by H. L. Logan
My heart, though? It sat heavily in my chest, lamenting that I was right after all.
There was nothing romantic about this.
10
Faye
It took a long moment for Jaz to speak. A moment longer than I’d anticipated. Much longer.
That moment was long enough for me to start questioning whether I’d just made a terrible mistake. Was it possible that I’d misread everything? That Jaz had never had a crush on me at all, and had only let me believe she did because she was too scared to say she didn’t?
Was it possible that I’d just propositioned a former student who wasn’t even interested in me?
At last she spoke and quelled my fears. “That, um, yeah.” She fingered the collar of her jean jacket, gazing up at me shyly. “Maybe we could do that.”
“All right. Ah… Gretchen’s with Pauline for the night, so…”
“Your place?”
“Yes. Um, if that’s okay with you.”
Jaz nodded.
“You can follow me there.”
“I know the way.”
“Right.”
I dropped into the driver’s seat of my car, my palms suddenly clammy. Jaz hadn’t rejected me, but I still had new doubts that this was a good idea.
My hands shook slightly as I turned the steering wheel. What would people say if they knew about this? It may have been within the letter of the law—yes, I’d checked the university code of conduct—but what about the spirit of it? I could just imagine how the faculty would gossip if they caught wind of what Jaz and I were about to do.
On a more practical level, what exactly were we about to do? We hadn’t even kissed yet. What if there was no chemistry between us? What if, with those deep eyes and slender frame of hers, she realized she didn’t actually want to be with a myopic older woman who hadn’t seen the inside of a gym since the second Bush administration?
Stop it. We’d held hands once, and the sizzle of electricity that had occurred was a pretty damn good indicator of chemistry. If Jaz decided she didn’t want me, that was her own problem.
And if anyone heard about this… well… it was only casual sex. How would anyone ever hear about it?
I pulled into my driveway, my heart drumming unsteadily in my chest when I saw Jaz’s car was ahead of mine. I joined her on the doorstep and reached for her shoulder, but my nerves got the better of me and I pulled my hand back.
She rose onto her tiptoes and fell, doing a little dance to warm herself in the chilly air. “So…” she said.
“Yes, well.” I opened the door and let her in.
At the top of the stairs, once we got in my apartment, we stood stiffly and looked at each other. I was the older one here, the mature one, not to mention the one who’d initiated this whole thing. And yet I hadn’t the slightest idea of how to proceed.
Of all the professors who’d seduced their students in the history of mankind, had any of them ever been so damn awkward?
“Do you have drinks?” Jaz asked.
“Ah. Yes.” That could help.
I grabbed us each a beer out of the fridge, hoping liquid courage would do something to decrease my ineptitude. “Here you go.”
We each took a sip. I finished first and looked at Jaz. When she swallowed, she looked back at me. My face went hot and I took another swig. By the time that was done, she was sipping from hers again. This went on for far longer than it should’ve.
What was I supposed to do? What did people say in situations like this? I searched my mind for some trace of suaveness. Surely I had some capacity at getting the women I wanted into my bed. I’d had sex before. How had I managed it then?
Jaz finished her beer and set the bottle on the counter. “Come here,” she said.
And I went there, dumbfounded that it could just be that simple. Come here. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
She shoved her hands as far as they’d go into her pockets, but nudged me when I was in front of her. I nudged her back, and she grinned. Her teeth were straight except for one crooked one on the bottom, and somehow that tiny imperfection made me like her even more.
Instead of elbowing me again, she grabbed my shoulder and pulled me close. For a moment she kept me an inch away, staring into my eyes. The heat from her hand burned through my blouse, and more warmth radiated from her body. My pulse raced, spiking higher with every second. My lips tingled with the anticipation of kissing her. Why wasn’t she kissing me already?
“Why aren’t you kissing me already?”
Her hoarse voice took me by surprise, and I almost laughed at my own idiocy. “I can do that,” I murmured, and pulled her in.
My lips met her nose first. “Sorry,” I said, then overcorrected and pressed them to her chin instead.
My face went hot and I wondered if she’d just leave my place and tell stories forevermore of the professor who’d tried to seduce her but couldn’t even manage to get our lips to touch. As little as I wanted to go down in history as such, I would’ve actually been relieved if my humiliation could’ve ended then and there.
But instead of calling it a night, Jaz laughed and said, “Let’s try that again.”
The kiss was as fumbling and nervous as the last one, but at least our mouths connected. We stood motionless, only meshing our lips together. For my part, it was because I feared even the slightest other movement would somehow manage to ruin things.
But whatever the reason that we stayed there, as the kiss went on and on, my heartbeat began to come down from its previous red alert.
And as Jaz’s tongue flicked at the seam of my lips, the rest of my body began to realize what was happening.
Heat flowed between us, waves of it rolling off her body to mine and then back. Her breasts were inches from mine, her waist the same distance, the tips of her toes pressed lightly against mine.
A low groan came from the back of her throat and she leaned in closer, her feet parting so she could pull me between them, her entire body now pressed against the length of mine. Her tongue invaded my mouth and I let mine rise up to meet it. Even if we both tasted of the same beer, I wanted to drink every drop I could from her.
Eventually we drew apart, and I fought to breathe properly as I looked at Jaz. Her lips were even more tantalizing now that I’d sampled them. Slightly swollen from what I’d done to them, they called to me in a whole new way. Even her cheeks held new fascination now that I knew she’d let me caress them. In fact, I wanted to get my hands on them as soon as possible. And on every other part of her.
“That was a good second try,” I said. “What do you think the third’ll be like?”
She smiled. “Probably even better.”
As I leaned in, I wondered briefly if she wasn’t a bit less enthusiastic than I would’ve expected. She was generally so free with her breathtaking grins, so open with her excitement about poetry or about Gretchen. Why was she giving me that small smile and not a huge one?
I lost my train of thought as her arms snaked around my neck. My kisses growing more urgent, I reached for her face, her nape, her back—touching every part of her I could reach without going too far.
Jaz grabbed my hand and dragged it to her heat. The message was clear: no need to stop myself. She had no worries about me going too far.
I backed her against the counter, one hand reaching to palm her ass, the other cupping her where she wanted me to. Her hips bucked when I made contact there, and she stroked my arm before shrugging off her jacket. Yes, keep going, take everything off. I wanted all of her, here and now and all at once—anything and everything that she might be willing to give me.
For the moment she failed to read my thoughts, though, keeping the rest of her clothes on. I pushed my palm against her over her jeans, grinding against her thigh at the same time. Being so close to the realization of my fantasies, I couldn’t have prevented the unconscious movement even if I’d wanted to.
I threw myself into kissing her again, driving against her—but a
s much as I wanted to keep going, I still needed to figure out what exactly she wanted.
Reluctantly, I pulled away enough to catch my breath. “What would you like to do?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Her eyes had an odd glint to them. “I’m your sex toy for the night, aren’t I?”
How could I tell her I was completely and utterly at her mercy? “Are you more into giving first?” I squeezed her ass again, savoring the ripe firmness of it. “Or taking?”
“Whatever you’d like… Dr. Erwin.” There was that look again, the one telling me something wasn’t quite right.
I took half a step back, peering at her. “Everything’s okay, Jaz?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be okay?” She forced a smile. Not a grin.
And she said everything was okay. If she was really on the same page as me, wouldn’t she have said everything was amazing?
My arousal waned as I tried to figure out the problem. I wouldn’t go any further with this until I had a better sense of what was going on in Jaz’s head.
Before I could question her any further, my phone went off with Beethoven’s fifth.
Jaz jumped at the sound. “You want to get that?”
“Not really. I’d rather to get back to where we just were. Can we do that?”
“It might be something important.”
“It can wait.” I caressed her ass. “You seem like you’re kind of on the fence here, or am I imagining that?”
“All in your head.” She trailed a finger down my arm. “I’m a hundred and ten percent into this. But I do think you should pick that up.”
“Why?” Was she trying to get out of this? She kept saying she was into what we were doing—but in that case, why was she so concerned about my phone?
“You never know who it could be,” she said.
“Fine.” I moved to the other end of the kitchen and yanked my phone out of my pocket, nearly throwing it across the room with the violence of the movement. I had every intention of just looking at the caller ID and putting the phone away. No one and nothing was important enough to take me away from what I was doing now.
I got the phone in my hand, the caller ID on the screen… and my stomach dropped.
My face must’ve shown my dismay, because Jaz instantly became concerned. “What, Faye? Who is it?”
My voice was small, even scared. “It’s Amanda.”
* * *
My hands were shaking so much that I actually hung up instead of accepting the call. I cursed, and Jaz grabbed the phone away from me. “Just call her back.”
“As if she’ll pick up. She never did before.”
“She never called you before either, so…” She held the phone out to me. “It’s ringing.”
I pressed it to my ear just as Amanda said, “Hello?”
Jaz backed away, making a kind of see you later gesture. I had half a mind to grab her and keep her next to me. I had a feeling I’d need some kind of emotional support for this conversation. But I smiled weakly and waved as she left.
“Hi, Amanda.” Now that I’d gotten in touch with her, I could hardly think of what I’d wanted to say. “I’ve been trying to reach you,” I finally said dumbly.
“I know.” She sounded like she was chewing gum. “I’ve seen the missed calls, big sis. You didn’t have to look up everyone I’ve ever met and try to get to me through them.”
“I didn’t know if you were getting my calls. I thought maybe you changed your number.”
“Nope, same one.”
“And you finally decided to call me back.”
“Yep.”
Impatience was clear in her voice, and I felt the need to cut to the chase before I lost her. “Where are you now?”
“Why do you care?”
Now I was losing patience. “Because you dumped a baby on me,” I spat. “You came out of nowhere, dropped her in my office, and then disappeared off the face of the earth for three weeks. That’s why.”
“God, you make it sound so awful,” she said. “I thought you’d be happy. You like babies.”
“I might’ve liked some warning before getting saddled with one I never asked for.” Breathe, Faye. Don’t put her on the defensive. She’ll just hang up, and you’ll be back to square one. “But it isn’t important. Are you in Rosebridge?”
“No.”
“Nearby?”
“Not especially.”
I sighed. “Can you meet me? We’ll get coffee and talk about this baby thing.”
Amanda’s voice hardened. “I don’t want to see her.”
She was never going to take Gretchen back. And she shouldn’t have. What kind of mother could abandon her child so coldly?
Still—she was the mother. I had to give her a chance.
“I’ll leave her with someone else,” I told her. “It’ll just be you and me.”
“Why do you have to see me so bad?”
“Really, Mandy?”
I hadn’t called her Mandy in years. She’d forbidden the nickname as soon as she turned eighteen, insisting that she was a grown-up now and needed to be addressed by a grown-up name.
I was betting that hearing the nickname would bring her back to the days when I let her tag along and play in the streets with my friends. When we broke into our mom’s make-up stash and put on a play for an audience of none. The days when we were closer.
It was a dangerous bet, but after a long pause, I knew I’d made the right one.
“Fine,” she said. “Next weekend.”
11
Jaz
Farrah cornered me as soon as I stepped into the grad students’ lounge. “So?”
“So, what?” I took a seat on one of the old, comfy couches and put down my thermos of coffee. “So you want to hold the baby?”
“I do.” She reached for Gretchen as soon as I took off the sling. After taking a moment to coo over her, she turned back to me. “So what happened with Dr. Erwin?”
“Jesus, want to say that a little louder?” I cast my eyes around the room to make sure no one had overheard.
“No one knows what I’m asking about,” she said in a fierce whisper. “As far as they know, I’m wondering what kind of advice she gave you about your thesis.”
“All right, all right.” I rolled my eyes. “Dr. Erwin gave me some very interesting advice, actually.”
The murmur of noise around us made Farrah lean a little closer. “Uh-huh?”
“She said she didn’t have time right now to do a lot of serious thinking about my thesis.” I paused, letting that sink in. “But she said my thesis could be more… physical.”
Her eyes bugged out. “Say what?”
I nodded. “She took me over to her place so we could… talk about my thesis.”
“Jaz, you didn’t!”
“I did go over.” I measured my words carefully. “I was really looking forward to our talk, but no, we didn’t have a big discussion. Just a little one.”
“Okay, stop right there.” She grabbed her phone, and I peered over her shoulder. She was writing a text. To me.
>FARRAH: Are you saying you went to Dr. Erwin’s place and her boobs were too little to continue?!?!?!
I burst out laughing in the middle of the lounge. If we’d been discreet before—which was debatable—people were definitely looking at us now. I grabbed Farrah’s phone.
>ME: No! Jesus fucking Christ, not at all! How shallow do you think I am?
I wiped away the tears that were forming in my eyes and took a long sip of coffee, waiting for the room to go back to normal.
>FARRAH: So what were you saying??
>ME: That only a little actually happened.
Farrah tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Talking to you is like pulling teeth. Expand, Jaz, explain your answer! Why didn’t you… talk about your thesis?”
“Okay, okay.” I’d give it to her straight… to the extent that I even understood the situation. “First, I wasn’t completely into the conversation.
I kind of wanted a more serious discussion.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, Jaz…”
“And second, the whole thing got interrupted by a phone call.” Before she could ask, I gestured to the baby. “Gretchen’s mother finally called.”
The implications were clear. “Shit,” Farrah whispered.
I gave her an edited version of the rest—Amanda’s disinterest in Gretchen but her eventual acceptance of getting coffee with Faye.
“Do me a favor and bring Andrew and Sven up to date so I don’t have to say all this twice,” I told her. “Just don’t let it go any further. I’m sure Faye doesn’t want her business spread all over campus.”
“It’ll stay between us.”
“And you’ll tell them I might not make it to open mic night tonight? Keep them from harassing me like last time?”
Farrah toyed with the end of Gretchen’s soother. “Or you could just come.”
“But I have other things on my mind.”
“I don’t see how any of what you said would keep you from making it to open mic night.” Passing Gretchen back to me, she grabbed her backpack and began to stand up. “And I’m not just saying that because Andrew and Sven go into full bro mode when you’re not there. You need to get out and do fun stuff… not just work two jobs and write a thesis.”
“I do fun stuff.” Even if the last fun thing I’d done was story hour with Gretchen.
“If you say so.” Farrah slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Think about coming, all right? Don’t let the baby and the professor crush turn into your whole life.”
I slumped into the couch, covering my face. The professor crush. “Say that a little louder…”
* * *
When I brought Gretchen back at the end of the day, Faye was slouched over her desk, fast asleep.
I coughed a few times to wake her up—first softly, then louder. She stayed there, unmoving. She’d balled her tweed jacket up for a pillow. With her arms supporting her head, her shoulders stretched out the fabric of her silky blue blouse.