Somehow, I manage to fall asleep.
Then, I awaken with horror at my situation. What the ever-loving fuck am I still doing here? I bolt to my feet and hear her snoring. Maybe if I play it off the right way, she won't care. How much does she remember? If she knows I was here she might be more pissed off if I cut and run before she wakes up. I'm hungry. She's probably hungry.
I spray a pan with cooking spray like some heathen because she has no butter and set about preparing to make her an omelet. She's got eggs, she's got cheese, it'll have to do. I toss a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, ready to drop them after I get the eggs going, and start whisking.
She walks into the kitchen just as I've finished pouring out the eggs. Dr. Mills has the rare gift of waking up looking eminently fuckable, with her hair in a wild tousle and lidded eyes. If I didn't think she might stab me, I'd be tempted to throw an arm around her and give her a “good mornin' honey.”
Wait. She wouldn't have to stab me. She's got a goddamn gun.
"Jesus Christ!" I blurt out.
She looks at the pistol in her hands, and huffs.
"Calm down, I'm not even pointing it at you. What the hell are you doing here?"
Keeping your ungrateful ass from waking up caked in dried barf, that's what.
"Cooking you breakfast, and I'm not leaving until you eat. Why yes, you did puke your guts out, and yes, I did hold your hair."
A guy holding a girl's hair when she's upchucking is supposed to mean something, damn it. We're trying to live in a society, here.
"What are you doing here?" she demands, a little more awake now.
"Well, if you must know, please put away the gun."
She huffs and retreats with it. When she comes back, the omelet has set and I'm draping the cheese onto it. She crosses her arms and sits in her desk chair, facing me.
"Why are you here?"
"How much do you remember?"
Her left eyebrow raises, a touch of that Mean Doc Mills face in her otherwise soft, enticing morning look. I jab the flipper down to make the toast. She folds her arms.
"I remember going out to drink. I, uh," she says. "Okay, I don't remember much. Did you do something to me?"
I eye her.
"Yeah, I carried you up here instead of letting you wander into an open-air drug market in a drunken stupor. I also stayed to make sure you didn't go out like a rock star, as you were sloppy stinking drunk. Then I took care of you while you brought it all up, got you a drink to wash the taste out, and tucked you into bed."
An enigmatic look falls over her features and she glances away, breaking from my gaze.
"Thank you," she mutters, as if she were blurting out a phrase in a language she doesn't really understand in a foreign country.
"You're welcome. I also made you breakfast. Here."
I shove the plate, with a fork, into her hands.
"Dry toast?" she says.
"I make you a perfect omelet and all you can say is ‘dry toast.’ What was I supposed to do, put mayonnaise on it? You're out of butter."
"There's peanut butter," she mutters, and begins eating, slowly and with unsteady hands. She's badly hungover, I can tell.
"Here, this should be cold now."
I pour her some lemonade. She drinks it down, then takes another glass.
"That splitting pain in your head is from dehydration. It'll fade when you get some liquid in you. The food will help. No hair of the dog, alright?"
"I don't have any booze in the house."
I reach up over the kitchen cabinet and produce a bottle of mid-shelf vodka and open the cupboard to point to a collection of unchilled wine coolers.
"Except that," she says. "You really need to leave. This is highly inappropriate."
"Just feed you and get out, huh? Wham, bam, thank you Stan?"
"I thanked you already," she waves a hand.
I snort. "Hopefully you don't cost me my job. I ducked out early to walk you back."
"You could have called a cab. I didn't ask you to martyr yourself for me."
"Why are you so pissed off that someone was nice to you?"
"I don't need people to be nice to me."
I look around, folding my arms. "That doesn't sound right to me. You live in a cracker box and eat Cheesy Beef. You very much need someone to be nice to you."
"That boxed crap is for my daughter. She likes it and her father won't make it for her."
"Yeah, for a reason. The cheese contains potassium benzoate."
She glares at me.
"That's bad," I say.
"Why are you still here?"
"Hell if I know," I say. "You aren't exactly brimming with gratitude."
"My head hurts, okay?" she says, her tone softer now. "I feel like I got in a fistfight with a giraffe."
"How would that even work?"
"I don't know. I think I meant a kangaroo."
I laugh and she glowers at me, but to my utter shock, the edges of her lips twitch, threatening to smile without quite getting there.
"Okay, fine," she huffs. "I am grateful. Thank you. I made a fool of myself and you didn't have to help me at all. Sorry about the gun."
"Oh yes, mind the gun," I say in a mock British accent.
She glares again.
"How's the omelet?"
"Better than I'd make. When I try I end up with scrambled eggs."
"If you had some veggies I'd have thrown them in. Some broccoli, maybe some peppers and onions."
"No, thank you."
"Your kid isn't here," I say.
She looks at me sharply. "I have her every other weekend. What business of it is yours?"
"None," I shrug. "I was just curious. I didn't picture you as..." I trail off, not sure what I wasn't picturing her as.
"Right, throw it in my face because I'm not Martha Stewart. I try, okay?"
"I'm sure you do, Doc. I guess I should be going, unless you want me to make myself something and stay."
"That would be highly inappropriate," she says. "You shouldn't be here at all. Sinclair, please don't say anything about this to anyone." The pain in her voice is very real. "I'm applying for tenure and if I lose my job, I might lose custody rights."
"I won't say a word," I assure. "Cross my heart."
"Hope to die," she mutters, and I'm honestly not sure if she's just finishing the saying or threatening to kill me if I mess up her tenure.
"Yeah, well, it won't come to that. Are you sure I can't do anything else for you? Run to the corner store? Some cranberry juice would be miraculous for a hangover."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes," I say.
"I don't understand why you're being so helpful."
"I'm a gentleman."
She snorts. "I'm fine. Thank you for offering. I'd rather keep our relationship professional."
Keep it professional. Looking at her, that's pretty hard. I understand why she dresses the way she does—without her woolen armor she looks oddly young and vulnerable, the kind of endearing cuteness that makes men want to take care of a woman, which happens to be exactly the type I fall for. If she was anyone else, I would at the very least gently demand a kiss in return for my help or hit on her or suggest I stay or ask when I can see her again or something, but she's not a girl, she's Doc Mills, and she has as much to hold over me as I have to hold over her. My future and career are very much in her hands.
She continues to eat demurely, having dismissed me as if this were her office and I was here to complain about my grade. She even sits primly now, shifting as she recovers her professional poise and steel straight spine. It's almost like watching her turn into a werewolf. Her eyes are hard now.
"Thank you, but you need to go."
"Yeah, yeah, I guess I'll see you Monday."
She brushes her hair back over her shoulder in a shockingly feminine gesture and returns to eating and a terrible realization forms in the back of my head, just short of the words settling into my mind, and I
push it away as I walk out of her apartment, jog down the stairs, and proceed directly to the corner store for a breakfast sandwich. I'm hungry and I need a distraction.
When I walk in, still in my work clothes from last night, I might add, the old man behind the counter looks up.
"She turn you down?" he says, in the chummy way of an old corner store guy who thinks it's appropriate to say things like that to college students.
"Just cook me some eggs."
Chapter Four
Cassandra
There are few things worse than waking alone with the memory of a kiss still on your lips.
I rise in the morning at six. I am two wake-ups past my hangover and trying to forget it even as details worm their way back into my brain. I was under the impression that a blackout was permanent and the details would never come back, but I must not have truly blacked out. I distinctly remember Tyler's hulking form herding me down the street until I couldn't walk anymore, and he heaved me over his shoulder and carried me upstairs and put me in bed.
Thinking about it, I am absolutely mortified, not just because it happened but because I get a little warm thinking about it. Staring at myself in the mirror as I wind my hair into a bun, I repeat a mantra: He's a student, he's a student, he's a student.
Am I really that pathetic, mooning over some jock because he poured me a glass of lemonade?
Except he did a lot more than that and I damn well know it, and there was the way he was looking at me the next morning. No one has looked at me like that in years. I haven't let myself be vulnerable like that around anyone for a long time, though I'm sure he didn't see it as being vulnerable. I'm always on, and the only time I can turn it off is when I'm home, alone. Even when Becky is here I have to be Mommy. Mommy or Dr. Mills, and only me on my off hours.
Sighing, I dress. The slacks and blouse go on, followed by the blazer. I give my old clothes a mournful look before I close the closet, grab my briefcase, and head out.
Campus is deserted this early. The students are tucked away in their dorms and not a sound is heard all through the house. The history department is deserted, giving me time to slip into my office early—giving credence to the rumors that I simply live in here. I leave the door open and set my briefcase aside and open my laptop to skim the titles of my emails.
Administrative crap and spam. I flick through them quickly, skimming. I can think of few things more boring than faculty politics. There's some petty fight about classroom and lecture hall assignments and I don't have the energy to understand it, much less participate. I skim it, make sure I'm not mentioned, and dismiss it.
I received an email at four this morning with a subject reading Rough Nite?
First, let me say that I am offended they spelled "night" as “nite.” It was sent from [email protected], whatever the hell that is. Frowning, I open the email.
The message reads, simply:
Have a good time?
There's one attachment. A photo of me with a Moscow Mule mug in my hand, surrounded by a handful of adjuncts. Wait, were they adjuncts? I assumed they were, I think—things are fuzzy—but I don't remember asking any names or confirming it. Groaning, I plunge my head into my hands and huff.
There's a knock at my door. Jim, the department head. He leans in. I freeze.
"You have that seminar at eight, Cassie. Better grab some coffee."
I groan. Hopefully he assumes I have a "case of the Mondays" or something. My eyes are even glowing red in the damn picture. I look like a damn buffoon. Why did I do that to myself? For what, a bad headache the next morning?
An omelet, too.
I grit my teeth. I had to deal with one of my students standing over me like a concerned parent while I nurse a hangover in my apartment. Of course it's him, too. The perfect one. The football star with the rock hard sculpted body, movie star looks, and sandy blond hair who looked flawless even after sleeping badly on my rickety couch. Uninvited. The same student I have to face in a few minutes.
For the record, I don't drink coffee. I'm high strung enough. Instead I prepare some breakfast tea and gobble down an oatmeal bar from my desk drawer, grab my bag, and head to the classroom. Thankfully, seminars are small, and thus held in small classrooms around a conference table and I don't have to trek over to one of the lecture halls.
When I walk into the room, half the students are already here. Of course I'd get a batch of overachievers. Two girls and a boy. It's a group of only six, but it'll be a huge amount of work. I'm going to make them write until their hands fall off, as is my solemn duty as their senior seminar professor.
"Good morning," one of the girls says. I don't know her.
I grunt in reply and sip my tea, standing at a portable lectern set up at one end of the table. Another student walks in and takes a seat, then another, and finally here comes the Big Man on Campus, Tyler Sinclair himself. Yawning, visibly tired and unshaven, he's somehow debonair even in sweat clothes and sneakers. I swear if he smiles too hard his teeth will produce a tiny ping sound effect, and his hair moves like someone is following him around with a tiny little fan.
Worse, the three girls that make up half the seminar are all looking at him with naked, unreserved lust. He sits at the far end of the table like he's my equal and leans back in his chair in a relaxed, easy pose, like he's perfectly comfortable.
I sip my tea. It's one minute to the start of class. I walk over and close the door.
"Since we're all here," I say, "does everyone know one another?"
Four of the five nod. Tyler does not, and no one seems to know how to regard him.
"I don't think I've ever had any of you before."
"You've definitely never had me," Tyler says. "You'd remember, Doc."
Guffaws break out all along the room. I stare daggers at him, my teacup trembling in my hand as my fingers close into a fist. I just barely stop myself from baring my teeth. Instead, I coolly push my reading glasses down my nose and meet his gaze over them.
One of the two other young men clears his throat.
"I've been in one of your classes," the other boy says.
"Me too," one of the girls chimes in.
"Good, then I don't have to train you," I say. "You already know the ropes. For the rest of you, I have two simple guiding principles I follow in all of my courses. Number one: I am not doing anything to you or making you do anything. You signed up. You asked to be here. You applied and the college said yes, and when you accepted that invitation, you took one of a limited number of places. With me so far? Good. The other is: If you all fail, I still get paid. You're not in high school."
That's not strictly accurate, but near enough. It's a good philosophy, I think. I already passed all my classes, the onus is on them.
"I put the syllabus up for review on the web portal. I trust everyone here has been industrious and looked at it."
Five nods and one blank stare. Guess who.
"Has anyone not looked at it yet?" I sigh.
"Yeah, I missed that," Tyler says. "Classes usually don't start until they start, you know?"
I grit my teeth. "Fine, Tyler. I'll give you the executive summary. Forty percent of your grade in this course is a participation grade. You convince me you're reading and thinking about the material, you'll be fine. If not, you can't pass the class. The remainder is from your senior thesis, which you will develop and write under my guidance. You will notice in the syllabus that I have provided a rubric and deadlines which you must meet or points will automatically be deducted from your final grade. Is that clear?"
"Crystal," he says. "I'm just a little surprised that you want to hear me talk."
"Tyler, I sincerely doubt that you need any prompting to hear the sound of your own voice."
He grins, rather than scowls.
"Sounds like I'm in good hands."
"Annoying me is not the way to earn that participation grade."
"I like to take risks, Doc. Can't make an omelet without breaking a f
ew eggs."
I stare at him, and everyone else in the room stares at me. It stretches on into an awkward moment.
"Tyler," I growl.
"Yes?"
To cover my annoyance, I tip back some tea and set the cup down before I shatter it in rage and scald myself.
"Why are you here?"
"Do you mean in this building?"
"I mean in this course."
A tension has settled around the rest of the room as I lean on the podium.
"Well, they told me I had to."
Snickers from some of the others. They quickly still their faces and look blankly at their notebooks.
"I gathered that, but we both know that you have to take this course to graduate with a degree in history. Why are you pursuing such a degree?"
This is actually normal. I like to discuss my future career plans in the first session of the seminar.
Before he can answer I say, "This is a question each of you need to think about. Hopefully you already have. I'm sure you've been repeatedly told how hirable a history degree makes you, but the truth is, you're not going to walk into the headquarters of some bank and take a job as their historian. Jobs that require a generic bachelor's degree are getting scarcer and don't pay as well, so you need to have a plan for what to do with all of this education that you've paid for."
"It's a little late, isn't it?" he says.
"Does that mean you don't know?"
He leans back in his seat. "Okay, I'll bite. I was planning to go pro."
"Pro at what?"
"Football."
I snort derisively. "Do you buy lottery tickets, too?"
"Have you seen me play?"
"I can't say I have, or that I particularly care to. I grew tired of boys playing with their balls years ago."
He glares at me, jaw tight.
"Um, I'm planning to teach," one of the girls says. "I'm Alyssa, by the way. We haven't met, Dr. Mills, I mean I had you in a class but it was a lecture and—"
"Where do you get off?" Tyler demands.
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