a parting kiss. Or would that be weird?
Before I could decide, Victor gave me a brief farewell nod and turned to his office, his strides long and purposeful. He didn’t look back at me before closing his door with a soft click.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in my car in the student lot, replaying the events of the last half hour, that I realized he hadn’t quite met my eyes again after I’d complimented his.
Time: 8:01 PM
Place: Front door of Queen of Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant
Mood: Cautiously optimistic
On the drive over, I couldn’t help but indulge in all sorts of best-case fantasies regarding the evening, but I hadn’t allowed my imagination to run away from me. No, no. That wouldn’t do. My internal jig of self-congratulations had definitely waned, becoming more of a wary sway of anticipation.
On the one hand, he’d kissed me.
On the other hand, afterward he’d acted distant. Reserved.
And yet, on another hand—a third, surgically attached hand—this was the first time Victor had kissed me. Perhaps his behavior had been post-kiss typical for him?
Although, on an additional hand—a fourth, awesome gene-mutated hand—I’d kissed my fair share of menfolk, and this was the first time anyone had acted distant with me afterward. So . . .?
Just go inside!
Bringing myself back to the present, I reached for Queen of Sheba’s front door and swung it open, stepping into the restaurant while taking a deep inhale of delicious spices, berbere and cardamom and cinnamon. Peering around the cozy space, I noted the walls were painted a shade of parchment, gauzy red curtains framed the windows on brass rods, and metalwork lamps hung from brown cords above each table, giving the room an intimate glow.
The place was busier than I would have expected from any restaurant on a weeknight at 8:00 PM. A few seconds of hunting to find Victor were required, and a few more seconds to calm my quaking nerves before leaving the safety of the front door alcove. He sat in a booth at the farthest corner of the restaurant, his attention on the menu he held up, apparently scanning its contents.
As I approached, I tried to take my cue from how calm he seemed to be. Gathering a deep breath, endeavoring to release uncertainty and nerves on a silent exhale, I managed a small smile just as I reached the table.
“Hi,” I said. Despite my mighty exhale, my stomach was in knots.
Victor glanced up from his menu, blinked as though bringing me into focus, and then seemed to shake himself, as though he’d been lost in deep thought or my appearance had been a surprise.
“Emily. Yes. Hello.” He immediately slid from the booth, standing, and motioning to the bench across from his with one hand while sliding the other into his back pocket, the movement awkward. “Please, have a seat.”
I thought about stepping forward and giving him a kiss on the cheek. He looked so much more approachable than usual, younger, human. Still dressed in his white T and jeans, his hair still unstyled but now sticking up at odd angles, as though he’d been pushing his fingers through it repeatedly.
And yet, I didn’t step forward.
As I claimed my spot across from him, I realized why I hadn’t made a move: as he’d stood and offered the seat, he hadn’t looked directly at me. Even now, as I snuck a quick peek, his gaze was once again fastened to hi
s menu, the wrinkle between his eyebrows giving me the impression it wasn’t his lack of enthusiasm with the appetizer list so much as having difficulty meeting my eyes.
I didn’t allow my stomach to sink, not yet. Maybe he’s just nervous. This is probably strange territory for him too.
“What’s good here?” I asked, attempting to sound as benign as possible while taking a much-needed moment to center myself. I couldn’t allow my mind to wander, to entertain any of those best-case fantasies I’d been indulging earlier.
“Everything,” he said, sounding distracted, “I’ve had everything and it’s all good.”
“Your sample size is adequately powered?” The statistics—and therefore research methods—joke slipped past my lips before checking with my brain. I fought against the urge to cringe, peeking at him again.
His gaze cut to mine, held, and I held my breath upon spotting the barest tug at the corner of his mouth. “Well, yes. But when one’s N—the number of samples—is all available samples, power calculations are unnecessary.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes. Power calculations are only necessary when N is some subset of the population being studied.”
“Meaning, when N is all available samples, the results are definitive?”
“No. I didn’t say that.” Victor leaned back in his booth, his tone conversational, his shoulders seeming to relax. “It’s important to be precise, especially when using such phrases as, ‘the results are definitive.’ One could make that argument, but only for the questions being asked, i.e. the specific aims, and only for the time point measured.”
“Ah.” Okay, okay, I can do this. I can brain-spar with Dr. Victor Genius Stein. “So, based on your statement that everything here is good, I assume you’ve sampled the entire menu just moments ago?”
His eyes narrowed, but his barely-there smile became a small one. “No. I didn’t.”
“Which means, everything on the menu might not be good tonight? As your findings are only valid for the time point measured, which was in the past.”