Kissing Tolstoy (Dear Professor Book 1)

by Penny Reid

  Dipping his head to the side and leaning close, he whispered, “I wanted to know what the ‘I’ stood for.”

  Part 2

  ** ANNA **

  “So, did you tell him? What the ‘I’ stands for?” Emily waved her celery stick through the air, her eager eyes betraying how completely absorbed she’d been in my telling of the story.

  “What? No!” I shook my head, glaring at my friend. She’d lost her damn mind. “Of course not.”

  She sighed; it sounded like a deflating tire. “Why of course not?”

  I struggled for a minute to explain, then finally settled on, “Because he was in leather pants.”

  “So were you.” Emily hopped onto the counter adjacent to where I was cooking tomato sauce for dinner.

  “Yes, but I don’t normally wear leather pants. He looked like he always wore leather pants. Like maybe he showered in them.”

  Emily wrinkled her nose at this. “Gross.”

  “No, no. He wasn’t dirty, what I mean is: he looked really good in the pants. He looked like leather pants were his thing.”

  My friend crunched on the celery stick she’d been waving around earlier. “Okay, you’ve completely lost me. You didn’t give this hot guy your middle name—or your number—because he looks good in leather pants?”

  “Unnaturally good. And he wore leather gloves. And a leather jacket. And he left on a motorcycle.” I thought for a moment, stirring the red sauce and becoming mildly flushed once again as I recalled him speeding away while straddling the motorcycle. He didn’t know I’d been watching him.

  After he’d asked me for my middle name, my brain failed me and I was crushed by a wave of embarrassment. I couldn’t physically form words. I’d just told a complete stranger about my parents, my childhood, my family, my mother.

  I felt ill.

  I’d handed over significant and exceptionally personal details about my past. I’d blamed this uncharacteristic willingness to share on my assumption that he was friends with Emily, and therefore trustworthy.

  But if I was honest with myself, it was really because of his sparkly eyes. The memory of my ex was too fresh. I still couldn’t trust my own judgment—definitely not where guys were concerned—so I gave him a panicked smile, mumbled something mostly incomprehensible about going to the bathroom, and bolted out the back door of the restaurant.

  I hid in my car, unable to leave but too mortified to stay.

  He’d strolled out twenty minutes later, glanced around the parking lot, looking like a perfect mixture of a young Paul Newman and Chris Hemsworth. I’d ducked, only peeking over my dashboard when I heard the rumble of a motorcycle. His back was to me, providing a nice view of his long legs and leather-clad torso. Straddling the bike, he kicked up his stand and drove off into the sunset like a troubled hero from one of those movies I watched too much—Rebel Without a Cause or On the Waterfront.

  I sighed at the memory and reminded myself out loud, “He was a complete stranger.”

  “So?”

  “So, I rely on you to know my type. He was definitely not my type.”

  “Let me ask you this.” Emily nudged my knee with her foot. “Did he have a penis?”

  I felt my face pinch and draw to a point as I inspected Emily’s wide, green eyes. “I didn’t see it if that’s what you’re asking.” Cue sad trombone.

  “No. I’m asking you to guess. Did the sexy guy in leather, who I’m assuming you haven’t stopped fixating on for the last three days—don’t deny it!—do you think he has a penis?”

  I squirmed where I stood and felt my face do odd things. Inexplicably, I was sweating. Maybe not so inexplicably, because I was now thinking about the hot stranger’s third leg.

  “I’ll take your weird dance as a yes. Furthermore,” Emily’s next bite rang with a triumphant crunch and she spoke around the piece of celery, “I maintain his leather-clad assets plus the existence of his penis makes him the right type for every heterosexual woman. Admit it, he was universal-hot-guy dating material and you let him slip through your leather gloves.”

  I snorted inelegantly. Then, because it was just Emily and me, I did the huff-snort-laugh of disbelief. “Uh, I’d like to think I require more than just a beefcake with a frequent shopper’s card to the leather warehouse.”

  “You said he was nice.”

  She had me there.

  I added more oregano to the sauce, but said nothing.

  She nudged my knee again with her foot, smiling a smug smile as she sing-songed, “Admit it. He was nice. And hot. And he could have been smart and funny, but you’ll never know. You left, because you freaked out like a dork.”

  “Fine. Fine, I freaked out like a dork! You would’ve too. I’m telling you, just looking at him, he wasn’t the kind of guy girls like us date.”

  “Girls like us? You mean smart, funny, incredibly beautiful and talented girls?”

  I gave her a reluctant smile, because we were normal girls.

  Smart and funny? Yeah. Sure.

  Incredibly beautiful and talented? Hard to say, mostly because I don’t think women who are beautiful by societal standards usually realize they’re beautiful, not really. I’ve never met a person who had an accurate grasp of their own physical beauty (or lack thereof).

  Therefore, hard to say.

  Was I beautiful? I didn’t think so.

  Better just not to dwell on it.

  “Nice girls,” I clarified. “We’re nice girls. That’s what I meant.”

  She gave me a face so I held up my saucy wooden spoon. “Don’t give me that face. We are nice girls. This guy, he was nice, but he wasn’t nice.”

  “Look at you. You’re a Judging Jessica. Now who isn’t being nice?”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m not being judgmental. I’m just saying, I would’ve bored him. I’m boring-nice. I’m not riding-a-motorcycle nice, or wearing-leather-pants-frequently nice, or going-to-the-gym-for-fun nice, or going-to-clubs-and-sexy-dancing nice.”

  “Unless it’s eighties night. We go to clubs on eighties night.”

  I reduced the heat of the sauce and turned my attention to the boiling pot of spaghetti. “See? That just proves my point. We like to dance to eighties music, where it’s acceptable to do the robot and other various and sundry dorky dances.”

  Emily frowned. “So what? That’s not boring. That’s awesome.”

  “Yes. To us and our kind, that’s awesome. To Leather-pants, that’s boring and lame. He probably goes to clubs and sexes up strangers against walls. He looked like that kind of guy, like he could. Like that’s what he does on Tuesdays.”

  Now it was Emily’s turn to give me a pinched look. “And you know this how?”

  I shrugged, pulling a string of spaghetti from the pot and testing its mushiness. “These are truths universally acknowledged. Men who ride motorcycles, who wear leather like a second skin, and look hot doing it, they don’t date ladies who idolize Tolstoy. Tuesday night is trivia night for me, unless I have a new jigsaw puzzle I’m excited about or I’m in my tragic novel reading cave.”

  “Again, awesome. Who doesn’t like trivia night and jigsaw puzzles?”

  “Hot men who spend their Tuesdays having sex with hot women.”

  “But he could do both. Hot sex, then trivia.”

  I huffed, because I knew she was playing devil’s advocate without being serious. Time for her to face facts.

  “Be honest with yourself, Em. What would you have done if you’d been in my place?” Emily opened her mouth as though to argue, but I gave her a hard look and challenged, “Be serious.”

  She frowned as she considered my words, her shoulders slumping. I drained the spaghetti, a ball of irritation and restlessness forming in my stomach the longer she stayed mute. Part of me hoped she’d continue to tell me I was wrong. Tell me I was being narrow-minded, that she would have stayed and shared a drink, swapped numbers, gone on a motorcycle ride.

  But she didn’t.

  After sev
eral minutes, Emily hopped down from the counter and grabbed plates from the cabinet, asking, “You have the motorcycle guy’s email still? Has he tried to contact you?”

  “Nope. He didn’t email me back. And I deleted the email.”

  She nodded distractedly. “I guess I would’ve done the same as you, unless he emailed me. If he’d emailed me after the fact, then I would reevaluate.”

  “Reevaluate?”

  Ignoring my question, she changed the subject. “Do you want Lucas’s number? Like I said, he’s artsy, and definitely our kind of nice.”

  “Sure. Yes. Thank you.” I tried to give her a smile.

  And she tried to give me one in return.

  I did call Lucas Kraft.

  And he was definitely my kind of nice.

  We played Pokémon Go together and assembled a puzzle for our first date.

  It was good times.

  But then we kissed.

  That was not good times. He wasn’t a good kisser. Or maybe we weren’t good at kissing each other.

  He didn’t call me. I didn’t call him. I got busy. I forgot about him. In fact, I forgot about dating a real life man. I started reading a really good book by a new-to-me author who wrote alternate reality versions of Brontë novels and spent the next few weeks immersed in her backlist. I dated her fictional heroes instead in an unapologetic phase of serial book-boyfriend polygamy.

  Presently, two months later and mid-phone conversation with Emily regarding summer plans, I discovered Lucas had started dating a tattoo artist named Starla with three tongue piercings. They were moving in together after knowing each other for two weeks.

  “Anna? Anna, are you still there?”

  I nodded, frowning blindly at the Russian Literature class syllabus tucked into the front of my folder. “Yes. I’m still here.”

  “Are you . . . okay?”

  I nodded tightly, not understanding why she sounded so muffled or why my heart thudded so loudly between my ears.

  “I thought you didn’t hit it off?”

  I shook my head, completely perplexed by how hard I was taking artsy Lucas’s alteration in love-life luck.

  I should have called him. Then maybe I would be moving into an apartment with my new boyfriend.

  What?

  No. No, you shouldn’t have called him. He was boring and kissed like a hamster.

  I had to physically shake myself to break from my oddball crisis.

  What is wrong with you?

  “Excuse me?”

  Too late I realized I’d spoken What is wrong with you? aloud. “Sorry, nothing. No. I’m good. I’m fine. That’s great for Lucas and his lady friend. That’s really great.”

  But it wasn’t great.

  How come lazy-tongued Lucas gets a Starla? Shouldn’t he get a Suzie or a Suanne? Or an Anna? A nice, normal-named woman who matched his type of nice?

  Not a tri-pierced Starla!

  She probably looks really good in leather pants.

  “Well, anyway.” I heard Emily start the engine of her car. “I can’t believe you’re taking classes over your senior summer, and Russian Literature? Gag!”

  “Don’t gag at me. You know I love all things needlessly angsty and dramatic. Who dressed up like Rodion Raskolnikov last year for Halloween and won all the awards? Me.”

  “You won one contest. One. And it was for ‘Most Awesome Costume No One Can Identify.’”

  “It doesn’t matter, I still won.”

  “Shouldn’t you be trying to enjoy your last summer before becoming a real adult?” Emily made no attempt to disguise her disgust for my summer plans.

  “You mean binge-watching Netflix and picking up extra shifts at the museum?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “No. I’ve been trying to get into this class for two years and it’s always full. This is my last chance.”

  “That’s because the professor is supposed to be a hottie.”

  “Of course he is. Professor Kroft discusses classical Russian literature for a living. If that author guy taught a course in classical Russian literature, that actress lady would leave her dancer husband for him.”

  “You mean Natalie Portman?”

  “Who? No. The other one. Maybe it was a supermodel and he plays football. There are too many famous people. How am I supposed to keep them all straight?”

  She chuckled. “You’re hopeless.”

  “Point is,” I lowered my voice to a whisper as I entered the lecture hall, “being a world-class expert in classical Russian literature would make anyone hot.”

  Emily snorted, but tried to hide it with a cough. “Right. Well, anyway. I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget, trivia night tomorrow. And it’s the semi-finals. We need your brain for the book questions. And the periodic table questions. And—”

  “Ah. Yes.” I scanned the auditorium, irritated that all the seats toward the front were already taken. The closest I could get to the lecture stand was fourteen rows back. The place was packed. “I’ll be there.”

  “Good. Talk later. Enjoy your angst.”

  “I will. It will feed my dark, dark soul. Bye.” I clicked off, careful to turn my phone all the way off before slipping it in my bag. If three years of college had taught me anything, it was that professors hated being interrupted—by anything, but especially cell phones.

  I spent the next several minutes arranging my laptop on the table in front of me, organizing my pens, the class syllabus, notepad, and the two paperback novels I’d already re-read (and highlighted, and flagged) as a prerequisite for the class. Once everything was organized to my liking, I allowed myself to look around.

  The room was buzzing with excitement, which made my heart do a flip. I was obviously with my people. I was with the lovers of Dostoyevsky and Chekhov.

  Who knows? I might even find my kind of nice here.

  The last of my freak-out vibes from earlier dissipated. I didn’t need Lucas and his hamster kisses. I decided my peculiar reaction must’ve been temporary insanity. So what if I didn’t have a boyfriend? So what if I never had one? Loneliness and self-sacrificing despair were staples of all great classic novels. Maybe true happiness was embracing the tragedy of a solitary existence.

  That sounded nice.

  Cats and coffee and wretchedness. Maybe even a little typhoid and tuberculosis thrown in for maximum affect.

  I couldn’t wait for the lecture to begin.

  “Hiya, I’m Taylor.”

  I turned to my left, encountering a bright-eyed brunette with her hand outstretched. I accepted her handshake.

  “I’m Anna.”

  “Good to meet you. I can’t believe I got into this class.” She leaned forward as she said this last part. “I’ve been trying for two semesters, but it’s always full.”

  “I know,” I enthusiastically agreed. “I love that it’s so popular. Which of the prerequisites did you read?”

  She blinked at me. “What?”

  “The prerequisites? Which did you read? I’ve already read Crime and Punishment one hundred times, so I opted for Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, which I’ve read before, but not recently.”

  I stopped talking because Taylor was giving me a blank stare. Confused, I glanced behind me. Finding nothing amiss, I turned to her again.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  She shook her head, issuing me a look that made me feel as though I might have sprouted antlers. “No. It’s just, I can’t believe you’ve already read these books. And on purpose. And more than once.”

  Her response startled me, but before I could interrogate her further, a hush fell over the lecture hall. Soon the only sound in the large room was leather soles on the wood floor as I craned my neck to get a peek at our professor.

  “Holy cow,” Taylor exclaimed under her breath, also twisting her neck and dipping her head to the side. “That man can wear a suit.”

  I didn’t argue, because she was right. Professor Kroft did look good in a suit. At least, his b
ackside looked good in a suit. He’d entered through a side door and was currently standing with his back to us. The professor was organizing paper printouts and books on the long table at the front.

  And then he turned.

  And I almost fell out of my chair.

  “This course is entitled Classics of Russian Literature, and I am your professor, Luca Kroft.” He paused, the bluest eyes I’d ever seen dispassionately surveyed the inhabitants of the first few rows.

  I knew they were the bluest eyes I’d ever seen because I’d been up close and personal with them once before.

  On Valentine’s Day.

  At Jake Peterson’s Microbrewery on Fifth and Pine.

  Except, instead of a suit, he’d been wearing leather pants.

  Part 3

  ** ANNA **

  “Russian literature, as you’re likely aware, probes into the complexities and depths of the human soul. And since we are dealing with matters of the soul, I will tolerate no disruptions.” Professor Kroft’s entirely too attractive voice was the only sound in the room. “Let me be clear before we begin. If you are late, you will be locked out. If you leave, you will be locked out. The doors, which are now closed, are locked.”

  He held us captivated with his arresting gaze as it scanned the hall, peering at all of us and none of us at once.

  I ducked, my heart in my throat, my face flushed.

  Oh my God.

  It’s him.

  It’s Mr. Leather-warehouse.

  I forced myself to breathe, not meeting Taylor’s gaze as she inspected me. My hands were shaking. I gripped the desk.

  What is wrong with me?

  It was the shock. That’s what it was. That’s why I was behaving like a loon. Again. The temporary insanity had returned. I was overreacting. I just needed to . . . leave.

  Leave!

  But I couldn’t, not yet. He was speaking. If I left then I’d draw attention to myself.

  Stay until the end of class, then leave!

  Yes. Much better plan.