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“It wasn’t a big deal. I’m glad I got to run into you again and make sure it all went well.”
This is a little more than merely running into each other, and the thought that it’s going to continue happening for the next several months leaves me both cold with fear and flushed with nerves. In contrast, Avery seems perfectly comfortable with all this. They even lean closer, a conspiratorial smile flitting across their mouth.
“Actually, I’m really excited about it,” they say. My heart skips several beats. “I’ve been really excited to take this class. I know it’s super nerdy, but I already know what I want to research for my final project.”
Language abruptly abandons my overheated brain. I have no idea how to respond, even though some piece of me realizes this should be exactly the type of thing a TA wants to hear from a student. Here’s someone young and bright and enthusiastic about the topic, a model student in every possible way. But all I can focus on is how Avery’s earnest excitement lights up their whole face. What kind of repressed creep have I become to latch onto the first queer person I met outside my little town, despite the fact that they’re my student?
“Th-that’s great,” I say. “But you don’t owe an outline or anything for a while.”
“I know,” Avery says. “I just like reading about this stuff. I saw the syllabus online before the semester started and I couldn’t help it. A couple ideas came to mind right away.”
“Well.”
That’s all I manage to say. Well. Barely the start of a thought. More a noise than a word. But the longer Avery looks at me like this, the more terrified I become that anything I say will be the wrong thing. My occasional trips to the gay bar a few towns over never prepared me for something like this, an encounter with a person unlike anyone I’ve ever met, someone I shouldn’t want, can’t want, but who draws me to them like the tides obeying the moon.
Avery leans away, their voice returning to its normalvolume, which is still on the softer side.
“Anyway, I have another class,” they say. “Good to see you again. Glad everything worked out. I guess I’ll see you again soon, huh? And if you ever need a cup of tea, you know where to find me.”
A cup of tea. No, what I need is several stiff drinks and a slap to the face to knock me back to my senses. My first week in Montridge and I’m apparently determined to become this city’s – or town’s – biggest pariah.
Maybe breaking out of my comfortable small town shell and connecting with my community in the real world wasn’t such a great idea after all. Some things are meant to remain purely theoretical.
Chapter Five
Avery
THE BOYFRIEND CAFÉ is in full swing. I’m with a pair of nursing students who are nervous about doing rotations in hospitals this year. Cameron has a quiet, stressed out math major who hunches over his tea, while Julian chats and laughs with a girl I think I recognize from one of my gender and sexuality classes. Even our newbie server, Henry, is nodding along as his customer dumps their worries onto him.
The whole place is running like clockwork, but that doesn’t keep me from worrying about it. I’m sure Mia did a great job with the scheduling, but part of my brain is chewing over the next round of customers and the transition between the groups and every tiny thing that could go wrong as the Boyfriend Café starts off theyear.
This is a different Boyfriend Café than any that came before it. I’m literally the only holdover from the original crew. Everyone else is gone. I live in Albert’s house now, and I go to Montridge Munchies to pick up the discounted baked goods we resell to our customers, but those are thin connections at best. In reality, I’m like a swimmer left out in the middle of the ocean without so much as a life vest, treading water and trying to stay afloat as a vast expanse of unknowable danger sweeps out in all directions around me.
I sip from my tea.Chill out, Avery. You know how to do this. Cameron and Julian started last year. They have more than a semester under their belts. And Mia is totally on top of her role as manager.
The part of my brain trying to calm me down is right. Everything is fine. The fairy lights are casting a soft glow through the sedate basement café. The tea has left the air smelling sweet and light. The customers are enjoying their conversations and snacks. There is nothing to worry about, yet I can’t keep myself from stressing over every detail.
“But did you hear about that one student last year?” one of my nursing students, Rebecca, is saying to the other when I check back in to the conversation.
“Who?” the other, Martin, says.
“That one girl. The one who supposedly hooked up with one of the doctors.”
“What?” Martin’s eyes go wide, and he raises his tea to his lips to try to hide his smile.
“Yeah, it was a huge deal,” Rebecca says. “Like, technically that’s her boss or mentor or whatever. So everyone was freaking out. I think the doctor got fired.”
“Yikes. Well, you’d have to fire him for messing around with a student,” Martin concurs.
“Sorry,” Rebecca says to me. “You probably don’t care about any of this. It’s just a rumor that went around all the nursing students last year.”
I wave away her apology. “This is your time. Use it however you like. Besides, who doesn’t enjoy a little tea with their tea?”
The nursing students laugh and move right along to their next bit of gossip. I have no qualms with that. Listening to gossip is fun, and it means all I really need to do is nod along and throw in a snarky comment here or there. It’s my favorite way for these conversations to go. City University of Montridge is a massive school, so there’s always plenty of juicy tidbits to gobble up.
The nursing students’ story about a student hooking up with a doctor never quite fades from my mind as they move on to other topics, however. Against all my better instincts, the tale calls up images of Diego going wide-eyed the moment I walked into that classroom yesterday. I was just as surprised as he was by our reunion, but he seemed downright terrified on top of shocked. Some piece of me wants to think that’s because I didn’t merely imagine the spark that sizzled to life between us that night we met, butthat’s probably stress and wishful thinking talking. In reality, he’s probably nervous that crashing overnight at a student’s home, even if absolutely nothing happened, is inappropriate regardless of circumstances. But I’m not about to reveal his secret. It was one night. One extremely tame and uneventful night.
Nah. It can’t be that. I probably imagined Diego being flustered at seeing me again. I could have sworn there was a faint blush in those tan brown cheeks flecked with dark stubble, but it’s just as likely that I’m so stressed out and desperate that I simply saw what I wanted to see.
