I scroll up to read the message Chase sent as me.
Hi, Rena. I’m Ryan, a friend of Chase’s, and when I saw your picture in his phone, I just had to ask you out. I’m a math professor, but not one of the weird ones. How’s this weekend?
And following that is a picture of me at the beach, holding a surfboard.
I raise my brows in surprise. “Maybe I should get you to ask girls out for me all the time,” I say.
“I don’t know why you ever doubted me,” he replies.
“Okay. So…a date.” I stare at my phone, trying to comprehend what I’m about to do. I’m going to take a girl on a date… A girl that isn’t Claire. I haven’t been on a date in at least three years. No one has been interesting enough for me to ask them out.
“Take her to dinner,” Chase says slowly, like I’m an idiot. “Ask her questions about herself. Talk a little bit about yourself, but not too much. Girls don’t like that. And at the end of the night, walk her to her car and give her a kiss.”
“Kiss. Yeah. Okay.” I shake my head.
“Or…don’t. That’s okay, too. But make sure you’re interested in her. Don’t think about Claire the whole time.”
Yeah… That’s gonna be rough.
Later that evening,I’m packing up my things in my cubicle for the weekend and nearly jump out of my skin when I hear Claire behind me.
“Ryan! Where have you been?”
I tell my racing heart to calm down and turn to face her, putting a nonchalant grin on my face. “Around.”
“Well, I wanted to update you on the tutoring center.”
“I thought we were meeting again next week,” I say.
“Yeah, I just thought you’d want to hear what’s going on.”
“Okay. You can email or text me.”
Her brow furrows, and the hurt look in her eyes immediately makes me backtrack. “Or not. You can tell me.”
“I talked to Lorraine,” she says. “And she said we could use the empty room in the library next to the STEM lounge.”
I nod. “That’s great.”
“It is. So now we just have to worry about getting some computers.”
I press my lips together. “Computers. Yep. Got it.”
“Mmkay.” She eyes me suspiciously but moves her gaze back to the list in her hands. “I think we have enough money in the budget to find some computers. And there are a few extras in the library. We can have the students work on self-paced lessons through ALEKS depending on whatever concepts they’re struggling with most.”
“Yep. Sounds good.”
She sighs and sets her papers down on my desk, then puts a hand on her hip. “I can tell you’re not really into this today. What’s going on?”
My chest is tight, and I’m emotionally frustrated. All I want to do is burst out and say,I’m in love with you, and you’re engaged to someone else!But I can’t do that. Not without ruining everything that we’ve built up over the years.
So instead, I make something up. “I’m just a little preoccupied with my calculus class.”
She chuckles. “Since when do you worry about your classes?”
I shrug a shoulder. “We’re about to do our last year of tenure review. Just want to make sure everything goes well.”
“I thought the only issue was your college service?”
