“Like Esme,” he said, pointing to the name at the top of the paper I held. “I know before I decided on the name Esme, I called her something else in some of my notes, but I’m not really sure what.”
“Esme. Got it.” I looked around the room again. “Well, you’ve certainly got thesqualorcovered.”
A laugh escaped him. It sounded like it almost hurt, like maybe he didn’t do it very often. He chuckled along with us in class, but this was different.
“Yeah, the squalor for sure.” He shook his head and gave an exaggerated puppy dog-eye look at me. “But not thelove.”
I put my head down pretending to read his list. But I was really trying to hide the smile that came across my face because he got my Salinger reference, and for the playful look he gave me.
He’d always been somewhat jovial—if distracted—in class, but I would never say he’d been playful with us.
Guess I wasn’t his student anymore in truth.
I looked back at him and he was staring down at me with humor and warmth. I couldn’t hide my smile any longer, though I tried to damper it a bit from how happy this whole situation made me.
“Wow,” he said, in almost a whisper. “You’re a pretty girl, but when you smile…beautiful.”
I started to look away, but didn’t. This was not some Bribury boy to play flirty games with. Billy Montrose was a man, and if he wanted to tell me he liked my smile, I was going to look him in the eye as he did.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to keep my voice light and breezy. Like men I’d been obsessed with for five years told me I was beautiful all the time.
My frankness seemed to take him a little aback. He straightened, moving away from me just a tiny bit, as he studied me. “You didn’t smile a lot in class,” he said.
“Funny, when you laughed at my Esme joke, I was thinking you didn’t do that in class…ever.”
“I didn’t?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Never an out-and-out laugh.”
He turned his head straight ahead, looking toward the door. “Huh. I thought you guys cracked me up all the time.”
“Well you, I don’t know, chuckled with us. But never a big laugh like you just did.”
Still looking at the door and not at me he said, “Was I a total dick? You can tell me. Your grades have already been submitted.” There was a hint of joking in his voice, but I thought it sounded forced.
“No, not a dick at all. Just not a big wisecracker. Most profs aren’t.”
He shook his head, then looked back at me. “No I suppose not.” Keeping his gaze steady on mine, he asked, “But was I pretentious as hell?”
I didn’t look away, didn’t hesitate as I said, “A little. But most profs are.”
He laughed. Not the big laugh of earlier, but still a nice sound that let me know he appreciated my honesty. And that it was okay to bust his balls a little.
When his smile dimmed, he looked around the office, not really at just the numerous boxes, but seeming to take in the office itself. “Prof. I’m a prof—if not in credentials, certainly in duties.”
“Yes,” I said softly. It didn’t really feel like he’d said it to me.
“Jesus, how did I get here?”
I stayed silent. It certainly wasn’t my place to answer him.
He may not have liked the path which brought him to Bribury—the maze of boxes, and lack of a second novel, indicated that it’d been a frustrating route—but I was happy he was here.
He stepped away from the desk and immediately I missed the warm presence of his body next to mine. “Okay, Billy, enough self-pity for today,” he said as he walked around the desk. “I’ve got three whole weeks with family that will trigger that particular emotion.”
A small sound of part laughter and part commiseration escaped from me.
“You too?” he asked from behind me.
