“I was tempted,” I muttered, sinking onto the bench beside Gwen. “Your favorite professor is a menace.”
“My favorite professor?” Aster scoffed. “Please. I admire his intellect, not his soul, he doesn’t have one.” Aster handed me her cup with mock solemnity. “Drink. You need caffeine and possibly an exorcism.”
I accepted it without protest, inhaling the warmth of cinnamon and nutmeg, the scent grounding me in a way I didn’t know I needed. “He stopped me in front of everyone,” I said, still hearing the cadence of his words. “Just, ‘Next time, don’t be late. And if you are, don’t bother walking through my door at all. You won’t be permitted to attend my class’ As though I were a child caught cheating on an exam.”
Gwen winced. “That’s brutal.”
“No ‘good morning,’ no acknowledgment that it’s the first week back,” I continued. “Just that tone, cold, exacting, utterly detached.”
“Stone lives up to his name,” Aster murmured, settling beside me. “Do you think he’s like that with everyone, or are you his personal target?”
“Honestly?” I said, staring down at the cup in my hands, watching the faint spiral of steam. “It feels personal.”
They both leaned in, curiosity sparking between them. I exhaled slowly. “He looked at me as if I’d fractured the order of his world. As though I were the single imperfection he couldn’t erase.”
“Maybe you are,” Gwen said softly, nudging me. “And maybe that’s exactly what he needs.”
I shook my head. “No. What he needs is therapy. And possibly a soul transplant.”
Aster laughed, a low melodic sound. “Or a vacation. Or, more likely, a woman.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned, leaning back against the bench. “Anyone but me.”
Aster’s grin turned sly. “You’re the one analyzing his eyes and his voice and that jawline as if you’re preparing a dissertation on erotic tension.”
“I am not,” I snapped, too quickly.
Gwen’s smirk widened. “You absolutely are.”
I glared at both of them, taking a long, scalding sip from the cup. The heat burned my tongue, but the pain helped steady my thoughts. Still, even surrounded by Aster’s biting humor and Gwen’s quiet affection, my mind wouldn’t quiet. It kept circling back to him, the memory of his stare, the composure that seemed carved from restraint, the presence that unsettled something I didn’t want touched.
“I don’t understand it,” I whispered finally, the words barely audible. “Something about him lingers. It settles beneath my skin and refuses to leave.”
Aster rested her head lightly against my shoulder, her tone softer now. “Then maybe stop fighting it,” she said. “Or at least distract yourself. Let’s get another coffee before next class. You’ll feel better.”
I stared across the courtyard, the frost catching light in delicate shards, the weight of his voice still somewhere inside me. “Maybe,” I murmured, though even I didn’t believe it.
I nodded, though a thought pressed quietly against the edges of my mind, persistent and unwelcome. What if this wasn’t something I could simply shake off? What if the problem wasn’t that Professor Hayden had unsettled me, but that the feeling he left behind refused to fade, an irritation buried just deep enough to linger.
Aster nudged Gwen with her elbow, her tone deceptively casual. “Hey. Can you ask Zayn to do a little… digging?”
Gwen blinked, suspicion tugging at her expression. “Digging?”
“You know. A light background check. Nothing sinister. Just, academic curiosity,” Aster said, twirling her straw between her fingers with the calm of someone pretending she wasn’t plotting an investigation.
I gave her a look. “You want to stalk our professor?”
Aster smiled sweetly. “Not stalk. Investigate.”
“Those are synonyms.”
Gwen leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, a small smile pulling at her lips. “You mean Professor Stone?”
“Obviously,” Aster replied, her tone syrupy. “Edwina’s favorite antagonist.”
I groaned softly. “He’s not my antagonist. He’s just—”
“—an emotionally detached, unfairly attractive academic disaster,” Gwen finished for me, her grin growing smug. “Got it.”
