Page 5 of Professor Next Door

4. Tara

The next couple of weeks passed in a blur. Between catching up on my classes, unpacking, and finding my way around a new town, I was not only exhausted, I was lonely and overwhelmed. I’d made a friend of sorts, a girl I exchanged class notes with in one of the prerequisite science classes I was taking. She had a class with him and she was telling me how handsome he was.

Him being the professor next door, one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen. That was the only reason I could think of as to why I thought about him so often. I was crushing hard for the first time in my life and instead of being happy about it, I was so embarrassed. Finding excuses to go outside when he arrived home from work or was outside with his daughter was pushing the boundaries of what I generally thought of as sane behavior.

Luckily, my new friend soon informed me I wasn’t the only sad case wandering around campus. We’d gone to the cafeteria to discuss our complicated final project over lunch, when our plan flew right off the tracks when I let slip that I lived next door to Professor Galen Elliot. Amanda stared at me from across the table, our hamburgers half-eaten and forgotten.

“Oh my God, Tara, you live next to Professor Hotstuff?” Amand gasped. “He’s so hot!”

I tried not to laugh at the way she wiggled her eyebrows, but couldn’t help a sputter. “Yeah, he’s my neighbor, though I don’t think he realizes it when we’re at school. I pass him in the hall sometimes but he never notices me.”

I tried to play off the small amount of hurt I felt over it. He’d wave at me sometimes as we crossed paths in our yards, once he’d even shouted over a hello as he’d played with his daughter in their backyard while I broke down the unpacked boxes I’d tossed outside. Boxes I’d tossed outside on purpose in the hopes of striking up a conversation with him at some point. I couldn’t think of an excuse to talk to him and wasn’t sure I could speak if I did find an excuse. I had nightmares about standing there and drooling because I was just that awkward.

He was nice enough but he never really spoke to me other than a hello. He was always polite and respectful, which was a bonus in my book. But once we were at school I was just another faceless student in an ocean of clamoring students trying to get to their next class. Which meant he never saw me either.

“So what happens when he’s at home? I heard he has a daughter, but that he’s single. His wife died in a car accident, you know?” Amanda’s light blond hair and wide gray eyes were sparkling in the sunlight, the light showcasing just how flawless her skin was. She was beautiful, enchanting, everything I wasn’t. She was also an older student like me, twenty-two to my twenty-one.

“Wait, what? His wife died?” Her words finally penetrated the clouds in my brain and I stared over at her in shock. “That’s so terrible!”

“I know! It was just after the little girl was born too. There was some…” Amanda looked around before she scooted a little closer to me, her eyes even wider. “There’s a rumor that she killed herself, but nobody’s ever said why.”

“It was just after the baby was born?” I asked, my shock emptying my head for the moment. Amanda nodded but didn’t say anything else.

Then a thought crept in, a nugget of knowledge from my past. Maybe it was postpartum depression. I couldn’t help but wonder as I stared at Amanda. We all have social media now with its constant reminders and warnings about everything. I’d also written a research paper on it in high school. It could have been that.

“Wow. Just wow. How…tragic!” I pulled away from Amanda, feeling too close all of a sudden. I’d spent most of my life being a recluse, avoiding friendships, and enjoying being alone. The news reminded me of just how easy it was to lose people and not to get too close.

“It really is. Ever since, Professor Hotstuff has been the target of every available girl on campus. And the teachers!” Amanda tossed me another conspiratorial look, her full lips slightly pursed. “He’s got it all, the looks, the tragedy, the baby, what’s not to drool over?”

That last part was spoken with a whole bucketful of sarcasm, but I could see in her eyes that even she wasn’t immune to his charms.

“What do you mean, target?” I wasn’t sure, but I thought I knew. I might have been sheltered, I might have even been a recluse, but I’m not stupid! I grew up with the internet the same as everybody else I know. I’d heard whispers, seen movies, I wasn’t ignorant.

Just inexperienced.

Amanda looked at me as though I’d grown another head before she answered me.

“Girl, come on now, you can’t be serious? You’ve seen him! They want to get him into bed, make a nice little insta-family and live happily ever after! Or they just want to fuck the pain away, but I don’t think that’s possible, personally.” She sat back, taking a sip of her sweet tea.

The noise in the cafeteria increased as more hungry students came in and I leaned towards her again. Amanda was something new for me, a friend, a confidant, and someone that said bad words with ease. I don’t think I’ve ever said a swear word out loud, but Amanda let them fly like it was nothing.

“I can’t blame them. He is hot!” I grinned at her and she winked at me, her eyes dancing.

“You know it! I wouldn’t mind a turn at him myself, but I’d have to wade through a crowd ten women deep to even get near him.”

“Would you really sleep with a professor?” I gasped out, amazed. It was so forbidden! And naughty. I felt a flutter somewhere around my lower abdomen and shifted in my seat, the strange sensation new.

“In a heartbeat if it’s Professor Elliot. He’s so fucking gorgeous! Then there’s the experience. Have you ever slept with a boy our age? Ugh!” Amanda shivered, letting me know I wasn’t missing much in that department. “Professor Elliot is in his early thirties, he’d know what he was doing.”

Amanda stared off into space and I knew she must be imagining what it would be like, which gave me time not to answer her question without her noticing. I felt heat begin to rise up my spine and make my cheeks warms as I did a little fantasizing of my own. Those full lips pressed to mine, his hands sliding up my ribs to…

The thought was interrupted when cold liquid spilled down my hair and down my back. I shot up out of my seat, sputtering in shock. I turned to see a young African American woman staring at me with shocked eyes and an empty tray. I was wearing her lunch.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, my foot slipped!”

She looked terrified and I knew the poor girl was just like me—shy, reserved, and more than a little bit timid. She reached for the napkin holder on the table and began to pat me down, something Amanda was also doing.

“I think she needed cooling off anyway,” Amanda said reassuringly in between the other girl’s constant stream of apologies. I glared at my friend before I took the girl’s hand to stop her patting my head down with another handful of napkins.