The Professor Next Door (Cider Bar Sisters Book 3)

by Jackie Lau

  “So, this is your bedroom,” she said.

  “You’ve been in here nearly twelve hours.”

  “But I was distracted by other things.” She danced her fingers down his chest. “Is that a rock collection on your dresser?”

  “Part of it, yes. I moved the rest of it to the living room, just in case...” He glanced at their shared wall.

  She sat up. “Are you saying that my sexcapades made you fear for the safety of your rock collection?”

  “Well, I was more worried than I ought to have been. It’s very, very unlikely anything would have happened, but...”

  She let out a big laugh, and he laughed along with her.

  “I’m so sorry.” She put a hand to her chest and was clearly trying to school her expression into something serious, but she was utterly failing at it.

  It was adorable.

  “Don’t be,” he said.

  She lay back down. “Why geology? Is that what you always wanted to do?”

  “I was always fascinated by the timescale of it. The dinosaurs died out sixty-six million years ago—I learned about that as a kid, though the timing of the extinction has been refined since I first learned of it. And it’s hard to truly understand what sixty-six million years means when you’ve been on Earth for only six years. If the history of the planet were one day long, humans would exist for only a minute or two. Such a tiny, tiny fraction.”

  “Doesn’t it make you feel insignificant?”

  “Yeah, but I like that.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe because it makes one crappy day in my life seem like nothing. And all those millions upon millions of years... It’s kind of amazing.”

  “What kind of research do you do? I might not understand, but try me.”

  “Geochronology,” he said.

  “Like, dating rocks?”

  “Yeah. Potassium-argon dating is a common method. One of the isotopes of potassium decays into argon and has a long half-life, so you can look at the relative percentages of potassium and argon in a rock.”

  “That’s cool. I have a science background, so the basics of that make sense.”

  “But then you got a degree in financial math.”

  She sighed. “I had this idea that I wanted to do physics research, but after two summers of that—you know, the NSERC program for undergrad students—I decided I just didn’t like it enough to do a PhD.”

  “There are other things you could have done with an engineering physics degree.”

  She shrugged. “I was good at it, but I had no special love for it. Engineering physics had the reputation of being the hardest engineering discipline at my school, which is partly why I picked it. I wanted to prove I could do it—and kick ass at it.”

  “Prove to who?”

  “Everyone. Including myself, my parents. They—especially my mom—were always like, ‘yeah, sure, good grades, honey,’ but never focused much on marks. I wanted them to be impressed for once, and I always liked playing with numbers and data. My job is a good fit, and this one allows me a better work-life balance than the last one I had.” She paused. “When I was a kid, there were several years when I’d grab the sports section in the paper as soon as I woke up.”

  “I didn’t know you were a sports fan.”

  “I’m not. I just liked the big tables of sports stats, understanding what they all meant. I enjoyed elections, too. Elections are different now that I’m adult, now that I understand how they affect me, but back then, it was just cool numbers and colored maps.”

  He wrapped an arm around her and held her close. “I’m enjoying the image of you lying on the carpet, studying MLB stats in the paper with intense concentration.”

  This led to new fantasies of him and Nicole. Of them reading or working side by side in silence, occasionally looking up to smile at each other.

  He tried not to think about that too much.

  Like, he was fantasizing about reading together?

  And then she’d come over, sit on his lap, and say he looked good with his glasses before taking them off.

  Ah. That’s why he’d been thinking about them reading side by side.

  It was really a sex fantasy.

  At least, that was what he’d tell himself.

  Nicole’s phone vibrated, and she grabbed it from beside the bed. “Kelsey sent me a new video of my grandmother. You want to watch?”

  “Sure.”

  On the screen, Po Po was shown a picture of Randall Park in WandaVision.

  “He is cute,” Po Po said. “Eight out of ten. He looks like the kind of guy you should marry.” She looked meaningfully at Kelsey.

  Nicole smiled as she set her phone away. “Alright, I should stop distracting you and let you go to the pool.”

  David missed her presence as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  But then she said, “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  And he couldn’t help but smile.

  They were friends with benefits, and he had everything under control...right?

  Chapter 18

  Nicole walked down Ossington with a spring in her step. It was still light out, and the weather was warming up. There were crocuses in front of her building now, and she’d seen her first daffodil on the walk to the subway. Yes, April was nice.

  Though to be honest, it was partly the regular sex that was putting her in a good mood.

  And her grandmother hadn’t stopped by unexpectedly when she was naked in bed with David again, so that was a plus.

  When she stepped inside the cider bar, she scanned the room and quickly found Sierra. Her friend was sitting at the bar and had already finished more than half her pint.

  “You got here early,” Nicole said.

  “Yeah, figured I’d get a head start on drinking.” Sierra had a gulp of cider.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Oh, the usual. Family dinner last night, and my mom was going on and on about Grace Chau. Grace Chau this, Grace Chau that. She’s pregnant again and got a promotion. Or was it her husband who got a promotion? I kinda tuned out.”

  Grace was the daughter of Sierra’s mom’s best friend. In her mom’s eyes, Sierra—who was divorced, childless, and ran a greeting card shop—had always fallen short of Grace.

  “Hey,” Nicole said. “You know what? I bet Grace isn’t going to have as good of a Saturday night as you are.”

  Sierra chuckled.

  “Do your parents know about Colton?” Nicole asked.

  Sierra shook her head.

  “Would they be impressed?”

  “He’s super rich,” Sierra said, “and my mom likes money and getting things for free, so yeah. But I’m saving that for when I really need it. I don’t like telling my mom when I’m dating someone. She’d call every day to ask when I’m getting married.”

  The bartender came over. “Can I get you anything?”

  Nicole quickly scanned the tap list. “I’ll have the strawberry Earl Grey cider.”

  Sierra pointed to her glass. “I’ll have another one of these. Thank you.” When they were alone again, she said, “You want to see the trailer for my movie?” She pulled out her phone and brought up the trailer on YouTube.

  Sierra Wu, the fictional character, stood on a hill looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge—Hawk Hill, if Nicole remembered correctly from the trip she’d taken to San Francisco with Cam last year. The sky was gray and evocative. A demon appeared out of nowhere, and Sierra Wu slayed it with a quick movement of her sword.

  “Maybe if I saved humanity from demons,” Sierra muttered, drinking more cider, “then I’d be good enough for my mother.”

  “Hey!” It was Amy, and she’d brought her husband with her today. “Ooh, it’s the trailer. I’ve already watched it like seventeen times.”

  On screen, a scowling East Asian man with golden skin appeared. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. This, Nicole presumed, was Rebel, Sierra Wu’s love interest.

/>   “You’re hotter,” Amy murmured to Victor.

  “I know. You’ve told me way more than seventeen times.” He kissed the top of her head.

  The movie trailer didn’t give away the plot. Rather, it had lots of tense music and special effects and made everything seem very exciting without giving you any idea of what was happening, unless you had read the books.

  Five minutes later, after Rose, Charlotte, and Mike had arrived, they were shown to a table. Nicole was about to sit down when a man approached her. A dark-haired, blue-eyed white guy who looked like he moved easily through the world and was probably at least a little cocky.

  “Hey, there,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  Nicole did look pretty fabulous today. She was wearing jeans that made her ass look great, plus a sleeveless black shirt and a colorful scarf, and she was having an excellent hair day.

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Sorry, I’m not interested.”

  He looked like he was about to protest and try to make his case, but when she ignored him, he walked away.

  She breathed out a sigh of relief, then noticed all her friends were staring at her.

  “What?” Nicole said. “I can turn a guy down.”

  “Of course,” Rose said, “but he’s not the sort of guy you’d usually turn down.”

  “Besides,” Sierra added, “you didn’t even take a second look at that bartender earlier, and he’s just your type, beard and all.”

  “It’s because of that man.” Charlotte snapped her fingers. “David, right? The one you told me about back in January, who brought you an ube birthday cake and met your grandmother.”

  Now every head swiveled toward Charlotte.

  “Excuse me?” Sierra said. “You’ve been sitting on this information for three months?”

  “Well, it was more like two and a half.”

  “Charlotte!”

  “What? Nicole made me swear not to tell. And it was her birthday, and she was helping me buy clothes, so I kept my promise.”

  “Until now.” Nicole had a generous sip of cider.

  Rose put a finger to her chin. “You know, I haven’t seen you make a move on a guy in over a month.”

  The man whom Nicole had slept with before she and David hooked up.

  Nicole shrugged. “Whatever. A month or two isn’t that long.”

  “It’s a little long for you,” Rose said. “I suspect you’re getting some and not telling us.”

  “Tinder is a thing.”

  “No, I think it’s this David guy, and the fact that you wouldn’t let Charlotte tell us is definitely fishy.”

  “I knew your romantic brains would take it the wrong way, just because a guy brought me a cake and accidentally met my grandmother. We’re friends.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Sierra said.

  “Who are sleeping together, yes. He lives next door, so it’s convenient. We share a meal once a week because, like I said, we’re friends.” Might as well get everything straight now. “Since I’m having good sex on a regular basis, I don’t feel the need to seek out other guys. Five years ago, I might have done both, but now it seems like too much hassle.”

  And, frankly, she wasn’t interested.

  “So, it’s just sex,” Amy said. “Plus friendship.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

  There were lots of skeptical faces around the table, and Nicole realized just how many of her friends were in relationships. Amy was married. Sierra had a boyfriend. Charlotte—who’d sworn off dating for five years—now had a boyfriend, too. Rose didn’t, but she’d always dreamed of romance.

  All of a sudden, Nicole felt achingly lonely. Almost like she didn’t belong in this group anymore.

  But her friends had been great, ever since she’d met them in university, and they’d never judged her for enjoying sex with lots of different men.

  She used to have more friends whom she’d seen regularly. Friends from grad school and work. One friend she’d met at a bar back in the day. But they’d moved away, or their lives had changed and they didn’t see Nicole as often anymore.

  These were the main friends she had left, and she was starting to feel like she’d lose them, too, like they didn’t understand her and their lives were going in different places from hers.

  And what about David? He was her friend as well, and one day, he’d likely find another woman, maybe get married again.

  She ached whenever she thought of it.

  She’d been in a good mood when she’d arrived, but now...

  “Dinner and sex,” Sierra said. “Sounds awful date-like.”

  “We alternate being responsible for dinner,” Nicole explained, “and he always buys something different for dessert. Ube cake, Portuguese egg tarts, mocha latte pastries.”

  “Mocha latte pastries? Why haven’t I heard of these before?” Charlotte demanded.

  “He sounds very attentive,” Amy said. “Do you have a picture of him on your phone?”

  Nicole brought up his page on the Department of Earth Sciences website.

  “Oh.”

  What was that “oh” supposed to mean? When Nicole had first seen David, she hadn’t done a double take or anything like that, but now she felt protective of him. Everyone should be impressed with how handsome he was, dammit, even if he wasn’t wearing glasses in this picture.

  “He doesn’t seem like your type,” Charlotte said, “but he’s good-looking, yes.”

  “He looks so...wholesome,” Amy said, “and he’s a professor?”

  “David’s not wholesome,” Nicole protested. “Not in bed, anyway.” She felt her cheeks starting to heat, which annoyed her.

  “He’s different from the men you usually sleep with,” Sierra said. “I think that means something. And you’re not even looking at other guys. That’s not like you. Come to think of it, the night we were at L, you didn’t stay as long as usual.”

  “You weren’t flirting with the guy who looked like Jason Momoa,” Charlotte put in, “and blamed it on your grandmother’s TikTok video. Plus, you were texting David in the washroom.”

  Amy nodded sagely. “Yeah, you have a crush on him.”

  It was good-natured teasing. Nicole had ribbed Charlotte about Mike the same way. But she couldn’t help clenching her hands under the table. Then she reached for her pint and had a long swallow of sweet cider.

  “No, I don’t,” she said at last.

  “It sure took you a while to say that,” Sierra mused.

  “Stop bugging me about him!” Nicole snapped.

  The table was very, very quiet for a moment.

  “Does anyone want to order food?” Mike asked, his arm around Charlotte.

  “I know relationships aren’t your thing,” Sierra said to Nicole, “but maybe—”

  “Stop it! Why are you so positive about relationships anyway? Your boyfriend was supposed to meet us that night at L, and he was talking to other people practically the whole evening.”

  “He had important things to do.”

  “Since he’s so rich and important, why doesn’t he solve child poverty?”

  Rose touched Nicole’s shoulder. “We get it. We won’t tease you about David anymore.”

  That was exactly what she wanted, but Nicole felt she was being treated like a child. She petulantly downed the rest of her cider.

  She wasn’t herself tonight. Her voice sounded flat, and she was drinking faster than usual. She rarely had more than three drinks when she was out, but tonight, she felt lonely in a crowd.

  She was gonna get drunk.

  * * *

  The doorbell in Murray’s house rang.

  “David, could you get that?” Murray asked.

  Huh. David had thought it was just supposed to be him, Murray, and Murray’s wife, Mildred, for dinner.

  He walked to the front door and opened it up.

  “Hi!” said the white woman standing on the doorstep. She looked to be in her thirties. “You mus
t be David. I’m Cassie.”

  David immediately understood why Cassie had been invited and why he’d been asked to answer the door. He smiled politely at her and ushered her inside, but he couldn’t muster any enthusiasm.

  No, instead he wondered how Nicole’s night with her friends was going. What she was wearing. Whether she was enjoying the warm weather.

  He took Cassie’s coat and led her to the living room. Mildred offered Cassie a glass of wine then made herself scarce; Murray announced that he’d fire up the barbecue and leave the young people alone.

  David and Cassie sat on the couch, him with his coffee and her with her wine, and had a pleasant enough conversation. She was a cheerful woman with a big smile, and she worked in a biotech lab with Mildred.

  If he’d met her a few months ago, would he have been interested in her?

  Possibly.

  But now she didn’t do anything for him, even though, objectively, she was good-looking. He wished he were trapped in an elevator with Nicole instead, and frankly, who wished they were trapped in an elevator?

  When Cassie left the room to get more wine, David slipped out the back door and found Murray grilling chicken on the barbecue.

  “What do you think?” Murray asked with a wink. “You told me back in the fall that you wanted to date again, but I haven’t heard a peep about you going on dates. Those app things aren’t working for you, I guess.”

  “She’s nice,” David said. “I like her, but not like that.”

  “Oh. Too bad.” Murray opened his mouth, and David figured Murray wanted to ask why, but in the end, he kept silent.

  Dinner was pleasant enough, but David found himself focusing on the way Murray and Mildred lightly teased each other, their casual touches. They’d been married for thirty-five years, and he couldn’t help thinking about how he wanted that one day.

  In fact, as the evening went on, the yearning in his chest increased.

  He walked Cassie to the subway at the end of the night.

  “I’m, uh, going north,” he said as they stepped inside the station.

  “I’m going south.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence.

  “It was nice to meet you,” he said.

  “Likewise.”