Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
NOAH
Five years ago if you asked me what makes me tick, I’d have a list as long as my leg. But today, after sharing a shoebox of an office with Cade Mercer, if you asked me again? My list would look very different.
Uptightness.
Color-coded spreadsheets.
Neatly arranged stacks.
Pressed undershirts.
Sweater vests.
Mouthwash.
Glasses.
Slutty little fucking glasses.
Everything that is Cade Mercer. That’s what’s hot to me now.
The way he gently taps the neck of his shirt to see if he hung his glasses there, how his eyes never leave his work when I’ve got a student in the office for a consultation, how he’s never even dismissed a lecture even a moment too soon.
He’s driving me fucking insane in ways I’ve never been stirred.
Rules are whatever. I follow the speed limit, I hold the door for people entering places after me, and I don’t litter.
But the way Cade honors and upholds every damn rule so neurotically, I don’t know.
It’s scrambled my brain, and just in the last year I’ve found myself eager to get back to our shared space, just to…
I don’t know. Observe the way he dutifully always does the right thing?
I don’t even know, but what started as a little crush has manifested into something far more, something complicated and private, mostly because that’s Cade—complicated and private. It only makes sense that what I feel for him are those things, too.
I’m still riding the quiet high from my last advising session when the knock comes again, sharp and hopeful, the kind that always precedes a needy student slipping in.
I glance up from the stack of essays I’m pretending to grade and catch Cade already watching me.
He’s at his desk, eyes are steady, that cool blue-gray that never quite gives anything away.
He does this sometimes–forgets that he doesn’t enjoy being caught listening and watching.
But still, every so often I catch him listening to me talk to students like he’s cataloging every word.
“Come in,” I call. The door opens wider and in walks Lauren Beckett, a laptop pressed to her chest. She’s one of the good ones, graduating with honors, sharp as hell on postcolonial lit (I helped her with her paper), and carrying the kind of tired smile that says she’s been working full time in addition to this. She heads straight for Cade’s desk.
“Professor Mercer?” Her voice lifts at the end, hopeful. “Got a second?”
Cade straightens, polite as ever. “Of course, Lauren. Come in.”
I lower my pen but don’t look away. I watch the way he angles his body toward her, both open and professional, no hint of the discomfort I know he feels when anyone gets too close.
He’s good at this part. Too good. The kind of good that makes my chest ache because I’ve spent five years memorizing every micro-expression he thinks he hides.
Lauren shifts her weight, fingers twisting in the soft fabric of her muted gray sweater.“I just wanted to thank you again for the recommendation letter. The grad program at Long Beach wrote back—they’re flying me out for an interview next month.”
“That’s fantastic,” he tells her, clearly proud. “You earned it. Your paper on sociopolitical commentary in dystopian fiction was exceptional.”
She laughs, a little nervous, a tiny bit brave.
She bites her lip then laughs awkwardly.
“Well, thank you but… uh, full disclosure. That’s not the only reason I’m here.
” Her gaze flicks to me, briefly acknowledging me bearing witness to this.
“I’ve been trying to work up the nerve for weeks.
Would you… want to grab coffee sometime?
Or dinner? Off campus. I mean, of course not until after the semester is over. ”
The words land like a match dropped on dry leaves.
I feel the flare in my gut before I even process it fully.
Not jealousy exactly—more like the old familiar twist of watching someone else reach for what I’ve wanted for so long it feels stitched into my bones.
Lauren is pretty in that effortless way, with abundant dark curls, bright eyes, the kind of energy that lights up a room.
She’s not who I’d like to see him kiss. But god, I would love to see him kiss.
Anyone. Just once. Just to know that mouth of his can soften, that those shoulders can relax, that the man I’ve been half in love with for half a decade might actually let himself want something back.
Cade’s smile is gentle, the one he saves for students he respects. The one that never quite reaches his eyes when it’s personal. “Lauren, I’m incredibly flattered. Truly. But I don’t date students. Even graduating ones. It’s a hard line for me.”
He says it so softly, so kindly, that it almost doesn’t feel like a rejection. Almost. Lauren nods, cheeks pinking, but she laughs it off with grace. “I figured. Worth a shot, though.” She smiles, nervously smoothing her sweater. “No awkward feelings?”
“None at all. And congratulations again on Long Beach. You’re going to crush that interview.”
Lauren nods at him, gives me a quick wave and slips out, the door clicking shut behind her.
The office settles back into its usual hush, the faint tick of the wall clock and the rustle of paper as Cade turns back to his work like nothing happened.
Like he didn’t just shut down another possibility without a flicker of regret.
I can’t help it. The words are out before I can swallow them.
“You could have said yes,” I say, voice low, casual on the surface. “I wouldn’t have told anyone.”
Silence. The kind that stretches and thickens until it feels like it’s pressing against my ribs.
Cade doesn’t look up. Doesn’t even tense.
Just keeps his pen moving across the essay in front of him, steady as ever.
That’s the thing about Cade Mercer—he’s a fortress with no visible cracks.
And I’ve been camped outside the walls for five goddamn years, taking notes.
I hate how easily he does it. Shuts attraction down like flipping a switch.
Meanwhile I’m sitting here with my heart doing that stupid half-stutter it always does when he’s in the room, recalling the exact shade of his throat when he loosens his tie at the end of a long day.
Remembering how his voice drops half an octave when he’s passionate about something in lecture.
Thinking about the first time I ever saw him, back when he was still a stranger in a boring suit and I was already ruined.
Five years ago. God, it feels like yesterday and a lifetime at the same time.
I was twenty-five, still riding the high of being a young, tenure-track professor, still pretending I wasn’t terrified of teaching grad student seminars.
The department was hiring a new professor, and the chair asked me to sit in on the final interview round because “you’ve got good instincts, Noah.
” I almost said no due to an impending dinner date with a guy I was seeing casually. But I showed up anyway.
Cade walked into the humanities room at 10:17 a.m. sharp–early of course, hair combed back with precision, a stack of notes clutched in one hand, and a leather bag tucked under his arm.
Buttoned-up. Gorgeous. Completely oblivious.
The second his eyes met mine across the table, steady and serious, he politely nodded once and took his seat.
His quiet competence made my mouth go dry.
I asked him about his dissertation on narrative versus non-narrative based works.
He answered like he’d been waiting his whole life for someone to care.
His voice was low, measured, but there was this spark underneath—passion beneath layers of practiced, patient control.
I watched his hands as he talked, long fingers gesturing sparingly, knuckles white where he gripped the table edge when he was making great points.
I watched the way his throat worked when he swallowed between those points.
I watched the faint flush creep up his neck when the chair pressed him on department ethics, and I felt it like a live wire straight behind my ribs.
By the time the interview ended, I was flushed and half-hard under the table, scribbling nonsense notes just to have something to do with my hands.
He was twenty-two then, fresh out of grad school and some simultaneous teaching gig at a community college, having done his undergraduate degree in an impressive two years.
I voted yes before the door even closed behind him.
Voted yes like my life depended on it. Because at that moment, some reckless part of me already knew.
He got the job. Moved into this office a week later.
And for years I’ve watched him become the kind of professor students line up to take classes with.
The kind who remembers their names, who stays late to workshop their terrible first drafts, who turns down every advance with that same gentle finality he just gave Lauren.
I’ve watched him run in the campus gym, on the same treadmill, earbuds in, expression distant.
I’ve watched him laugh—really laugh—exactly twice in the office, both times at something I said without thinking.
I’ve noted the way his shirts stretch across his chest when he reaches for a book on the top shelf.
The way he smells like mouthwash and cedar, even after a long day.
The way he never, ever lets anyone close enough to see the man underneath.
And I’ve been half in love with him the whole damn time.