It’s not required, but I decide to go to the first lecture of the semester to check out Ethan’s style. I’m shocked by the number of students crowding the hall. When I look around and realise a good seventy-five percent of them are female, I’m not surprised.
Ethan strides up to the lectern, and there’s an audible sigh. Even from me.
“Good morning,” Ethan says with a barely there smile. “This class is Akhenaten, The Heretic King. I’ll be taking your lectures, and Sadie Montgomery”—he lifts a hand to indicate where I’m sitting in the back row—“will be your tutor. Any housekeeping questions, see Sadie.” Everyone turns assessing looks on me, probably wondering how tough I’m going to be on them.
Having left the housekeeping to me, Ethan starts the lecture. I was worried I’d be distracted by his physicality. By his beautifully proportioned hands, his full, soft lips, his strong thighs encased in faded denim. I wipe my mouth to check for drool. But less than ten minutes in, I’m mesmerised by the picture he’s painting of Akhenaten, his famous wife Nefertiti, and their break from traditional Egyptian polytheism.
And I’m not the only one. Every student in the room is hanging on his every word.
By the end of the lecture, I’ve realised I’ll have to come to all of them. Because even though he’s given me the slides and lesson plans in advance, the most interesting stuff happens when hegoes off-script and takes his students down a rabbit hole. I can put that stuff to good use in the tutorials.
There’s five minutes left in the lecture when he stops for a moment, hands on hips.
“Okay. Let’s see who was listening. Since this was the first lecture, I’ll go easy on you. True or false: Akhenaten wasn’t supposed to be Pharaoh.”
Hands go up all over the room and Ethan points to a student in the third row.
“True,” she squeaks breathlessly, and everyone laughs as Ethan lobs a chocolate at her.
“Correct. Name one thing Akhenaten revolutionised besides religion?” Even more hands. Murmurs. Excited laughter as Ethan points to a guy right up the back near me.
“Art and architecture,” he responds.
“Ah, an over achiever. Correct.”
Two chocolates get lobbed.
At exactly five minutes to the hour, in every lecture I’ve ever been in, students start packing up their laptops, regardless of whether the lecturer is still speaking. Not today. They’re all waiting for another chocolate. I find myself wishing I could put my hand up and get a chocolate too.
The tutorial is straight after the lecture, so I make my way to the front of the room, picking up snippets of conversation as I go.
“Oh, my God, he’s so hot.”
“Isn’t he dreamy.”
“I wonder where he got those boots.”
“I need to put in more effort on thigh day.”
I try to suppress my smile. Seems like Ethan has entranced them all. Male and female.
“Over to you, Sadie.” Ethan slings his satchel over his shoulder and surreptitiously slips a chocolate into my hand. Damn, he’s a mind reader too.
By week three of classes, it’s clear the boys all want to be him. I’ve noticed more than one wearing the same kind of battered work boots—although they’re nowhere near as sexy when they’re shiny and new—and the chunky jumpers he tends to wear.
And the girls all want to fuck him. Who can blame them? His particular combination of hot and smart is nigh on irresistible. Add in his dry sense of humour and the legends of his heartbreak—which get more exaggerated every day—and he’s total catnip.
Girls who, on any other day, would wear jeans and a T-shirt to uni come to Ethan’s lectures in dresses and makeup, inventing reasons to talk to him after his lecture. Twirling their hair and leaning against the lectern at the front of the room. Gazing up at him with hearts in their eyes.
And Ethan is oblivious to it all. No matter how pretty they are. It’s not even that he ignores the flirting. It’s as though he’s completely unaware of it. He sees nothing beyond the work the students do.
He’s completely and utterly focused, and he pushes them hard. The students respond to that, too. I don’t remember anyone working so hard for a good grade in any of my undergrad classes. Well, except for me. But I’m a special case of an abandoned daughter trying to prove to an absent father that he made a mistake leaving her behind. That I was worth his time. It’s taken me a lot of heartache, plenty of soul-searching, and a fair bit of therapy to understand that. To accept it.
Earning a ‘well done’ from Ethan, or a rare smile, or one of the chocolates he tosses out for a particularly insightful answerhas motivated these kids. It makes the tutorials so much fun to teach. Because they’re all on a high after the lecture. And they think by impressing me, they’ll get a mention with Ethan. Which isn’t untrue. Ethan knows each and every one of them and what he believes they’re capable of. And he asks for my opinion when one of them underperforms on a task. Nobody slips through the cracks in Ethan’s classes.
I wish I’d had a lecturer like him. Mine were mostly dry and boring. Ethan is the complete opposite. I admire his work ethic, his creativity and his depth and breadth of knowledge. Which is inconvenient. Because I don’t want to like him. I don’t want to admire him. But it’s impossible not to.
In fact, he’s so impressive that when we’re working, I’m mostly able to suppress the inappropriate shiver that runs up my thighs and settles between my legs when I happen to catch sight of him outside of the work environment. And ignore the heat in his gaze when I inadvertently catch his eye. Mostly.
