Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
CADE
Rude. Humiliating. Tacky. Embarrassing.
“He fell asleep!” I relay the facts to my sister, who likely has me on speakerphone with Zennie.
“Oh my god, that’s so fucked up, Cade,” Kat commiserates, a visceral pop in the background tells me they’re having a bottle of wine. I’m half tempted to crash their night and get drunk with them.
“You’re kind of Rachel right now,” Zennie notes, and to that, I bob my head, even though tonight’s call isn’t FaceTime. “Remember when she wrote that long letter to Ross and he fell asleep reading it?”
I scratch at the end of day stubble coating my jaw. “I understood the reference.” I sigh. “I am Ross, because I am a professor.” I pause, not wanting to be the whiny female character. “If I’m Ross, you’re Monica,” I tell my sister.
Kat snorts. “You’re both Monica and Ross. I’m… not even on that show.”
She never liked Friends, and yet she saw enough of the show to make sure I know I’m both the uptight, type-A, high-stress sibling as well as the tries-too-hard, awkward intellectual sibling.
Lovely.
We trade our TV banter for an update on the wedding planning, and they tell me about the cake they decided on, that the band is selected, and table linens have arrived. Before we end the call, Kat takes over, and asks, “hey, you never told me, what did his review even say?”
I shake my head, staring at the muted TV screen where a commercial for some injectable drug plays.
“I don’t know.” She advises me to read the peer review, then Zennie comes on the phone and asks me a few questions about the book she’s reading and I agree to buddy read it with her, and go through any content issues together.
We end the call, and I get to my feet and start digging through my bag until I spot the folded, crinkled papers with black ink seeping through.
Just the sight of them has my irritation spiked, and my heart licking at my ribs.
Snatching it up, I go back to the couch, still in my work clothes, and flop down.
This is something stupid I do. I try to act nonchalant about things that make my heart race, even when I’m alone in my house.
I don’t like the word stupid, but this behavior of mine, along with a few others, is stupid.
I’m so used to stuffing uncomfortable moments down, shielding myself from my own deepest internal thoughts, not allowing the world to see any cracks in my facade.
It’s tiresome.
Carefully I unfold the papers, and the bottom one sails to the floor. I reach between my feet, and pause, seeing he hasn’t written a single word on the second page, which is littered with questions about my technique, the curriculum, the students' engagement, and planning.
Not. A. Word.
It makes no sense why Noah would be this way.
I look down at the first page, largely expecting to find it the same way.
But it’s not the same.
On the first page, he’s written one, singular sentence.
You’re hot when you’re going deep on Literary Theory.
I read those nine words approximately one hundred times. The noise of the bustling city around me fades away, the man delivering takeout to my neighbor downstairs is loud but I can hardly hear his thumping fist. My coffee pot dings, and the dishwasher hums.
But I can’t hear any of it because my pulse is kicking, my heart is pounding, and the noise in my brain is so overwhelming, I can’t even think.
All I can do is reread those words, and try desperately to hear them in his voice.
You’re hot when you’re going deep on Literary Theory.
Waffling between an immature joke or something more, I arrive at the annex with no clearer understanding of why Noah wrote that peer review yesterday. And while hiding under the massive stack of unshelved books at the library sounds like a fucking delight, I can’t.
I share an office with the man.
Not to mention, the back of my neck itches at the idea that my peers have not yet reviewed me.
I’ve drank all of my first coffee and am popping off the plastic lid on the second when the door swings open and a damp haired Noah saunters in.
He drops his leather crossbody on the ground, and nods his chin toward me.
“Morning, man. Have a good night?”
I toy with the idea of pretending everything is fine, and that he didn’t call me hot and sleep in my lecture, but I just can’t. There are already way too many things under my rug, there’s really no room for one more.
“Why did you write that?” I waste no time, there’s no soft preamble, nothing. “What if someone saw that? What would they think?” I shake my head. “Are you going to answer me?”
I hate that he’s got this passive smirk on his face, like he’s privy to a joke being played on me or something. I hate it. And I hate how heat curls around my ribs at the sight of him. I hate how bumps raise along my arms and down my chest when his cologne hits my nervous system.
“Which question? You just hit me with a few, actually.” He shrugs out of his leather jacket, revealing a see-through white collared shirt, and a white tank top beneath.
He looks like he’s selling cargo pants at The Gap, not teaching students at a college that costs an arm and a fucking leg.
But still, it works on him, and right now, that bugs me too.
“Why did you write that, Noah?” I shake my head, and touch the edge of my glasses.
He tucks his head toward the door, the universal sign to follow.
“No,” I argue, but Noah winks and barters.
“C’mon. Don’t be like that.”
He walks out, and fucking hell, I get to my feet and follow him. After all, I want my answer.
I catch up to Noah right as he reaches the last door in the hallway, the one adjacent to ours. He tugs it open an inch, but I stop him.
“Why did you write that?” I press, feeling a little crazy from having asked so many times. A little crazy to be following him. A little crazy to show anyone that I care about anything as much as I care about this.
His eyes fall to my lips, tracing them slowly as his lids grow droopy. “Because,” he says, his voice suddenly all bass, raspy and velvety, like the first tender notes sung softly against a microphone to a quiet crowd. “It’s true.”
He pulls the door all the way open and steps inside, and I follow him.
I’ve never been in here and it’s only after he shuts the door and turns on the light that I realize it’s a storage closet.
Bigger than a normal closet, of course, but completely full of boxes of toner, reams of paper, binders, dry erase markers, old projectors, and opened boxes of light bulbs.
I shake my head. “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Where’s your real review?” I don’t like being teased, and I don’t like hiding in a closet.
Noah reaches into his pocket, this time the opposite pocket, and produces a single sheet of paper, folded six times. “I emailed it to you, but here’s a physical copy, too.”
I take the paper and stuff it into my pocket.
I will not read it in front of him, and I won’t be doing anything in a partially dark supply closet either.
“If you had the real one with you, why did you drag me in here?” Umber eyes drag over my lips before studying the shades of blue in my eyes.
An invisible current tethers us, the back of my neck growing hot, my palms sweaty.
“To do this,” he finally replies. Noah stares at me inside his moment of hesitation.
Whiskey, want, and seriousness look back at me.
The edge of his lips curve. He slowly raises both large hands, and settles them on my cheeks, holding my face in a tender, almost intimate grip.
I barely have time to breathe because his lips are on mine, soft but hesitant, almost like he’s giving me the chance to end it, to pull away.
They’re fuller than I imagined, warm and a little chapped, pressing into mine with a tenderness that makes the middle of my chest ache.
Heat spreads through every inch of me like aggressive wildfire on a dry hillside.
Every nerve lights up as he licks into my mouth, tasting me.
His thumb strokes my cheekbone while his other hand leaves my face, settling on my waist, pulling me closer.
On the cusp of giving in, pressing my forehead to his and enjoying this moment, Noah pulls back.
He lets go, and steps away.
And then I’m alone in the closet with ink toner, my actual review, and a raging hard-on.
At home, I put the TV on in my bedroom, and I put the TV on in the front room. I crack my slider just to hear the hiss of bay winds eek through the opening. Once the kettle is full, I put it on the stove and ready a mug with a tea bag, though right now, I feel like I could down a fifth.
But tea is the safe choice. The choice with the least amount of loose ends, the choice that makes logical and respectable sense.
I look for anything else in my house that I can turn on, anything that makes noise or fills my space with any type of distraction.
But the TVs, the whistling kettle, the whipping wind–none of it silences the clanging bells in my brain, the screeching, rasping voice that cannot stop perpetually shouting— Noah kissed me.
Pacing the worn area rug behind my couch, I smooth my hand down my chest, catching my fingers on one of the shank buttons on my sweater.
His lips pressed to mine, his breath hot on my mouth, it all rushes back to me and I find myself working the buttons, tossing off the Peter Christian vest. At the sliding door, I brace a hand on the frame and poke my nose out into the biting spring.
It’s always kind of cold in San Francisco, and I’ve very rarely been hot.
Pressure stalks up my legs, settling with a heaviness in my groin. I tug at the collar of my dress shirt until the buttons pull free, and begin working the rest. A moment later, my shirt joins my sweater vest as I peer out at the bustling city all around me.