by Evans, LJ
When we got to our desks, which were shoved together in a side room that felt smaller than the inside of a manned submersible vehicle, I confronted her.
“Has he ever made a pass at you?”
“What? No! Guy’s one of the good ones.”
“Then, how come he was looking at you like you were the best thing since the Bill of Rights?”
She grimaced. “It’s like the way Dad used to look at you in your uniform. He’s just proud of the success I’ve had. Success that’s made him look better.”
Out of all my sisters, Dani had the best track record with men. My middle sister, Bee, had a husband who we all still rolled our eyes at. And Gabi once had a boyfriend who was a drug dealer, and even though we’d confronted her about him using, she’d still been surprised when he’d been arrested. Dani had never had any bad men in her life. She’d always dated the clean-cut, wholesome type. But now, with the way Guy had looked at her, I was wondering if Dani was as oblivious as Georgie had been with her professor, which just made me worried all over again about Georgie.
“Do you want me to text her?” Dani asked.
“What?”
“Georgie.”
“How did you― No.”
“It’s written all over your face. You really do have it bad for her.”
“I left Rockport early on purpose so I wouldn’t have it bad for her,” I said with a sigh and picked up the first report I was supposed to review.
“And now she’s living with you,” Dani teased.
“Don’t make it sound like that.”
She grabbed my phone off my desk, typing into it.
“What are you doing?”
“Adding Georgie’s number to your phone.”
“Godda―dang it, Dani. Butt out.”
“What are we, ten?” She smirked, handing the phone back to me. “Just tell her I wanted you to ask if she was okay.”
I stared down at the open message box. At the top was the contact name Dani had entered. It read: “The One.” My heart fell in on itself.
“She’s not the one,” I told her, putting the phone down. But I didn’t change the contact name, and Dani noticed, smirking at me again.
“Working with you is going to be more fun than I expected,” she said. I threw several paperclips at her. One hit her on the forehead, but she just laughed.
Coming back to D.C. had been what I wanted. Now, I was thinking I needed to be thousands of miles away again. I’d walked away from my naval career and my job at the DoD because I’d thought it was time, but maybe I needed to reconsider. Maybe I needed to get posted back on the USS George Washington until Georgie was done with law school. Then, I could come back, safely, to Washington. I was a chickenshit. She was just one woman. I’d resisted plenty of women before. I could do this, whether she was living with us or not.
Shit.
Georgie
WALK ME HOME
“Walk me home in the dead of night,
I can't be alone with all that's on my mind, mhm.
So, say you'll stay with me tonight,
'Cause there is so much wrong going on outside.”
Performed by P!nk
Written by Moore / Ruess / Harris
I was a little edgy by the time I got to Professor Collins’ office door. Dani―because I couldn’t think of her as Daniella now that I’d heard the nickname that suited her so much better―and Mac’s warnings were playing around in my head. I wished I could have just forgotten the whole damn conversation. But wishing away things hadn’t gone my way lately. If ever. I hadn’t been able to wish away my father’s arrest, my mother’s departure, or my grandmother’s death. I hadn’t been able to wish away my body’s reaction to Mac. Wishes and I were at an all-time low.
I knocked and opened the door when I heard, “Come in.”
What I noticed now—that I hadn’t the day before—was that Professor Collins was much younger than what had been stored in my memory. He couldn’t have been more than forty. Young enough to be attracted to women on campus, old enough for me to say no way. My dad had been way older than my mom, and look how that had worked out.
“Hi,” I said, drawing my bag to the front of me almost like a shield.
He looked up from his desk and smiled. It was an attractive smile. One I was sure got him a lot of crushes, especially from the younger students. He had a blond-haired, chiseled look that was probably drool-worthy if I wasn’t already drooling in my dreams over a certain chiseled, dark-haired body. I had a flash of the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark with the girl winking her “I love you” eyes at Harrison Ford. Professor Collins would have loved to be Harrison Ford.
“Georgie, is it?” He was nonchalant, as if he was trying to recall my name and the reason that brought me to his office. I couldn’t tell if it was an act or real.
He came around the desk, leaning against it, legs out. I fidgeted by the door.
“Fourth Amendment, right?”
I nodded.
“Come on in. I’ll dig up some case studies we’re going to be going over, and you can get a head start.”
He went to a shelf by the windows. Damn Mac and Dani. I pushed away my unease and sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. He came back with a binder in his hands and brushed against my legs with his, as if not paying attention, but returned to his position propped against the desk. I’d worn jeans even though it was too hot for them. I’d spent most of my time in Washington in a series of summer dresses, trying to keep cool. Not today. Not with the stupid conversation going through my head that I was thinking now wasn’t so stupid.
He handed me the binder, our hands touching.
“Think that will get you started,” he said, retracting his hands slowly, eyeing my left hand. My body and brain went on high alert. I would have been on alert by now even without Mac and Dani’s voices in my head. “Where are you from?”
“New York,” I said with a calm voice and straight face that I’d practiced for years.
“What brings you back to academia?”
“It was time to follow my own dreams again.”
“That’s a good reason,” he said with a suave smile. A smile that I wondered if he practiced in the mirror. I looked at his left hand. No ring, but that didn’t mean anything. “What made you give up your dreams before?”
“My grandmother passed away,” I responded. I didn’t know how much I wanted to share with him, because I didn’t like the whole vibe that was in the air.
“You’ll be older than most of the students, but don’t let that put you off.”
I bristled slightly. I was only twenty-eight. Some kids didn’t even finish their bachelor’s till they were twenty-four or more. I wasn’t going to be ancient compared to them, but that was the way he wanted me to feel. I recognized it as an alienation tactic, and I had to stop myself from getting up and shoving the binder back into his chest with a few nasty words.
“If they make you uncomfortable,” he continued, frowning as my phone buzzed and I had the audacity to look down at it. It was an unknown number, but I caught sight of Dani’s name and scanned it quickly.
UNKNOWN: Dani wants me to ask if the meeting with Professor Sleaze went okay.
I smiled and looked up, realizing I hadn’t heard what he’d said. “I’m sorry?”
“Phones won’t be tolerated in class.”
His easy nonchalance took on a bitter tone. I definitely didn’t need to make enemies with one of my first professors. “Oh, absolutely. I know that.”
“As I was saying, if the other students make you uncomfortable, you’re welcome to let me know.”
Building trust. Another tactic.
“Look…” I started to call him out on all his bullshit. To tell him that he wasn’t going to be able to alienate me into sleeping with him. But then, I bit my tongue and looked away, because what if he had the ability and the ambition to stop my studies befo
re they began? What if he said I made a pass at him? Would it matter?
I hated—with every inch of me—backing down from this jerk, and perhaps some of my feelings were floating on the air, because his eyes narrowed. Or maybe he was simply waiting for me to finish the sentence I’d started and had left hanging, which made me seem like an idiot who couldn’t speak.
I swallowed my smart retort and stood, which unfortunately brought me much closer to him than I wanted to be. He stood, too, and we were almost nose-to-nose because I was so tall. I wasn’t sure he’d really realized that before.
“I’m sure everything will be fine, but thanks for all this.” I waved the binder at him, stepping backward. I kept my scathing words to myself because I wanted this more than anything else. More than putting an asshole in his place. I didn’t want to put an end to everything I’d wanted before it had even started.
My phone buzzed again.
UNKNOWN: Dani is worried that you’re lying in a gutter now.
I couldn’t help the smile. “Sorry. My boyfriend needs me to come get him. Car broke down.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Yes. I moved to Washington to be with him. He works for Senator Matherton.”
I was name-dropping and lying all at the same time. Things I normally hated, but things I knew would at least put some distance between me and a professor with predatory tendencies. He would be less apt to pursue me if I had important connections and a boyfriend to come storming down his door. It might, at the very least, not offend him so he wouldn’t take the rejection out on me.
Professor Collins frowned again then turned back to his desk. “I’ll need the binder back before the first week of school, so get what you need and then return it.”
His smiles were no longer as wide. Shit. I had pissed him off.
I held back again, wanting to say, Thanks but no thanks, dickhead, and throw the binder into his office so it would spill open and rain papers all around. Instead, I said with a sweetness I didn’t feel, “Absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity to get ahead on the course.”
“You’re welcome.”
I rushed out of the office, fingers trembling with anger and bile. I’d handled way worse in New York. Finance guys who didn’t know how to take no for an answer. Model friends of Jared’s who thought that being in a relationship just meant there was more to go around. But what had my hands shaking this time was the possibility that this man was in a position to screw up my new life for me.
UNKNOWN: Dani is calling 911 as we speak.
ME: I’m fine. Sorry. Just walked out of the douchebag’s office.
UNKNOWN: So, he was hitting on you?
ME: And is now completely pissed off and going to make my life hell.
UNKNOWN: Did you taser him or pepper spray him?
ME: Neither. I’m assuming this is Mac, BTW.
UNKNOWN: Yes, it’s Mac, and do you need me to come take care of him?
I started to type, “No, I think it’ll be fine. I told him that I had a boyfriend,” and then backed it up. I’d used Mac and his position, and that wasn’t normally me. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to it. Then, I sighed and just typed the truth.
ME: I told him I had a boyfriend who needed me to come get him because his car broke down.
There was a long pause while the dots came and went, letting me know he was texting me.
UNKNOWN: So, I was the boyfriend?
ME: Don’t go freaking out on me, Mac-Macauley. He didn’t know it was you on the other end of my buzzing phone. It was just a buzzing phone to him.
UNKNOWN: If you need me, I’ll always pretend to be your boyfriend to ensure the douche doesn’t think he can take advantage of you.
My stupid heart went pitter-patter too fast. Ridiculous. I had to get a handle on this. It was exactly what Descartes warned of. Don’t let the dream senses override the reality.
My pause had given Mac ammunition to use against me.
UNKNOWN: Don’t freak out, Georgie-Girl. I would just be pretending to be your boyfriend.
ME: ** Eyeroll GIF**
UNKNOWN: Dani and I are almost done here for the day. We’re going to stop at Franklin’s for happy hour. Do you want to join us?
Yes. No. Yes. No. That was the war that went on between my body and my brain.
ME: Thanks, but I’m going to take a look at this binder of case studies that I now have to give back to him next week.
After way too much deliberation, I changed Mac’s contact name simply to “The Guy.” I’d no sooner done that than Dani was texting me.
DANIELLA: Come to happy hour.
ME: Really, thanks, but no.
DANIELLA: I swear my brother doesn’t bite, no matter what your impression of him is.
Jesus. The thought of Mac biting was enough to turn my body into a quivering mass of melted marshmallow. Biting…nibbling. The things that had me waking up from my dreams in sweats for weeks.
ME: I’m not afraid of Mac.
DANIELLA: I think you’re both afraid of each other.
It was the frank way Dani had about her that I’d come to adore in the few short weeks that I’d known her. But it was also terrifying that she had read the situation between Mac and me so easily the night before. Unless Mac had talked to her about me, which just made me curious if he had and what he’d said.
ME: I’m going now. Have fun. I’ll see you later.
♫ ♫ ♫
I was just heading downstairs to fill my water bottle, when I heard them come home. I sank back down on the bed. I had purposely turned off every light in the apartment, except the one over the stove, in order to make them think I’d gone to bed early. I was such a chicken. I was hiding, and I hated it. It wasn’t my normal mode of operation at all. But I didn’t want to talk with either of them, because they were both too good at reading what went on inside of me.
They were quiet, talking back and forth, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I thought I heard my name but wasn’t sure. Once the apartment got quiet, I went downstairs. I filled my bottle at the dispenser and then turned to find Mac standing there.
I gave a little yelp because he’d walked up so quietly. I placed my hand to my chest. It was pounding an erratic beat that had way more to do with his naked chest than the fact that he’d startled me. Below his naked torso, he had on a pair of pajama bottoms. They were slung low on his hips, perfect for tugging down; perfect for everything I knew I could have with him. Back in Rockport, I’d rated him as a ten, and now he looked all ten of those stars and more.
“Sorry,” he said with a smirk that belied his words.
I made to move past him. “Well, goodnight.”
He put a hand out and stopped me. His hand on my bare skin. He eyed me up and down, and I realized that I was in my sleep shorts and a tank and nothing else. It wasn’t anything less than the bikini he’d seen me in earlier this summer, but somehow, this was more intimate―both of us in pajamas. It spoke of beds and kisses even more than swimwear did.
“Do you need me to come with you to see the professor next time?” he asked.
“No, he’s not anything I can’t handle.” It was the truth. Even if it meant getting kicked out, I knew how to handle men like Professor Collins.
But there was something about his offer that tugged at the little girl in me. Ever since my grandma had died, I’d sort of handled everything in my life on my own. The burial. The estate. Mom and Petya had offered advice from Russia, Dad had been allowed a small visitation for the funeral, and the rest I’d done solo. I was used to it.
As if reading my mind, Mac said, “You don’t have to handle it alone, though.”
He hadn’t removed his hand from my arm, and now his thumb was circling on the inside of my wrist, causing sensations that were like water running down a stream toward a lake, building up into something bigger as it rolled along.
“He’s definitely a slime bucket,
and I’ll try to carefully warn the women in my class about him, but it’s going to be fine.”
We stared at each other, the space between us so small that, with a tiny step, I could have brushed my lips against his. Could have tested the results from our first go around. Would it feel like all the stars had lit me up like it did the first time? My eyes drifted to his lips, and when I looked back at his eyes, I expected to see him grinning at my slip, but instead, his eyes were dark pools in the ambient light of the apartment with the electronics and the lights of the city streaming in the windows.
“I feel like fate is trying to tell us something,” Mac said quietly, the deepness of his voice accented by his attempt at a whisper.
“You’re reading way too much into all of this.”
“Am I? In a city of nearly eight hundred thousand people, you ended up in my apartment. I don’t think enough can be read into it.”
His hand had journeyed up from my wrist, skirting the inside of my elbow before continuing a slow dance up to my shoulder.
“Do you want me to move?” I asked, and his hand froze before he pulled it back to rest on the counter.
“No.” It was guttural and chopped. “Why would you say that?”
“You ran from Rockport because of me. Now I’m here. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Georgie, uncomfortable is the last thing you make me.”
He didn’t deny that he’d run away from Rockport because of me. That newfound bitterness crept into my heart, but I didn’t know who I was directing it at. Him. My family. Me. I stepped around him, and this time, he let me go, but his words halted me as I started across the living space.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?”
Yes, I thought again. “No, Mac-Macauley. If you’re good, I’m good.”
I got to the stairs, and his voice halted me one more time. “Goodnight, Georgie-Girl.”
I smiled and kept going. We’d both lied. We both made each other uncomfortable. But I loved the apartment and my loft with the view of the Hill. I loved how close it was to campus. I liked Dani and the camaraderie we’d built in just the few weeks I’d been here. I didn’t want to lose any of that. If Mac and I stayed out of each other’s hair, there wouldn’t be a problem. We were adults, not teenagers in the throes of first lust.