15. Lynn
— ? —
Lynn
Morning comes too fast.
I’m wrapped in warmth, Milo’s arms around me, his chest against my back, his breath soft and even against my hair. Sunlight streams through the window, the storm having passed sometime in the night, and everything is golden and perfect and I never want to move again.
“You’re awake.”
His voice is rough with sleep, and it does things to me.
“Unfortunately.”
“What time is it?”
I crane my neck to check my phone. “Seven-fifteen.”
“That’s early.”
“My first class is at eight.”
“Skip it.”
“I can’t skip it.”
“Why not?” He pulls me tighter, nuzzling into my neck. “This is nice. This is the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me. Academic obligations seem wildly unimportant in comparison.”
“I have a quiz today.”
“Quizzes are fascist.”
“You give quizzes.”
“And I’m deeply ashamed of myself.”
I laugh and turn in his arms, facing him properly for the first time this morning.
He looks wrecked in the best possible way.
His hair is a disaster, sticking up in twelve different directions, courtesy of my hands running through it all night. There’s a crease on his cheek from my pillow. His eyes are soft and warm and looking at me like I’m the sunrise.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“I have mascara under my eyes and my hair looks like a bird’s nest.”
“Beautiful,” he repeats firmly. “Devastating. Ruinous to my productivity.”
“Speaking of productivity.” I glance at the clock again. “We both have responsibilities.”
“Responsibilities are overrated.”
“You’re a professor.”
“I could skip.”
He says it against the crown of my head, arms tightening, like the idea of a lecture hall between us is personally offensive to him.
“You teach the classes. You can’t skip.”
“I could tell them I’m sick.”
“With what?”
“Love sickness.” He kisses my nose. “Acute Lindsay-itis. Very serious. Very contagious.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“I’m making it a thing.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m writing it into the medical textbooks as we speak.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You like me anyway.”
I do. God help me, I really do.
He kisses me properly then, slow and thorough and tasting like morning and last night and something I could get addicted to.
“I don’t want to leave,” he murmurs against my lips. “I want to stay here forever. I want to miss every class, skip every meeting, ignore every responsibility just to keep holding you.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It’s honest.”
“It’s also impractical. We have lives. Jobs. Educations to impart and receive.”
He groans and buries his face in my neck. “You’re the worst.”
“I’m the responsible one, apparently.”
“That’s a disturbing role reversal.”
“Get used to it.”
We manage to untangle ourselves from the sheets, a process that involves a lot of groaning and several more kisses and one memorable moment where Milo refuses to release my waist and I have to physically pry his fingers off.
“I need to shower,” I say, pulling my robe on.
“I need to leave.” He looks around the room, presumably for his clothes. “Where did my shirt end up?”
“The one your hamster pooped on?”
We both look at Mr. Darcy’s cage. Darcy is awake, watching us with beady-eyed judgment.
“That’s not going to work,” Milo decides. “I’ll go shirtless.”
“You’ll go shirtless. Across campus. In broad daylight.”
“I’ll be quick.”
“You’ll be photographed. By the Instagram account.”
His face does something complicated. “The what?”
“The Professor Draven Appreciation account, 2,000 followers. They got a picture of you at the coffee shop last week.”
“There’s an Instagram account dedicated to-”
“Your arms in sweaters, specifically.” I’m enjoying his horror more than I should. “But shirtless? That might break the internet.”
“This is deeply disturbing.”
“Welcome to the twenty-first century.”
He ends up borrowing my largest sweatshirt, an oversized thing I bought at a concert three years ago. It’s technically too small for him, stretched across his shoulders and exposing a strip of his stomach, but it’s better than nothing.
“I look ridiculous.”
“You look like a very attractive man wearing his girlfriend’s clothes after staying the night.”
“Am I?” His voice goes soft. “Your boyfriend?”
I freeze. We haven’t actually discussed labels. We’ve signed contracts and made out in libraries and done considerably more in the dark of my dorm room, but we haven’t said-
“I’d like to be,” he says. “If you want that.”
“I want that.”
His smile is blinding.
“Good.” He kisses me one more time, quick and hard and full of promise. “I’ll see you in class.”
“In class,” I confirm.
He goes to the window, and I realize he’s actually planning to leave the same way he came in.
“You could use the door.”
“Where’s the romance in that?”
He’s already got one leg over the sill, entirely unbothered, like leaping from third-story windows is a normal way to end a conversation.
“There’s a door. Right there. Leading to a hallway. With stairs.”
“The window’s more dramatic.”
“You’re going to break your neck.”
“I’m going to make a dashing exit.” He pauses on the ledge, silhouetted by morning light. “Tonight? My office?”
“Your office,” I agree.
And then he jumps.
Three stories.
I lunge for the window, heart in my throat, and see him land in a crouch on the grass below, completely unharmed. He straightens, waves at me, and strolls off across the quad like a man who didn’t just leap from a building.
“Show off,” I mutter.
But I’m smiling as I say it.
By the time he’s gone, there’s no time to shower.
I realize this approximately seven minutes before my eight o’clock class, when I’m still staring into my closet trying to decide what to wear.
My hair is a disaster, I smell like, well, I smell like Milo, which is actually kind of nice, and I’m definitely going to be late if I don’t leave right now.
There’s no time for anything but the first clean outfit I find, a brush dragged through my hair, and a sprint across campus.
I make it to class with thirty seconds to spare, sliding into my usual seat just as the professor starts lecturing about medieval trade routes.
The next few hours blur together.
I’m having trouble concentrating, which is understandable given that I spent last night discovering things about lycan anatomy that they definitely don’t teach in biology class. Every time I close my eyes, I feel his mouth on me. When I breathe, I smell him on my skin.
I should be worried about the lack of shower.
Instead, I’m kind of… enjoying it.
Walking around campus smelling like him. Like I’m marked, claimed, unmistakably his.
It’s a little concerning how much I like that.
Victorian Literature is at eleven.
I’m in my usual seat, third row, left side, when Milo walks in, and my whole body goes to attention before my brain catches up.
He’s wearing a different sweater today, deep green, rolled at the sleeves, and his hair is slightly less disheveled than it was when he left my window. He looks like he’s showered, which makes me self-conscious about my own lack of bathing, but then his eyes find mine across the room and-
You smell like me.
I don’t know how I know that’s what he’s thinking, but I do. The way his nostrils flare slightly. How his eyes darken.
He likes it.
He enjoys that I’m walking around campus covered in his scent.
Class begins.
Milo is lecturing about narrative perspective in Wuthering Heights, his voice warm and compelling as always. I’m trying to take notes, but mostly I’m remembering the way that voice sounded last night, rough and wrecked, telling me I was beautiful, telling me to come for him-
“Miss Crowe?”
I look up. The entire class is staring at me.
“I asked if you had thoughts on Nelly’s reliability as a narrator.”
“Oh. Um.” I scramble for an answer. “She’s not reliable. She has her own biases. Her own agenda. She filters the story through her perspective, which means we’re getting a curated version of events.”
“Can you give a specific example?”
My brain isn’t functioning at full capacity. “The way she describes Heathcliff. She has a clear opinion of him, which colors how she presents his actions. We’re meant to see him as villainous, but that’s Nelly’s interpretation, not objective fact.”
“Excellent.” His voice is warm with approval, and I feel it in my toes. “The unreliable narrator forces us to question everything we’re told-”
The classroom door opens.
A TA I vaguely recognize enters, tall, sandy-haired, carrying a stack of papers. He crosses to the front of the room and deposits the papers on Milo’s desk, then turns to leave.
As he passes my row, he pauses.
“Hey.” He’s looking at me with what he probably thinks is a charming smile. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Trevor. I TA the Thursday section.”
“Hi,” I say flatly.
“You’re Lindsay, right? I’ve heard you’re really smart. Maybe we could grab coffee sometime and-”
His hand lands on my shoulder.
It’s a casual touch, the kind of overly familiar gesture that certain men think is acceptable. But the effect is instantaneous.
Milo’s voice goes ice cold.
“Mr. Harrison.”
Trevor freezes.
“It’s generally considered inappropriate,” Milo continues, each word precisely enunciated, “to touch a student without their consent.”
“I was just-”
“Furthermore, interrupting a lecture to engage in social solicitation demonstrates a significant lack of professionalism.”
Trevor’s hand drops from my shoulder like I’ve burned him.
“If you could return to your duties.” Milo’s smile is sharp enough to cut glass. “I believe you have papers to grade.”
Trevor practically runs from the room.
As soon as he’s gone, Milo pulls out his phone and types something quickly, his expression still arctic.
Three seconds later, the classroom speakers crackle.
“Trevor Harrison to the department office. Trevor Harrison to the department office immediately.”
Milo pockets his phone, his expression smoothing back into pleasant neutrality.
“Where were we? Ah yes. Unreliable narrators.”
He picks the lecture back up as if nothing happened.
But I notice the way his jaw is tight. The way his hands grip the podium a little too hard.