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twenty-one
The weekend sucks.
I really thought nothing could suck more than having Adrian within touching distance and not being able to touch him, but wanting to text him and not being able to, not being able to see him, not being able to read him… Fuck, I want him.
“You’ve been pouting all weekend. I’m guessing whoever you got on your knees for on Friday didn’t please you,” Beth jokes.
“Nope,” I say simply.
“It’ll happen. You made an effort and that’s what matters, babe,” Beth says, dropping onto my bed with me.
I shove my phone under my bed. I should delete every text from Adrian, but I can’t make myself do it. I bite my bottom lip. “I hate this.”
“It was just sex, right?” she asks.
We still haven’t said his name. I nod slowly. “Yeah. Just sex. Just mind-blowing, amazing sex with a guy who hasNOstamped across him in capital letters.”
“I know. But you’re doing the right thing,” she insists.
She hugs me, and I feel twice as shitty for lying to her.
“Come on, we have class in a bit,” she says and peels herself away to get ready.
I triple-check that we have class. I almost text Adrian to make sure of it, but I’m embarrassed. He almost slipped. He started to call me ‘Kitten,’ but he didn’t. I did slip. I called him ‘Sir’, and instead of acting on it, he was a gentleman.
Why the fuck was he a gentleman? Why the hell does he care? Why does his being decent, just a decent man, make me want him back? Worse, it makes me question everything. I think of him feeding me fruit in the morning, taking care of me, rubbing my wrists to make sure that there were no marks from the tie, telling me about his tattoos.
He likes the scorpion tangled with the rose on his hip, a reminder that beauty and sharpness can sometimes be the same thing. I’d kissed it to soften those thorns and the pinchers and the tail. I’d wanted to convince him he didn’t need to be sharp even though I told him not to be gentle.
Lightning splits the sky, making me jump, and Beth gives me a look as half the class turns to face me. I must have scooted my chair out too far. Even Dr. Hayes is looking at me with mild concern that he hides the second our eyes meet.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
Class is a mix of my trying not to picture Dr. Hayes helping me study and all the soft sides of what we could have against my thinking of his getting fired, our weekend everywhere in the news, vilifying him.
I can’t focus on a single thing.
When class is over, I email my other professors, saying I’m sick. I haven’t used any sick days, so I’ll be fine. I won’t miss anything important. I walk outside and stand under the overhang as I watch the sheets of rain come down.
I chose a hell of a day to wear a white shirt and a short pink skirt. Staring at the rain, I watch other students go around wherever they want. Even Beth hurries off. I try to calm my rolling stomach until Adrian walks by. He glances to the side, notices me, then steps closer, staring at the rain, not me.
“Do you have an umbrella?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“I have a coat I can give you. Just to keep…” He trails off and clears his throat.
“That’s nice, but I’ll wait. It’s… helping,” I murmur.
“Anything happen this weekend I should know about?” he asks in an intimate whisper.
I lick over my bottom lip. “Nothing that a professor needs to know about.”
“Emily,” he groans.
I take an unsteady breath. He starts walking after tossing me something—a coat. I pull it around my shoulders and head in the same direction. I leave some space between us. I shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t.
But I’ve slipped twice.
