Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
ROSE
The warm sunrays felt good on my face the next morning. The lively campus matched the weather, and chipper students passed out flyers for Friday night parties. It was the perfect autumn day, but no amount of sunshine could wash away the memories of my mortifying night.
I couldn’t imagine facing the research assistants today. The gossip must have gone viral after they were sent home on my account.
Chemistry 405 was bound to be the end of me.
My long hair, curled in big beachy waves, bounced loosely over my back.
Thick eyeliner and pink lip gloss went with my outlandish outfit choice—a white maxi dress with a brown belt and thick wedges.
I had never been so dressed up at ten in the morning, but the outfit, makeup, and hair combination made me feel like I had protective armor against what was to come.
Skipping class wasn’t an option as attendance was mandatory for my grade. The research assistants worked at the lab, so I couldn’t avoid them, either.
Then there was Professor Maxwell.
I had no idea what to make of our odd encounter. His staff probably assumed he kicked them out to deal with my inappropriate behavior. By now, they must have found out I had emerged intact from the confrontation.
Why, oh why, did I get involved in Professor Maxwell’s personal life? Our association outside of the normal student-professor dynamic had dragged me into the spotlight, and I had no tools at my disposal to navigate the public eye.
My tote bag gently brushed the side of my ribs as I drew in a long breath and walked through the lab doors with my shoulders squared.
The bravado was painfully anticlimactic.
The research assistants were swamped at their stations, probably making up the work they had left behind last night.
When the other students arrived, they busied themselves with exchanging notes from the last lecture and conversing in low voices.
No one spared me a glance…except Matt. Amid my embarrassment, I had forgotten all about running out on him and Sophie.
“Hey.” He raised his hand and grabbed the empty stool beside mine.
I nodded before glancing at the seat he had claimed.
It was Amelie’s, but she hadn’t arrived yet.
I looked up at his hopeful face and his all-American smile.
He was perched at the edge of the stool, sitting as close to me as possible.
I leaned away inconspicuously so his knees couldn’t brush against mine.
Suddenly, I wished we had assigned seating.
He has been staring at you all night.
Sophie’s words matched the strong signals Matt was sending. No matter how many invisible walls I put up, he was getting increasingly aggressive with his efforts. My subtle letdowns were no longer effective.
“Where did you run off to last night?” he asked with a strained smile.
I shrugged, fishing into my tote bag for my notebook and a pen.
“I assumed it was some sort of big emergency,” he prodded.
Had he not realized I only spoke when I felt comfortable around someone? The only exception to this rule was when I was intoxicated enough not to care.
I shook my head, opening my notebook to an empty page.I lined up two pens perpendicularly and rotated them three times.
Matt watched me, patiently waiting for the truth about last night.
It hit me then.
He thought I had run off to be with a man. He wanted an explanation but didn’t know me well enough to demand one.
Perhaps it was best if he thought I was involved with someone else. It gave me an out and saved us both from an uncomfortable conversation.
Unfortunately, Matt wasn’t discouraged. “If you aren’t busy today, maybe we can hang out again?—”
I muttered a prayer when a purse slammed on the table, cutting him off.
“Thank God,” Amelie gushed, trying to catch her breath while simultaneously sorting through her bag. “Can’t believe I made it to class on time. Can you imagine what Professor Maxwell would say if he caught me walking in late?”
“He’d say we’re all useless, and he could train monkeys to arrive on time,” Sean joined the group and the conversation without missing a beat.
I smiled. I had never been happier about being paired with extroverts. Not only could they carry the conversation, but they were also the perfect distraction from awkward moments. Matt looked annoyed by the interruption.
“Why were you late?” Amelie asked Sean.
“Was talking to the boyfriend over the phone and lost track of time. You?”
“Missed my train.”
The conversation lulled when we heard purposeful footsteps walking into the lab. Such confident strides could only belong to one man. Professor Maxwell marched to the front of the class, stopping in front of the whiteboard. Today, he wore chinos with a button-down shirt and glasses. No lab coat.
Despite being a workaholic, he always appeared posh and well-groomed.
For the first time, dark circles had shadowed his eyes, suggesting he’d had a rough night.
A sinking feeling gnawed at me, hinting that something bad had happened to him.
I retraced the evening in my mind, but nothing pointed to the source of his physical distress.
At least, the casual wear made him relatable, and the girls ate it up.
Several eyes lingered on the shirt hugging his broad chest and shoulders.
You could almost hear the collective sigh of the female demographic because, dressed up or down, the Maxwell twins could stop traffic.
Girls giggled in the back, and I had a feeling that despite repeated warnings, more infatuated students would find themselves in trouble by the end of the semester.
While others were distracted by his taut muscles and sexy clothes, I was focused on something else entirely. I had never seen him with his black-framed glasses. The frames were square with two small blue diamond studs above the hinge screws.
Hm.The diamonds were barely noticeable; still, he never struck me as a person interested in embellishments of any kind.
His unsmiling eyes locked on to me right away. It took a couple more seconds for him to realize that Matt had sidled up to me. “You changed seats.”
I looked around—as did the entire class—and realized Professor Maxwell was addressing Matt. He called him out in front of the class without so much as a good morning .
Matt raised a hand to scratch the back of his neck, embarrassed by the blunt accusation. “Erm. Yeah.”
“Why?” Professor Maxwell asked, though it was more of a bark.
Matt was flabbergasted by the follow-up question. “I-I…just grabbed an empty seat. I didn’t think it mattered since we don’t have assigned seating?—”
“We do now. How else do you expect me to remember your unremarkable names? Change back.” When Matt didn’t stand immediately, Professor Maxwell’s face morphed into the scariest version of it I had seen. “Did I stutter?”
Matt moved out of the seat so fast that he knocked over his notepad.
Professor Maxwell glanced at me and tried to subdue some of the angry lines on his face.
He had been going to great lengths to repress his demonic personality around me.
He didn’t want to scare me, though I hadn’t figured out why he cared what I thought of him.
My guess kept returning to my scars because I was the only person he handled with kid gloves.
Once Amelie and Matt switched seats, I chanced a glance at our ever-morphing professor. He was already staring at me.
I gulped.
Throughout the lecture, his gaze kept finding its way back to me. This wasn’t just a one-time thing—Amelie noticed it too, confirming I hadn’t imagined it. She glanced between us, clearly trying to decipher the meaning behind these strange looks.
I felt my cheeks flush, and I desperately hoped no one else noticed the sporadic ogling. I was so focused on the thought that I could barely hear the lecture. I tried my best to jot down his words, but I already knew I had to borrow Amelie’s notes after class.
By the time the buzzing in my ears subsided, the lecture had concluded, and he was assigning homework.
“Select a topic for your term paper by next week. You’ll have until the end of the semester to conduct your research and submit a paper based on your theory. All the research must be done in the lab. If you don’t have enough time during class, do it after hours.”
I reached up to tug my ears, convinced I had heard him incorrectly. The man who didn’t want us anywhere near his lab just a couple of weeks ago was now providing us with an all-access pass.If pigs could fly.
“This paper will determine fifty percent of your grade. The rest will be based on pop quizzes, attendance, and lab participation. If you have any questions?—”
Several hands shot up in the air because it was the first time he had welcomed an interaction.
His icy blue eyes were unmoved as he said, “If you have any questions, don’t bother me. Figure it out. You’re adults.”
With that, he assigned our tasks for the lab portion of the day. I was astonished that the work sounded real.
Before I could collaborate with my group to divvy up our responsibilities, Miles beckoned me over to tell me I would be Professor Maxwell’s assistant again. My teammates wore an uneasy look as I walked away, and the other students picked up on the extra attention I was receiving.
Perhaps someone braver would have relished being favored by the aloof teacher.
But the weight of his staff’s judgmental eyes as I passed them was nothing to envy.
I didn’t want this, and they didn’t want me here, although none of us voiced our desires.
After all, we were all here at Professor Maxwell’s mercy and hanging on by a thread.