Chapter 18 Angus
ANGUS
It’s the night before the official start of finals, and Jimmy, Steph, and I, along with other friends from Barbell Soc, are hanging out at our favourite bar.
For once, I’m not the only one on soft drinks.
We’re wishing each other luck, and those of us who are on the same or similar courses are firing revision questions at each other.
I know I’m well prepared, but I’m still nervous as hell.
Sure, I’ve already banked my grades from my first and second year, but it still feels like these exams will make or break me.
“Why do they call them finals?” I ask.
Everyone stares at me.
“Because they’re our final exams,” Jimmy replies.
“I know, but, couldn’t they call them something that feels less…”
“Final?” Steph asks.
Everyone laughs.
I sigh and slump my shoulders. “Yeah.”
Jimmy puts the back of his hand against my forehead. “Are you feeling all right?”
I gently push him away. “Nervous.”
“You’ll do fine. You’ve put the work in.” Steph gives Jimmy a knowing look.
“Hey, I’ve revised.”
She raises her eyebrows. “How much?”
“A lot.” He holds his hands apart, wider than his chest.
Steph raises her eyebrows higher.
Jimmy drops his right hand and then holds his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “A little.”
Steph nudges him and then points at me. “See? You’ll be fine. Jimmy, on the other hand…”
“I’ll be fine, too.” He shifts in his chair. “I’ve just had other stuff on my mind.”
I frown. “What stuff?” And why didn’t he talk to me about it? Not that I’ve told him about Richard, but that’s because I can’t.
“Just stuff. It’s not important.”
“Important enough it’s affected your revision.”
Jimmy brushes my comment off with a wide grin. “I’ll be fine.”
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
“Oh, sure, because you’ve been around so much lately.”
I scowl.
Jimmy laughs. “Relax, I’m joking. Yes, I know I can talk to you.”
Steph looks between us. “Do you two need to get a room?”
“No,” we reply in unison.
She laughs. “Then stop acting like you do. More drinks?”
We tell her what we’d like to drink next, and she wanders to the bar.
“I’m serious,” I say softly to Jimmy. “If you need to talk—”
He laughs and pushes my shoulder. “You’re reading far too much into nothing. Anyway, where have you been lately?”
“Revising.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have. I need to do well.”
Jimmy tilts his head. “Even with Flynn on the scene?”
I finish my drink. “He’s amazing on the farm, and he wants to be there. He knows his stuff. Even Dad had to admit that.”
“Which takes the pressure off you, right? No more Angus the farm boy.”
“I still need to prove Dad wrong. He’s said all along I’m wasting my time doing this degree.”
“He’s not changed his tune?”
I shake my head. “He won’t until I’m successful.”
Jimmy inhales. “Just make sure you’re doing this for you, not him.”
I blink. “I am. I want to be an accountant.”
“Yeah, yeah, because you’re a nerd wrapped in jock’s clothing.”
I laugh. “Can’t I be both?”
“A jock and a nerd?”
I nod.
He purses his lips. “I might allow it.”
“Oh, you’ll allow it, will you?”
He folds his arms and gives me a non-serious look. “I said I might allow it.”
We laugh, which is perfect timing for Steph to return, balancing our drinks.
She sets them on the table. “Did you hear the gossip?”
“What gossip?” Jimmy asks.
“Apparently, a lecturer has been fucking a student.”
I stiffen. My heart hammers and my hands go clammy. No one can know about Richard and me, can they? Shit. Did someone see us while we were staying at the cottage, when we were being anything but careful?
“Which lecturer?”
Mary waves her hand. “One of the English ones. I don’t know her name.”
A wave of relief sweeps over me, although a slight chill of dread remains.
“She’s been fucking a student on her course.”
Jimmy purses his lips. “So?”
“She’s been marking his essays.”
Jimmy shrugs. “They can be remarked by someone else if anyone thinks she’s overmarked him. She might even have undermarked him, to compensate. Besides, it’s just a rumour, isn’t it?”
Steph shrugs.
“And even if it’s true… who gives a shit? They’re adults. They can fuck who they want.”
“It’s not very professional, though, is it?”
I sip my drink, pretending not to be interested in their conversation.
“Is your problem that he’s on her course, or that he’s younger than her?” Jimmy asks.
Steph sulks into her drink. “That he’s on her course. Do you think she’ll get sacked?”
Jimmy shrugs. “Only if the university finds any actual wrongdoing.”
“Like overmarking him?”
He nods.
“Well, let’s hope she wasn’t or—” Steph draws her finger across her neck.
“We should talk about something else,” Jimmy says.
Oh, thank fuck.
“Rather than gossiping about people we don’t even know,” he adds.
“But that’s half the fun,” Steph says.
Jimmy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, until you’re the one being gossiped about.”
“I don’t do anything gossip-worthy.”
“Are you saying you’re boring?”
She scowls at him. “I could go off you.”
“Yeah, but you won’t. Hey, we should plan an end-of-finals party.”
Steph’s eyes light up. “That would be fun. You’d be up for that, wouldn’t you, Angus?”
I nod enthusiastically. I’ll agree to anything if it gets us off the topic of lecturers sleeping with their students.
We spend the next few minutes deciding how to celebrate the end of finals.
Predictably, it involves our favourite bar and drinking.
Jimmy suggests I crash at his place that night so I can get drunk.
Afterwards, we spend another hour chatting about our workout routines, how much we were lifting at the start of the term, versus now, and so on, until people start drifting away.
Eventually, it’s only Jimmy and I left. We finish our drinks and wander out of the bar together. I have every intention of saying goodbye and heading to Elle, but Jimmy touches my arm and stares at me intently.
“You were awfully quiet when Steph was going on about that English lecturer.”
“Was I?” Did I sound nonchalant enough?
“Yes.” He narrows his eyes a fraction. “You wouldn’t happen to be screwing Professor Dick, would you?”
I almost choke. I definitely don’t keep my composure.
“I thought so. It’s cool, Angus. I’m not going to say anything to anyone. Besides, it’s not as if he’s teaching you this year, is it?”
I shake my head.
“I wish you’d told me, rather than leaving me to guess what’s been going on with you these past several weeks.”
I play-punch his upper arm and force a grin. “What’s that? Is the pot calling the kettle black?”
He sucks in a breath. “Fine. I got rat-arsed and slept with Flynn. We were both too drunk to make sensible decisions.”
“You—?” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Wait. Isn’t Flynn—”
“My twin brother’s ex-husband. Yes.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and scuffs his sole over the pavement. “I know. I’m shit. It was a terrible thing to do.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“No. I’m not. I think the important word in that sentence was ex-husband. They’re not together anymore. Do you like him?”
“Flynn?”
I nod.
“No, I hate him.”
I give Jimmy a ‘really?’ look.
“I want to hate him,” he grumbles.
“Why?”
“Because I was in love with him, but he chose Billy over me. Ugh, ignore me. We were kids. He was the first guy I was infatuated with. I’m not a kid anymore.
Anyway. We got drunk. We ended up at my place.
We fucked. We regretted it. It won’t happen again.
” He prods me in the chest. “As for you… I’m guessing you’ve fallen onto Professor Dick’s dick plenty of times. ”
Heat rises to my cheeks.
He shrugs. “Good on you. He’s hot in a nerdy kind of way. Just do yourself—and him—a favour. Keep it secret.”
“That’s what we are doing.”
He nods. “If the rumours Steph was spreading earlier are true, the university will probably be super pissed if they find out a second lecturer has been screwing a student.”
I wince. He’s right. I wish he weren’t, but he is.
“Good luck with exams,” Jimmy says.
“Yeah, same to you.”
“See you on the flipside?”
“You bet.”
He raises both thumbs and then wanders away. I stare at him until he turns the next corner, and then I take my phone out of my pocket and text Richard: We need to talk. Now.
I meet Richard at our usual spot, in the layby not far from the farm. The moment he gets into Elle, I grasp his face and kiss him hard.
“I love you.”
He blinks and licks his lips. “That was a good way to show it. I love you, too.”
I pinch my eyes shut for half a second and shake my head. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“I want you to remember that I love you when I say what I need to say.”
Richard frowns. “Should I be worried?”
“No.” I sigh. “No,” I repeat with more conviction.
“You’re not selling that ‘no’. What was so urgent that we had to meet the night before your first exam?”
“Have you heard the rumour?”
He purses his lips. “What rumour?”
“That a lecturer is fucking a student.”
He widens his eyes to almost comic proportions. His jaw goes slack.
“Not us. Don’t worry. An English lecturer and someone she’s teaching right now.”
Richard doesn’t relax, although he does close his mouth and lessen the extreme wideness of his eyes.
“You’ve not heard anything?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then maybe it’s not true.”
“Maybe.”
I put my hand over his. “I don’t want you to get into trouble. I’ve never wanted that.”
“What are you saying?”
“As much as I want to go public the moment I graduate, we can’t. We need to wait a bit longer.”
“How much longer?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. A month? Maybe two? Long enough that no one will care. Long enough that no one will question your integrity.”
He cups my face and strokes my cheek. “I don’t want to wait that long.”
I lean into his touch. “Nor do I, but we need to. I’d never forgive myself if you got fired because of me.”
He half-smiles. “I’m a big boy. I’m capable of making my own decisions. I want to be with you, Angus. If I get into trouble, it will be my fault, not yours.”
“Even though I kinda seduced you?”
He chuckles. “You did? I’m not sure I remember it that way.”
“Oh, how do you remember it?” We lean closer to each other while we talk, so our lips are only a breath apart.
“You wanted me. I wanted you. You were a great distraction. Sex in the back of Elle was hot as fuck.”
“And naughty?” I waggle my eyebrows.
“Very naughty, which was part of the thrill.”
“You like the thrill, don’t you, Professor?”
He shivers. “You know I do.” He slams his mouth over mine and kisses me deeply. “I don’t want to wait.”
“I do. Well, I don’t, but we need to. Please, Professor? What difference will another month make?”
He sighs and rests his forehead against mine. “The fortnight we spent together… You and me, no hiding, no pretending. It was amazing.”
“It was.”
“It gave me a taste of what we could be without having to sneak around.”
I snort-laugh. “And of not having to sleep on an air mattress in a draughty barn?”
“That’s a bonus.”
I brush my fingertips over his thigh. “We can have all of that, Professor. We will have it all, I promise. Just—”
“Wait a little longer?”
I nod.
He closes his eyes and kisses me slowly, tenderly. Once the kiss has ended, he opens his eyes and stares into mine. “All right.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. But I’m marking one month from your graduation on my calendar.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We smile as we kiss, which makes the kiss all the more perfect. Eventually, we pull apart.
“I should go,” Richard says.
“Go?” I sound needy and mournful.
“You have an exam in the morning.”
I stare at him pleadingly. “We’ve got time for good luck sex, haven’t we?”
“Good luck sex?”
I nod eagerly.
“Is there any such thing?”
“Yes, Professor.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think there is.”
“Please?” I draw the word out until I run out of breath.
“At the barn?”
I shake my head and glance into the back of Elle.
“Not here,” Richard sounds a little panicked.
I doubt anyone else would stop here this late on a Sunday evening, but it is within sight of a main road, so it would be a bit too risky.
“The first place we fucked.”
His eyes dance with reflected light from the headlight of a passing car. “A trip down memory lane?”
“Yes. Please?”
He caresses my jaw. “Anything for you.”
I grin, belt up, and turn the engine on. “You’re the best.”
Richard fastens his seatbelt and then puts his hand on my thigh. “So are you.”
“Worth waiting for?”
His gaze radiates love. “Worth waiting to go public with our relationship.” His expression becomes horrified. “Unless you think we shouldn’t see each other again until a month after you’ve graduated?”
“Oh, fuck, no. I couldn’t wait that long to see you. Why abstain when we have a perfectly good barn to sneak-fuck in?”
“And a perfectly good Land Rover.”
“Exactly! Speaking of which, let’s go!”