Chapter 2 #2
It’s not the frantic, desperate kind of love you see in movies.
It’s quieter. Deeper. The kind that settles in your bones and makes ordinary Tuesdays feel electric just because he’s three feet away.
I’ve dated since then—women, men, people who were funny and kind and available.
I’ve had good sex and better conversations and even one relationship that lasted a year.
But none of them were him. None of them made the air feel thicker just by existing in the same room.
I hate it. I hate how patient I’ve had to be.
I hate that I know his coffee order by heart (black, two sugars, always from the cart by the library) but I’ve never once brought him one without pretending it was a coincidence.
I hate that every time I push—just a little, just to see if he’ll push back—he shuts down like a vault.
And I really hate that part of me even loves that.
Loves the challenge. Loves the way his silence right now feels like a dare.
The clock ticks. I can hear the faint scratch of his pen, the soft exhale he lets out like he’s centering himself.
I should let it go. I should turn back to these essays and pretend I’m not focused on every shift of his shoulders.
But I’ve been pretending for too long, and today I just don’t want to anymore.
After what feels like an eternity, he finally looks up.
Not all the way—just enough to meet my eyes through strands of his golden-honey hair falling over his face.
There’s nothing there. No irritation, no curiosity, no heat.
Just that calm, professional mask he wears.
It kills me every time. He says nothing, and steals his eyes from me, returning his focus to the paper beneath his hand.
His jaw tightens—just a fraction. I note it like I note everything else. The way his fingers still on the pen for a moment as if he’s calibrating to what I said, to moving past it. I don’t miss the way his gaze flicks to the window for half a second.
But he returns to the paper, scribbling on it with his blue fountain pen.
And there it is again, that easy shutdown.
Like attraction is something he can file away under “professional boundaries” and never think about again.
I wonder what it would take to make him feel it.
Really feel it. The kind of want that keeps you up at night, that makes your skin too tight, that turns an office into the most dangerous place on campus.
I want to push harder. Want to ask if there’s ever been anyone. If there’s ever been a single person who made his careful control slip. But I don’t. Because I’m terrified the answer is no. And even more terrified the answer might one day be yes—and it still won’t be me.
Instead I continue on like it’s nothing.
Like my pulse isn’t hammering against my ribs.
Like I didn’t spend last night lying awake remembering the way his voice sounded during his guest lecture on popular fiction two semesters ago.
“Grading that bad?” I ask, internally so fucking desperate for him, though my tone is so light, so careless, like he could ignore me and I wouldn’t even care.
“Freshmen,” he sighs.
I laugh. “Tell me about it. I’ve got three of them who think symbolism is just a fancy word for ‘whatever I feel today.’” Freshman aren’t so bad. But if they are the bridge to get me closer to Cade, I’ll throw them under the proverbial bus any day of the week.
He manages a nod. And I can’t stand not talking to him, so I poke him about some upcoming deadlines, about the English department symposium, and we joke about the dinosaur-esque copy machine dying again this afternoon. We stick to normal, English department banter.
When the chat has reached its lifespan, Cade doesn’t smile.
He gives me that long, unreadable look he always gives me, and puts his pen down.
“I should head to the gym before my afternoon class. Get my extra miles in.” He normally runs in the morning on the treadmill, but has been running a bit more, training for a half-marathon next year.
“Wanna go for a run with us later this week?” I ask him, remembering the few times Cade joined the other professors and myself for a campus run. I hit personal records both times he joined us, because running was the only thing that kept me from getting hard.
He stands, collecting his things, barely glancing at me when he says, “maybe.”
The radiator kicks on with a soft whoosh. Outside the window, students laugh and shout across the quad, spring sunlight cutting through the blinds in warm stripes across the floor. Inside, it’s just us. Two desks. Two chairs. Five years of almosts and maybes.
“I’ll take a maybe.”
He slings his bag over his shoulder, shoving a hand through his neat hair. It falls back into place perfectly, and that’s so Cade. He moves around his desk, to the door, hand on the doorknob, and that’s when I stop him.
“Cade,” I say, softer this time. Not pushing. Just… saying his name. The way I do in my head sometimes when the office is empty and I’m grading alone at night. “For what it’s worth, you’re allowed to want things. Even the ones that don’t fit neatly into the rules.”
I watch the back of his neck for a second longer than I should. I think about Lauren’s hopeful smile and how easily he let her down. I think about five years of this office, shared silences, shared coffee runs that never quite become anything more.
And I wonder, not for the first time, if I’m the only one who feels the charge in the air every single day.
He closes the door behind him without looking back, without another word. I pick up my pen again, but the essays blur. All I can see is him. All I can feel is the slow, steady burn of wanting someone who might never want me back.