Chapter 28
Lila
I woke up early Saturday morning to prepare for an all-day department conference. I kissed Jace goodbye and told him to stay as long as he wanted, and he smiled and rolled onto his side, spooning my pillow and quickly falling back asleep.
The image of his muscular body in my bed stayed with me all day through the conference. I’d forgotten just how comforting it was having a man in my life.
But I don’t just have one. I have two, now.
It was mystifying that both Jace and Brock were okay with the situation. Like a dream come true. But as the conference ended and Sunday rolled around, I began to second guess the entire situation.
Sure, both of them reiterated their comfort on Friday in the heat of the moment. But as time went on, would they decide they didn’t want to share me? Would they resent the fact that I was sleeping with the other man?
I knew I was spiraling. Neither man had texted me this weekend, which was likely because of my conference and because they had their own lives to worry about. But I was a worrier at heart, and my mind was good at imagining bad scenarios.
Monday morning brought thunderstorms to Smokey Mountain State University. I shook out my umbrella, then shed my raincoat in my office before heading to my first class. The seats were half full when I walked inside, and my eyes were immediately pulled to an area in the middle.
There they were: Jace and Brock. Sitting next to each other, chatting about something. They both glanced down when they saw me, tiny little smiles touching their lips before they returned to whatever they were discussing.
What a strange thing to see two of my lovers sitting together, chatting like buddies! I would’ve given anything in the world to know what they were talking about.
I set up my laptop and tried to ignore them, but my eyes drifted in their direction constantly. Brock leaned over and whispered something that made Jace laugh. Brock leaned back in his chair and began typing on his laptop.
Maybe they would be cool with all of this.
With my worries assuaged, I was able to focus on my lecture that day. I handed back everyone’s papers from the previous week, discussed them a little, and then jumped into the next chapter review. When class was over, Jace and Brock both smiled at me on their way out of the room.
The tingle in my stomach made me feel like a teenager again.
Thanks to the papers being handed back, I had a lot of visitors to my office hours that day.
One student, a boy named Dean, was unhappy with his D+ grade.
But I barely recognized him because he had only come to one class all semester, so it was easy to counter his argument that the assignment was confusing.
After two other students, Brock walked into my office.
“Mr. Radley,” I said, trying to set the tone immediately.
“Professor Carrington,” he said.
“Close the door, please.”
He did as he was instructed, then dropped his backpack next to the guest chair and sat down.
I immediately began to formulate an argument in my head about boundaries, the same conversation I’d had with Jace when we started having sex. But to my surprise, Brock beat me to it.
“I wanted to tell you that I understand the risk for you in all of this,” he began. “And that the risk is greater for you than it is for me.”
“Very much so,” I said carefully.
He gestured with his hand. “I think it’s best if we have some basic ground rules so that there’s no confusion.
For example, the school campus should be off-limits.
When we’re here, we’re strictly professor and student.
In addition to that, being seen in public off campus also poses some risk.
Light flirting at the bar on Fridays is fine, I think, but beyond that: we shouldn’t do anything risqué unless we’re in private. Thoughts?”
“I agree with everything you’ve said.” I smiled. “I was going to set those exact boundaries, actually. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
“Me too.” His eyes narrowed. “Although it’s not easy to respect those boundaries while we’re in here together. With the door closed.”
For a moment, I imagined all the filthy things we could do right now. But I quickly dispelled those fantasies.
“That is extremely tempting,” I agreed, “but I’m a popular professor today, thanks to the papers I graded over the weekend.”
“Speaking of that, I did come here for an academic reason…” He opened his backpack and pulled out a stapled stack of papers. “Can we discuss my grade?”
“I thought you’d be pleased with an eighty-nine,” I said.
“Overall, yes,” he said, leaning forward to show me the second page. “But I’ve got a clarification question on this part here.” He tapped the page.
I squinted at the typed paragraph, then glanced at my notes written in red ink. “The part about deterrence theory? What about it do you disagree with?”
“We learned in class that longer sentences don’t meaningfully deter crime,” Brock argued. “Yet when I made that point here regarding harsh sentencing, you said it wasn’t completely accurate.”
“Because it’s not,” I replied. “In general, yes, longer sentences don’t deter crime. But there are some specific crimes and situations where it does. Your paper was focused on truancy and petty theft, both of which have shown stronger-than-average correlation with harsher sentences.”
“Ah, but not in this case!” He grinned and opened his laptop, placing it on the desk and spinning it around where I could see. “That correlation doesn’t exist when the stolen item is a basic necessity, like diapers, baby formula, or canned goods. Which was what I referenced in that paragraph.”
I read the study he had pulled up on the laptop, then re-read his paper. He was right.
“Well done,” I said, popping the cap off my red pen and rewriting the grade at the top. “I think that warrants a few extra points.”
“A ninety-one? I’ll take it.”
“But next time,” I warned, “cite that source in your paper if you want credit. The citation standard is listed in the class syllabus.”
“Will do, Professor.”
“And to be clear, I changed your grades purely on the merit of your argument. Not because of… what happened at the bar on Friday.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.” He put his things away and stood. “My goal here is to learn, not to just get a good grade.”
Before he left, I said, “Have you ever considered going into the legal side of the law, rather than enforcement?”
Brock blinked in surprise. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re good at formulating an argument. Just something to think about.”
He pondered that for a moment, then left.
I smiled to myself. The difference in maturity between Brock and Jace, compared to my younger students, was stark.
That starkness was on full display for the rest of the day. I returned a test in my first afternoon class, and many of the students argued about the grades—and they weren’t as polite or articulate as Brock had been.
After that, in my Computer Crime class, my students were required to come to the front of the class and give presentations. Since this was a 200-level class, I had high expectations from my students.
The first dozen were awful.
The minimum length required was seven PowerPoint slides, and half the students failed to meet that. Others didn’t adequately cover the required material. One boy obviously used A.I. to write his slides, and another poor girl’s presentation was riddled with typos.
I was beginning to wonder if the problem was with me. One bad presentation could be a fluke, but a dozen was a trend. Had I failed to prepare them, or to make my requirements clear?
Then it was Cam’s turn to present.
“The focus of my presentation is the risk involved with not adequately spending money on digital security,” he began.
His presentation was like a glass of cold water to someone dying of thirst. His slides were detailed, but not packed with too much information, which allowed him to elaborate orally.
He understood his subject and was able to answer questions from the rest of the class at the end.
He was a little awkward, which I could understand since he seemed like more of an introvert, but overall he crushed it.
Of course, it wasn’t lost on me that he was probably an expert because of all the hacking he had done. But I could overlook that right now.
“Excellent job, Mr. Keene,” I said when he was done fielding questions from the class.
He beamed at my compliment, with little red dots touching his cheeks. As he returned to his desk, I caught him humming a song. It sounded like the Chicago soundtrack, but I couldn’t be certain.
A little shiver ran through my bones. It was wild how much he looked like my old crush, down to the way he smiled.
I shook it off and called the next name on the list.