Quarantined With My Professor

by Coral Adams

  Laurie thanked the driver and paid for the cab. He tried to get a look at how much it had cost, but her body was blocking it.

  “Okay,” she said, as they stood outside the door of the apartment block. “So there should be a lock box around here somewhere containing the keys. Here.” She showed him the image she’d been emailed.

  After a quick search, they found it and let themselves in.

  “Wow, this is great,” she decided the moment they were inside the apartment. It was clean and had all the cooking equipment they’d need. The layout was open plan and modern, with the couch–which was indeed plenty big enough to sleep on–and the kitchen and dining table all in one room. The bathroom and bedroom were through two separate doors, and the balcony was accessed through the bedroom. It was compact and cozy and they couldn’t have asked for anything more.

  Well, one more bedroom, maybe. Laurie had tactfully put her things down in the main room as though it was going to be a discussion as to who got the bedroom, when of course he would insist that she took the bed.

  “Pretty perfect,” he agreed, setting his things down on the couch. Marking that as his sleeping space. “So, straight to the store and then we’ll come up with a plan of action.”

  “Great.”

  Chapter Three

  Laurie

  Being around Professor Hughes was remarkably relaxed. She had expected to feel awkward, and she had expected him to be even more awkward. Two people stuck on the other side of the world with the knowledge they would only have each other for company when there was a clear professional barrier between them.

  She suspected the awkwardness would come when they stopped having things to do.

  In the store, at least, their geniality continued.

  She hadn’t expected him to be funny. She’d laughed more times in the past hour than she had in the past few months. Since what happened with Duane, she’d pretty much isolated herself from her friends, and her choice of television hadn’t exactly been comedies.

  It was refreshing to find herself actually smiling at him. And to see that she was making him laugh, too.

  They stocked their shopping cart high. “I hope they don’t think we’re panic buying,” she said, frowning at the six frozen pizzas they’d packed.

  “I’m sure they’ll just assume we’re incredibly lazy and can’t cook.”

  She laughed. “As long as they understand what’s really going on here.”

  “I’m glad you can read most of this,” he said. “I thought you said your German was not terrible.”

  She laughed. “Okay, it’s pretty good. I did German at school, and I spent quite a bit of time in Germany when I took a gap year. Some of Austria, too. The Austrian accent throws me a bit, though.”

  The final aisle they came to was the one that stocked the booze. “I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I’m quarantining myself without a fat crate of beer,” she said. “And I won’t report you to the college for doing the same.”

  He hesitated visibly, but in the end grinned. It lit up his whole face, and Laurie didn’t think the fact she felt a little bit faint was anything to do with Covid-19.

  “I think one between us to share for now is good. I’m not feeling like carrying a full one each back to the apartment.”

  “A suitable compromise.”

  She paid at the counter by sneaking in ahead and paying by card. Her mom, as expected, had transferred her several thousand dollars more than necessary and she was eager to make sure as much of her parents money got spent on this extension of their stay in Austria as possible. She’d booked the apartment they were staying in for the full month rather than the fourteen days, and was happy to pay for it herself.

  She had absolutely no idea what Professor Hughes’s financial situation was, but her parents owned a national haulage company with ties to the pharmaceuticals industry. They definitely weren’t going to suffer in the pandemic. They had money to burn. Laurie was happy to burn it on the essential things, like keeping themselves under a roof in Salzburg.

  Back in the apartment, they put stuff away in the small kitchen together. There wasn’t enough room that they weren’t brushing against each other constantly, and each time it happened her skin tingled. She’d never really thought deeper into the fact she found Professor Hughes attractive until now, when they were cooped up together in this small apartment.

  Now, every time their skin touched it was a rushing reminder that he was gorgeous and right there.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to think that anything would happen, but her body was sure hinting that it would like something to.

  She had no idea if Professor Hughes’ body was telling him the same. She hoped not, for both of their sakes.

  After things had been put away, she pulled two beers from the fridge and cracked them both open. “Beers on the balcony while we come up with the plan of action?” she asked.

  “Perfect.”

  Sitting at the small table on the balcony, they took a moment to take in the incredible view of the sun beginning to set behind the alps. It was chilly and they were both in their coats, but they didn’t mind.

  “So,” she said, after letting out a long sigh. “I don’t suppose there’s really a lot to plan. We got enough food to last us two weeks. I know there’s not an official country-wide quarantine in Austria, but I figured we’d be staying in the house as much as possible.”

  “I’d like to be able to tell the border security when we eventually get back that we’ve been self-isolating the whole time,” he agreed. “What about money? What’s the easiest way for me to pay you, and how much do I owe you?”

  She shifted in her chair. She didn’t want to be insulting, or seem like she was bragging, but she knew there was no way to avoid it. She just came out with it. “Can I pay? Please?”

  “Of course not–”

  “I know that you’re not going to let me, but at least let me argue for it. My parents just sent me enough money to live here for six months, nevermind two weeks. Money isn’t an object to them, and so I guess by extension, it isn’t really to me, either. I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but I’d rather use their stupid amounts of money for something like this than to just… sit there multiplying.”

  “I can’t let a student pay for me to survive for two weeks, or however long we actually end up staying here.”

  “Why? It’s not like you have to report it, or anyone is going to know. It’s a shitty situation. See, I just swore in front of you and it doesn’t matter. It never has to go beyond this balcony.”

  “But I’ll know.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, I guess. Well, you may as well pay me at the end of isolation when we know how much it’s going to be anyway.”

  He narrowed his eyes just a little and then said, “Fine. As long as you’re not going to run off and never give me any way of paying you back.”

  “We’ll see.”

  They lapsed into silence, before both laughing. “This is going to be strange,” he said eventually. “I never thought I’d be in this situation.”

  “Me neither. The only reason I know what your first name is is because it’s on the faculty’s website.”

  “I hope you’re not going to be calling me Professor Hughes for the next two weeks. That’s just going to make things even more awkward.”

  “I’m not sure I can trick my brain into thinking of you as Adrian rather than Professor Hughes.” She wasn’t sure it was a good idea, either. She wasn’t sure how many barriers they should wear down.

  For a moment, she thought she read the exact same thing in his look.

  “I suppose we can spend the two weeks playing a very extended game of twenty questions, then,” he decided.

  “Either that or not talking at all. I don’t really feel like being insane by the end of it.”

  “Okay. Question one. Why the cello?”

  “Oh no, my answer for this is going to be so unsatisfactory. There’s no special reason f
or it. My parents used to take me to see the orchestra all the time when I was younger–they’re both really into classical music–and so I always wanted to learn something. When I was old enough to start learning, I thought the cello sounded nicest, so I picked that. That’s all, really. I never had a breakthrough moment where one cellist inspired me. I just… think it sounds beautiful.”

  Maybe she would have talked about it with more passion if he had asked her the same question six months ago, before Duane had sucked her enthusiasm for life with her with the revelation.

  “That’s as good a reason as any.”

  “My parents are just indulging me by letting me study music at college. They’re fully expecting me to work in the business when I graduate.” And as far as she was feeling recently, that was probably what she would do. When she’d started her degree, it had been with the intention of spurning her parents wishes by the end and following her own path, but now she couldn’t see the point anymore.

  Professor Hughes–Adrian–looked at her with slightly puckered eyebrows. “You don’t seem enthused.”

  “I’m not enthused by much of anything.”

  “Why?”

  She glanced away, then back. “Not fair. It’s my turn to ask a question.” Telling him about Duane was a barrier she was absolutely not going to tear down. “Hmm.” Deciding on a question was hard. Everything was either far too generic, or far too personal. “What made you choose teaching?”

  “I didn’t really.” He held out his right hand, and she saw a tremor. “I developed a condition that means I can’t play for more than half an hour at a time without it becoming painful. It killed my orchestral career, so I fell into teaching instead. It was never my dream.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek and felt bad for asking. He was being genial, but she could see the pain that fact still caused him by the jumping muscle in his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too. But I got a good nearly ten years out of being with an orchestra, which is more than most. And I genuinely enjoy teaching. It’s not the end of the world.” There was something to that than he was saying, though. An undercurrent of bitterness he was unable to fully hide.

  She swallowed the last of her beer and stood, offering to get him another. Two questions down and they’d already gotten more personal than she’d been intending.

  It was going to be a long two weeks.

  Chapter Four

  Adrian

  Adrian was definitely glad they’d gotten something to drink from the store. Laurie’s eyes were too piercing and her questions had managed to cut to the most traumatizing events of his life already.

  And by the look on her face after his question, he’d unintentionally cut deep as well.

  They’d spent just a couple of hours together, but already she was a person, not just a student, and he didn’t like that. It put him on edge.

  Laurie being a person meant that he noticed other things about her than her musical talent. He noticed that she was beautiful. That her grass green eyes were stunning, both when they were laughing because of something he’d said, and when they were far away because she was thinking about something that had hurt her. It meant that he wanted to know what had hurt her, and to want to fix it, even though he knew he probably wouldn’t be able to.

  None of that was good for their professional relationship. None of it was good for his job.

  She sat back down and handed him an open beer, which he drank from deeply. “Okay. Your question,” she said.

  He’d had the whole time she’d been gone to think of something, but had spent it fretting about his predicament instead.

  When he looked at her, she looked nervous. Like she was expecting him to push further on her enthusiasm comment.

  “Where’s your favorite place you traveled to on your gap year?”

  “Berlin,” she answered immediately. “I visited some amazing places, but there was just something I absolutely loved about Berlin. It has everything. History, and not just recent history, the wars, but ancient history. The people are lovely, the nightlife is great, the whole culture is just perfect. I’ve thought seriously about moving there one day.”

  “I’ve never been. But you’re definitely selling me on it.” Most of the traveling he’d done had been when he was part of the San Francisco City Orchestra, and that tended to be within the US mostly. He’d enjoyed it then, but he never had the cash to go much further. This was only the third time he’d left the States, and the other two times had been to go to Canada.

  “I highly recommend it.”

  With his mortgage woes, he wasn’t likely to be going on a holiday any time soon.

  “What made you choose to do a gap year?”

  “I don’t know. Because I could, I suppose. Well, actually, that’s not true. I didn’t really consider it, but my boyfriend at the time was dead set on it. He really wanted to, and I didn’t want to be apart from him for a year, so I went along with it too. I don’t regret it now. I had a great time.”

  He guessed that regret he heard had more to do with the ex than the gap year.

  They stayed a lot more generic after that, steering clear of any minefields. Favorite movies, favorite books, even favorite colors.

  They still managed to reveal more than just the answers to those questions, though. Adrian found himself telling her about how he maintained a love of Shakespeare despite falling off the stage in a performance of Macbeth in front of his entire class and their parents when he was sixteen.

  She admitted that she had loved Titanic until they’d watched it in school and she’d been the only person in the entire class to cry, and been teased about it all the way up to graduation.

  They spent the whole night laughing after the rocky start, eating terrible cheap frozen pizzas and freezing on the balcony with the gorgeous view.

  He’d have never thought it was possible to go from the horror of being trapped with a pandemic on the loose to looking at Laurie and then bursting out laughing all over again.

  He was sure the four beers they’d had each were helping that along, too. Finally, Laurie said, “I literally can’t feel my fingers. I think we might have to abandon the view.”

  “And hope that this apartment has some thick blankets, because we’ve been sitting with the door open all evening. This has not been sensible.”

  She giggled again and they both stood up. He walked over the threshold and she followed, tripping over the slight step.

  “Fuck,” she hissed, barely keeping grip of the bottle as he caught her with her upper arms.

  She looked up, flushed with the cold and embarrassment, and he was glad he had the excuse he was a bit drunk for wanting to kiss her.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Mortified,” she replied.

  He laughed, and released her moments after he should have done, his heart pounding.

  This night wasn’t a good start to their quarantine at all.

  “I’m having the couch,” he said.

  “Is that an order?”

  “Yes?” he tried.

  She laughed. “Are we going to swap tomorrow night?”

  “Nope.”

  “Now that just doesn’t seem fair.”

  “As it stands, you’ve currently paid for everything.”

  “Does that mean you’re agreeing you don’t owe me anything?”

  “No, it just means that’s technically how it stands at this moment in time.”

  “I’m not a fan of the technically argument.”

  He laughed. “Let’s have the discussion again tomorrow night.”

  She narrowed her eyes but then sighed. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to drag you from the couch to bed, so I’ll let you win this one.”

  Adrian bit his tongue on a very inappropriate response about how little effort dragging him into bed with her would be.

  He needed to go to sleep now, and pour the rest of the beer down the sink in the morning.

  “Right,” h
e said, wishing he had chosen the bedroom just so he had a door to shut on her. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She yawned. “Bed sounds good. I have to admit, a proper bed sounds incredibly good. Thank you.” That affectionate smile was back as she eased the door to her room shut behind her.

  Adrian held in a groan. He wished briefly that he’d been stuck in Austria with anyone other than her.

  Chapter Five

  Laurie

  Laurie held out in her room the next morning for as long as possible. Every time she decided that she needed to use the bathroom enough to face Adrian, a snippet of their evening last night came back into focus and forced her back into bed.

  She’d practically fallen into him, for God’s sake. He’d come so close to pressing her about Duane. She’d come this close to pushing him about more details of the end of his orchestral career.

  She’d come this close to saying that maybe they should both just share the bed, and that would stop any arguments.

  Disastrous night.

  She could hear a TV talking in German in the other room, and the kettle. Adrian was probably as embarrassed as she was, and it would mean they kept more control of themselves for the rest of the day, at least. Or maybe she had just imagined the energy crackling between them all night, and he was just wondering how she had managed to sleep for a solid fourteen hours at this point.

  Eventually, she forced herself to brave the main room. Adrian, as she’d expected, was laid on the couch with the comforter still pulled up and drinking a steaming cup of coffee. The TV was playing the news in German, and he was squinting at it, as though it would help him understand the language better.

  “Morning,” she said, though it was nearing on midday.