Chapter 4 #2
“I could review you tonight. I mean, you have a class soon, I’m already here.”
His mouth parts, but he doesn’t say anything and instead swallows, then nods. “Okay.”
My pulse is suddenly jerky, but he’d never know it.
I nod my head. “Okay. Cool.” He returns his focus to his computer, the only noise between us being the quiet, metallic skate of his fingertips along his mousepad as he scrolls.
I pretend to grade an essay about who even cares, and listen to him breath and read, knowing full well that I could be home right now because I have no work left for the day.
A few minutes pass, and the phone on my desk rings.
I see the name, and know that he must’ve received the peer review email, too.
Swiveling, I face the bookshelf adjacent to my desk and stack my heels on the dusty old shelf. “Hey man, how’s it going?” I nudge the volume down, so his voice doesn’t carry.
“Noah, hi, don’t hang up. I just checked my email.” He laughs, and it does nothing to me. It hasn’t in some time. And that feels good. “I guess you probably know why I’m calling.”
I scratch the side of my jaw where stubble is overtaking what is normally smooth and soft. “The peer reviews,” I offer, trying my best to stay in front of this conversation.
Eli laughs again. “Yeah, and, I talked to Dr. Pratt. You know, you could review me, too. Not just the other person you selected. I could review you, too.” He lets out a sigh that would make me laugh if I weren’t sitting two feet away from Cade. “You know I have to be fair and honest and–”
Heat stalks up my spine. I don’t need anyone to lie for me.
I’m a fucking great professor, and the fact that he is insinuating that I would select him as a way of protecting myself is laughable.
It’s beyond laughable, but again, mixed company.
My jaw clenches as I stroke my fingers along the edge of the desk.
“I know,” I say, cutting him off because those are the only two words I can say right now.
“Peer reviews are based on honesty.” I grind my teeth to discover a lick of patience left behind.
“But Professor Mercer and I are aligned in our schedules so this works for us. Thanks though. Maybe Mulroney could review you.”
Cade, who was quietly typing just a moment ago, is now completely quiet. No doubt listening. “Right,” Eli says slowly, stringing the word out like a chewed piece of gum. He’s good at making things feel like chewing gum. “Mulroney.”
“Try him out next,” I retort.
“Okay, well, I had planned on giving the new guy a call–”
I can’t help but cut him off. He’s begging for it. “He’s been here five years, Professor Morton. And again, we’re reviewing one another.”
Eli laughs, flippant and dismissive, true to form.
“Five years is nothing, Noah, and we both know that.” He laughs again and I want to slam my phone into the ground and drop a million books on top of it.
“Well, take them seriously. Peer reviews are usually serious.” As seriously as you fucking your TA and his boyfriend on camera?
“And I thought I’d relay to the new guy that I could give him an honest look and real feedback.
That means a lot coming from someone with my experience. ”
“No need. We share an office. I’ll be sure to pass that along.
” Now Cade is not hiding that he’s listening, because we’re actively talking about him.
I drop my feet from the shelf, taking a few seconds to turn and face him.
He’s peering at me over his laptop, blue eyes riddled with intensity, soft lines marring his forehead.
I wave him off, mouthing, “Don’t worry,” before giving my focus back to Eli.
“Mulroney’s schedule isn’t online so you’ll need to pop by his office to snag it. ”
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” he says, as if I’ve been holding a tattered copy of his lecture schedule in my pocket for years.
I cough to disguise my laughter. “Professor Mercer and I are fine, thanks.”
He drops the bravado and bullshit, and lowers his tone to a husky whisper. “You always liked my evening class.”
Heat sprouts under my arms and on the back of my neck. “If that’s all, I’m going to sit in on Professor Mercer’s lecture in a few and I’d like to grab coffee first.”
My eyes lift to discover Cade watching me, eyes unfocused, features soft.
He startles when he realizes I’m looking at him too.
What I wouldn’t give to know what he was just thinking about.
Placing the handset on the receiver, I weave my fingers together over my stomach and sink deeper in the chair, which creaks relentlessly.
Everything in the annex is unreasonably old, like Mulroney.
“It’s interesting,” Cade notes, closing his laptop.
“But… I’ve never actually interacted with Dr. Morton.
” He glances at the calendar hanging on the wall, the edges curled from the sunshine and relentless air conditioning.
“He’s been teaching overseas or on some sort of sabbatical most of the time I’ve been here.
” I don’t say anything, which earns me more nervous small talk from Cade.
He’d never admit it’s nervous small talk, but it is, and I fucking love it.
He adjusts the peer review papers needlessly. “You don’t address him as doctor?”
I shake my head. “He’s a professor.”
Cade sits up a little straighter. “If I were a doctor, I’d want you to address me that way.”
I can’t help but envision Cade with those pressed khakis banded around his thighs, me on my knees before him, mouth open as he says, “take it for doctor, won’t you?”
“He’s fine with it. Anyway, you’re right, he’s been working overseas at our sister university, then was on a sabbatical but apparently he’s back and just making sure I don’t want him to do my peer review,” I explain, hoping that Eli doesn’t find the time to pull Cade aside.
Though knowing Eli’s type, I realize my concern isn’t unreasonable.
I’m banking on Eli being so concerned with talking about himself that the peer review selection process never comes up. Also, a reasonable hope.
“Well,” Cade says, getting to his feet. “I’ll catch your morning lecture tomorrow, and we can be done with peer reviews entirely.”
He lifts his sweater off the back of his chair, draping it over his forearm before collecting his notes.
He never uses a projector, or works from his laptop.
When Cade lectures, the material is so ingrained in who he is and what he is passionate about, he can pace and talk, engaging with students for an hour without so much as a glance at a note.
I love how much he cares about everything, how invested and respected he is. Equally, I’d love to unravel him completely and set him on edge, uncover the invisible flame that burns so brightly inside him, the one he’s never even let himself discover.
We move to the door, and he exits first, lingering in the hall, silently waiting for me.
I love that he waits for me. He doesn’t wait for anyone else, and I know it’s mostly because we’re exiting the same office at the same time and this is more manners-driven than interest-driven, still.
I take all the scraps of Cade that I can get.
“Coffee, you said?” he asks, tucking his notes under his arm. “I’ll drop my stuff off in the lecture hall and go with you.” He catches a yawn with his hand. “I could use it tonight.”
I nod, and we start off in that direction. “Long day?” I’d rub his shoulders and ease the discomfort and stress of the day from his body, if only he’d ask. If only he’d want to ask.
He swipes a hand up the back of his head after smiling at a student who says hello as we pass.
“Yeah,” he says finally, “and I had planned on catching a nap on my break earlier but I forgot I agreed to help my sister finalize the seating chart.” He shakes his head, casting me a crooked grin that makes my stomach flop.
“My sister’s getting married. I told you that, right? ”
I nod. With another guy, I may pretend to not remember, just to make sure he knows that he doesn’t hold too much of my mind. But with Cade, I feel pressed to make sure he knows I remember everything he’s ever told me. “In a week, yes, of course I remember.”
He does a double-take, searching my eyes in a matter of seconds.
“Oh.” He nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and my eyes snag on the very light freckles that dust the apples of his cheeks.
I bet those freckles get dark when he gets worked up.
“I didn’t even get to eat lunch. I just wrote really, really small on tiny, folded pieces of paper until my sister said I could go. ”
I can’t help but snicker a little at that. “But you made your sister happy?”
He volleys his head as we approach the closed lecture door. Cade moves to dig his keys out of his pocket, but I already have mine out. Pressing the key in the lock, I smile. “I got it.” He releases his grip on his keys, protected by his pocket, and nods. “Thanks.”
Inside, the lecture hall smells of new carpet and melted plastic, which is a sign that Professor Williams used the projector in his last lecture.
Darkness envelopes the stadium-style seats, upholstered in blue and black, matching the new carpet the department so graciously installed last summer.
It took the pool flooding for the annex lecture halls to get new carpet but if that’s what it takes, we’ll take it.
I stand in the doorway, watching as Cade makes his way into the class, up the steps to the small stage centering the room.
He straightens his papers, placing them perfectly in the middle of the desk, aligning his favorite blue pen right next to them.
After nudging the AC a few degrees lower, he slips his arms back into his blue sweater, adjusts his frames, and we head out.