Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
NOAH
Two days of stonewall.
Two.
He hasn’t been this uptight and quiet since his first week here five years ago. But everytime I come into the office and Cade’s already here, I find him conveniently on a work call, in a student meeting, or engrossed in a stack of essays with his EarPods in.
He’s avoiding me.
Cade is smart. But it is my deepest belief that he is completely inexperienced in life when it comes to relationships and even friendships. Which means he doesn’t realize that by avoiding me, he’s opened a large window into his psyche.
The kiss frayed all of his already loose and wild ends. The review was meant to show him that the kiss was absolutely serious, and that I’m absolutely serious about him.
The EarPods tell me that he isn’t comfortable admitting any part of that. Not yet. But I’ve caught the tail end of lingering looks. I’ve also never seen those same, wanton and lovelorn eyes linger on anyone else. No females. No other men.
Just me.
Even though I’m an English professor, there’s a scientist in me telling me that while I do have the situation figured out, a test would be sound. To verify.
Cade is working in the writing center today, meeting with the peer tutors.
It’s about an hour of his time he gives them twice a week, when they run through their challenging papers and questions passed to them from other students.
He sits patiently, sipping his coffee from his favorite cart, and guides them.
I stop in front of the blue door that is six down from ours.
It’s open, but she’s on the phone, so I lightly knock and mouth, “can I?” I motion to the empty chair in front of her desk, and Tara nods, returning to the receiver pressed to her ear, held there by her shoulder.
Her fingers scatter over her computer keys as she multitasks in a way that I think only women can do.
“That’s fine. The grant should cover those expenses.
When I hear from the Education Department, I’ll get back to you.
” A rumble seeps through her receiver, and she nods.
“Uh-huh. Sure thing.” She rolls her eyes as I lift an essay off her desk and thumb through it. “Sounds good. Alright then. Take care.”
“Whoring yourself for grant money?” I tease, still thumbing through this actually pretty good essay about Beowulf. I toss it back to the pile.
She opens the top drawer of her desk and retrieves a black lacquer comb and starts tugging it through the ends of her hair. “You know it.”
I stack my feet on the edge of the chair across from me, and smile. “I need… a favor.”
She rolls open a tube of bright red lipstick, and expertly applies it to her lips without a mirror, all while talking to me. “What kind of favor? And you know if I do whatever it is which I obviously will, then you owe me. For real this time.” Bright green eyes pinch down on me.
“What? I’ve never owed you and not come through. That’s not my style.”
She sighs. “I said no to sharing my office when Dr. Pratt wanted to put Cade in here, remember? You begged me to say no. Told me you’d buy me a fancy espresso machine if I said no.
” She glances back to her single-cup Keurig, where a piece of duct tape dangles from the side.
“And look. Does that look like a fancy coffee machine to you? Or does that look like my mother’s second generation refurbished Keurig? ”
I wince. “I’m sorry. I’ll get you one.” I’m not lying when I say it is unlike me to forget paying back favors. “I think the moment I got what I wanted, I kind of got… sidetracked.”
Tara slips her feet back into the pumps waiting under her desk. “I get that. Cade is adorable.” She wrinkles her nose. “But I’ve never seen him with anyone. Like, ever.” She snaps, spine straightening.
I don’t want to surmise his sexuality with anyone but him, not just because it’s not my style to discuss serious elements of people’s personalities behind their backs, but also, I know Cade wouldn’t like it.
I find my happy medium with a shrug and a smirk. “Your new espresso machine, with all the fancy presses and steamers, will be here in two days,” I assure her, then add, “but today, I need you to ask me to dinner.”
Tara’s red lips curve down, expressing her easy willingness. “Sure.” She pauses. “Tonight? Because I have plans tonight.”
“We aren’t really going to dinner. It’s just–”
“To make him think we are, and to see how he reacts.”
I nod. “Yes.” This is why Tara and I get along so well.
Outside of the fact that we have no awkward, lingering sexual chemistry and no long-standing weird dating history, we just get each other.
Like tonight, I’d be willing to bet she’s going out with someone she met on Tinder, and she’s looking to get laid.
She’s got a healthy crush on another professor and tonight’s date is more so about scratching an itch while she plays the long game for Dr. Makris’s affection.
She gets to her feet and I get to mine. “Does now work? I have a meeting with Dr. Pratt at 4.”
“Now is perfect.”
I still can’t quite work out why he changed his clothes, and I’m not an egomaniac, but I’m certain I’ve got something to do with it.
Typically, after his morning lecture, he retreats to the gym for his long run, or pokes around the department break room, sipping tea and enjoying casual reading before he returns to the office.
Cade is one of those guys that even five years in, never takes advantage of any freedoms. He follows every rule, dots every i and crosses every t.
Leaving campus isn’t something he does often.
But today, after I kissed him in the closet, he left.
“How do you wanna do this thing?” Tara whispers out the side of her mouth as we take the steps down to the first floor.
“The usual.”
She snorts. “We’ve done this once two years ago. We have no usual.”
I swipe a hand up the back of my head and sigh. I’m not second guessing a thing, but my eyes land on Dr. Morton coming our way. “What you did last time worked,” I say, my words a little detached as Eli nears.
She nudges me. “Dr. Dipshit is headed toward us.”
“Ms. Shae,” Eli greets, using his classic phony voice.
One of the things I loathed about Eli after we were dating for a few months was the discovery that he is a massive bullshitter.
It’s one thing to use a nice voice for your grandmother, or the old lady whose purse strap is stuck in her cart, but to have a fake voice for everyone, all the time, over innocuous little nothing conversations is borderline psychopath.
If he could fake a voice, and fake an entire personality a million different ways, all of which allowed no one to truly know him, what else could he fake? Spoiler alert: fidelity. He was great at faking that.
“Welcome back,” she says, no excitement in her tone.
“Thank you, and–”
I don’t let this get far, because I know Eli. He wants me back. Not because he loves me the way I thought I loved him all those years ago but because he needs an entry back into social graces on campus, and he believes I’m it.
He can fuck himself.
“We gotta go. Excuse us,” I say, leaving no opportunity for more as I link my arm with hers and drag her down the remaining stairs.
“He’s so ick,” she whispers as we’re treading across the quad toward the library.
I don’t want to think about Eli ever again, much less talk to him.
I explain to Tara that Cade is finishing up in the writing center, and we make our plan.
Not more than three minutes later am I traipsing through the library halls, right in front of the work room window where the entirety of the writing center tutor team is meeting.
Out of nowhere, Tara turns a corner, books stacked to her eyeballs when we–oops—colllide.
The contents of her arms spill to the carpeted floor, and our eyes lock.
The door opens, and students come filtering out, thanking Cade, talking quietly with one another.
He catches the door with his foot, lingering there while a student struggles with their books inside the study room.
Tara lifts her hand to greet him, and that’s the signal that Cade’s focus has snagged on us.
“Professor Shae,” he greets, raising his hand to greet her.
I glance his way and find his blue eyes darting between me and Tara.
The excellent wing woman that she is, feigns embarrassment, collecting a few stray books from the floor, the aftermath of our orchestrated accident.
“How is everything going with the writing center? You know, I was leading that up for a few years before we were lucky enough to snag you. Are you enjoying it?”
I don’t miss the subtle pinch of his eyes as he listens, like he’s annoyed or even better, jealous. “It’s going well,” he answers easily, shoving his hands into his pockets as I collect the last book from the floor, sliding it onto the cart of books to be recataloged. “I’m enjoying myself.”
“Good,” she nods, “that’s great. I’m always recommending the resource to all of my students, even upper division.
” Tara smooths her hands down her skirt, and twists to face me, but cuts her gaze between the two of us.
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes to Cade, then me.
“I have a meeting in ten, but,” she clears her throat as if a frog is stuck and she’s got to dislodge it to get to her words.
I owe her that espresso machine and the best espresso the city has to offer.
Maybe even a new tumbler. She’s good. “Professor Ryan,” she begins, shaking her head, a pinch in her brows.
“Noah. I’m glad we bumbled into one another.
Do you have… plans tonight? Dinner plans? ”
I let a slow smirk curl my lips as I glance down, faux sheepishly taking in my shoes, lifting my hand to stroke at my jaw in that ah shucks type of way. “I’d love to.”
“Really?” The way her eyebrows raise, the way she sells her excitement, and somehow, with a lilt to her lids and her tone a little more syrupy than usual, she also sells the idea that she’s not asking me to a business dinner.
I nod. “Sure. And… are you by any chance headed to Dr. Pratt’s office? Because—”
“I am,” she beams. “Are you?”
I nod again, and after offering to walk together, we both turn to Cade, who is hard at work swiping the end of his sweater over the lens of his already-clean glasses.
“Have a wonderful afternoon, Professor Mercer,” she says in finality as she links her arm with mine, and disappears behind the stacks, toward the exit.
Outside, in the last traces of the afternoon sunlight, she knocks her closed fist to mine, walking backward, away from me, as she says, “espresso machine. Two days.” She runs a manicured finger along her throat. “Or else.”
I smile.
She waves. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck.”
She can have it. I don’t need it. I’m going to show Cade that there is a wonderful life waiting for him, outside the rules he’s boxed himself in with. I’ll help him open the book inside of himself, and read his own story, discover his own truths.
But before all that, I’m going to go to a wedding with him, and have hours upon hours of Cade Mercer and his slutty little glasses pressed into a tuxedo.
I have all the luck, I’m not sure there’s any left for Tara.