The Professor's Lectures on Love

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

I’M PRETTY SURE RITA’S TRYING to kill me. Her official title may be Department Coordinator, but I think her true purpose in life is torture. Especially when it comes to me.

I’ve been waiting for my new office assignment all summer, so of course, she held off until orientation day. For the past week, this spacious three-hundred-acre campus was a ghost town. And now, the incoming freshmen are here. All five hundred of them.

I hustle across the quad, zigzagging through the crowd of wide-eyed first years, a flimsy rolling cart wobbling behind me. Not just any cart, the decrepit one Rita left outside my office with a note to pick up my new key (and to hurry up because she’s leaving early).

The summer sun burns at peak intensity, and I swipe at the tangle of dark red hair that’s glued to my forehead. When I was a kid, August meant summer vacations and pool parties. Now, it means prepping syllabi and lesson plans to get into gear for the first day of classes.

Adulting is so overrated.

At least this year is different. One final semester of my probationary contract, and I’ll be awarded tenure.

Or denied.

My grip tightens on the handle. After six years, they couldn’t possibly deny me, could they? No, positive thinking. I will be granted tenure.

My heels click across the brick-lined pavement, the names of former graduates barely visible on the weathered red clay. Despite my best efforts to keep my eyes forward, they drift to the left like a Pavlovian response, hovering over two names.

Charles Wells, Business, class of 1962

Charles Wells II, Business, class of 1987

A third, blank brick sits beside my father’s, reserved for Charlie.

It didn’t matter that I attended Barrett while my older brother broke tradition by going to Ohio State.

I wasn’t worthy of the brick for one reason: I have a vagina.

The path my parents envisioned for me didn’t include career aspirations or degrees; it only involved marriage and procreation.

Neither of which I was interested in. And even though I graduated from my family’s legacy school as a triple alumnus, I still wasn’t worthy of having my name chiseled in the clay.

So, I bought my own damn brick.

I round the corner of the three-story Humanities building. My box shifts on the cart, but I manage to keep it from tumbling over.

Phew.

The last thing I need is to spill the contents of my former office all over the courtyard in front of a bunch of students with smartphones.

Only fifty more feet, and I’ll be out of this crowd.

Then, I’ll get the keys to my new office.

A private one. After all these years, I’ll finally have my very own space.

No more sharing with someone who eats hard-boiled eggs with canned tuna in a room with no ventilation (Gerald, year one).

No more TMI phone calls that definitely should have been held in private (Vicky, year four).

And best of all, no more cohabitating with someone who thinks I’m an abomination who is going to hell for living a life of sin (Janet, last semester). I get enough of that from my mother.

With a contented sigh, I turn the final corner, setting my sights on the pristine building.

Without warning, something smacks into me.

I stumble backward, flailing my arms as I try to keep my balance.

In the process, I lose my grip on the cart and watch in horror as the plastic bin torpedoes to the ground.

The lid pops off, and the contents explode like a pressurized bomb.

Dildos.

Dildos everywhere.

Jelly dildos. Wooden dildos. Neon purple dildos. Flesh-toned dildos. Sparkly rainbow dildos.

“Shit, November, you got an entire sex shop in there?”

The voice hits me like a sucker punch.

Alex Cardoso.

My heart stutters—the same fluttery skip it used to do when I was a teenager catching glimpses of him across the stretch of grass that separated our houses. I force a swallow past the massive lump that wasn’t there five seconds ago.

He runs his hand over his jaw, scanning the sea of multicolored phalluses scattered throughout the courtyard. Harboring a mischievous grin, he cuts his eyes to me. “Big plans tonight?”

Of course he goes there. Growing up, he and Charlie never missed an opportunity to bait me.

I guess some things never change.

With a huff, I push past him and drop to the ground.

He crouches next to me, picking up the wooden model. “This one from the 1800s?”

“I don’t know, ask your mom.” I cringe, regretting the words as soon as they’re out. Alex’s mom is one of my favorite people. At least she used to be. It seems like a whole lifetime has passed since I last saw her.

His grin widens. “What a great idea. Should I FaceTime her right now?” He pulls out his phone and says, “Hey, Siri, call Mom.”

“What? Alex, no!” I lunge for his cell, and he backs up, just out of reach.

He zigs, and I zag, but on his fourth step, he trips over a rogue dildo and I crash into him, sending him sailing to the ground.

Next thing I know, he’s on his back, and I’m braced over his chest, looking down at him.

All of him. His playful hazel eyes, shimmering from the sunlight filtering through the trees.

His dark hair, slightly tousled, mussed from the fall.

The faintest hint of stubble shadowing his jawline.

A sly smirk creeps up his obscenely handsome face. “Enjoying the view?”

“Ugh.” I push off him, then dust off my hands and knees.

“Alex?” a muffled voice calls.

Shit. He actually did call his mom.

He peers through the dense blades of grass until he locates his phone, then winces as he lifts it to his ear.

“Hi, Mom, sorry about that.” His eyes shift back to me, full of mischief again.

“You’ll never guess who I ran into.” With that, he mouths the words, “Say cheese” and switches to a video call.

Her gasp echoes throughout the courtyard. “Is that June Wells?”

“Hi, Debbie.” I wave awkwardly to the back of Alex’s phone.

“Well, look at you,” she says, a hint of emotion straining her voice. “You’re all grown up.”

My throat tightens, and I curse myself for not keeping in better touch the last fifteen years. She was so warm, so caring. The complete opposite of my own mother. Her house was the sanctuary I’d visit to escape mine.

“Oh, my,” she says, stifling a laugh. “What’s all over the lawn?”

Oh, god.

“That’s why I’m calling,” Alex says. “June wanted me to ask you—since you’re a nurse—if she would get splinters from using this?” He squats down, picking up the illustrious wooden penis model that started it all and positions it in front of the camera.

I.

Am.

Dead.

The phone shakes as Alex attempts to hold in his laughter—shoulders quivering, face reddening.

“Honey,” Debbie says, “that’s not made to be used that way. That’s for condom demonstrations.” The cell falls to the ground as Alex doubles over, howling with laughter. “Besides,” she continues from somewhere in the grass, “there are so many better options out there.”

With those words, Alex sobers up. He lunges for the phone, but I get to it first.

He needs to pay for this.

“Oh, yeah?” I flash him a shit-eating grin. “What’s your favorite?”

“Stop. Stop.” His eyes plead with me while I play keep away, giving him a taste of his own audacious medicine.

He grabs the phone out of my hand just as Debbie says, “Good question.”

“Gotta go, Mom, bye.” Alex thumps his finger on the screen, ending the call.

“Aw …” I pout my lip. “Now we’ll never know.”

“Thank god,” he says, stuffing the phone in his pocket. “At least now I won’t have nightmares for the rest of my life.” He tosses the wooden phallus into the bin, then sinks back down in the grass. “Come on, February, I’ll help you get the rest.”

And just like that, I’m twelve years old again. November. February. October. But never June. To him, I’ll always be Charlie’s little sister. No matter how old I get, he’ll never see me for the woman I’ve grown into.

“You coming?” he asks, chucking a tie-dye jelly into the box.

I trudge into the courtyard, my heels sinking into the soft dirt. One by one, we collect the remaining penis models from their various positions on the lawn like a risqué Easter egg hunt.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

His eyebrows lift at the sharpness in my tone.

Okay, maybe that was a little harsh. But honestly, it serves him right.

There are dozens of epidemiology PhD programs in California.

Why on earth did he have to pick Barrett?

Does he have any idea how hard it’s been to avoid him the past four years?

Taking alternate routes to class. Planning my office hours around his schedule so we wouldn’t accidentally bump into each other.

Constantly scanning every crowd to see if he was in it.

But, fine. Whatever. I did it.

For four agonizing years.

My sacrifice paid off, though. This May, his name was in the graduation announcement. I saw it. I celebrated it. He was officially no longer a student, and I could finally let my guard down again.

And yet …

Here he is.

In the toned, tan flesh.

I clear my throat, softening my cadence. “I mean, I thought you were done.”

“I’ve got one semester left.” He brushes his hands off on his slacks.

“I finished my dissertation defense, but they’ve got me on the hook till December to finish out my teaching obligation.

Should be a cakewalk, though—epi and stats.

I could teach those in my sleep.” His mouth lifts in a half smile.

“Not a bad deal to walk away from grad school with a free degree.”

My jaw drops. “You got your whole PhD for free?”

His smile broadens. “The master’s, too.”

I sit back on my heels, completely dumbfounded. “How?”

“Opportunities are out there.” He shrugs. “You just have to look hard enough.”

I guess it makes sense that Alex would look harder than most people. Money was always tight in the Cardoso household.

He tugs a blade of grass, snapping it out of the dirt. “Don’t tell me the Rockefellers forced their daughter to take out student loans.”

I shake my head as shame creeps over me, coating my skin like ooze. My family had more money than they could spend in two lifetimes, and while Alex was in college, he and his mom lost their house.

He nods knowingly, but then his features twist in confusion. “Wait. Your parents funded a sexual health degree?”

I sigh, scanning the grass. “They funded a public health degree. They don’t exactly know what I teach.”

And if they could see me now—hunched on my hands and knees with my ass in the air, collecting sex toys out of the health science courtyard—my mother might try to crucify me with actual nails.

“I think we have our first casualty.” He grimaces, lifting half of a clear plastic female anatomy model.

“Velma!” I snatch the device from his grasp, cradling it as if it’s a hurt child. “She’s missing half her parts.”

“Velma?” He runs a hand through his thick hair as he bites back a smirk. “You name them?”

My cheeks heat and I shrug, too embarrassed to admit it aloud. Velma’s been with me since grad school. “Do you see her fallopian tube? It’s pink. And small.”

Crouching on all fours, he rakes his hands through the overgrown lawn. “Aha.” He leans back on his knees, holding up a dissected uterus. “Found part of her.”

Out of nowhere, a squirrel jumps down from a neighboring tree and scurries toward him.

Alex scrambles backward in a tizzy as the adorable rodent advances. “Shit!”

“Calm down, it’s just a squirrel.” I attempt to suppress my laugh as he scoots back, shuffling to get away from it.

“Squirrels carry bubonic plague!”

I roll my eyes. Such an epidemiologist. “I promise, you won’t get the plague.” The squirrel sniffs around, wiggling its nose and flicking its fluffy tail. “See? It’s harmless.”

Alex eyes it warily as it dips its head. When it emerges, the missing fallopian tube is dangling from its mouth.

I gasp, staring at the little creature with awe. But before I can blink, it stuffs the piece in its cheek and dashes back up the tree.

“What?” My mouth falls open and Alex erupts with laughter. I glare at the branches in disbelief. “That little asshole stole Velma’s fallopian tube!”

“Well, since squirrels are so harmless, why don’t you go up there and get it?”

I stifle my growl and push past him. I forgot how infuriating he can be. After dropping the remnants of Velma into the bin, I squat down and secure the tub back onto my rickety cart. My first interaction with Alex Cardoso in fifteen years, and this is how it goes?

Figures.

“Thanks for”—I wave my hand around the courtyard—“whatever this was. I have to get to the department office.”

“What a coincidence.” He grins. “So do I.”

Swell.