“First of all, I’m a woman, not a girl,” Melanie said.
Noah rolled his eyes. “Besides, girls like Julie don’t know how to take a hint, so sometimes you have to be more upfront about it.”
“Julie is a nice girl,” Melanie said, though she didn’t know why she was sticking up for her. It wasn’t like she wanted Noah to take the girl out to lunch because she definitely would have been pissed. But she was a grown woman, and she didn’t take pleasure in seeing people hurt or humiliated, even though she knew Noah had a point. Julie liked Noah earnestly enough that she was sincerely waiting for him to like her back so long as he gave her a hint of attention. Maybe the only way for her to realize there wasn't a chance was for him to be a bit cold. Still, it was mean.
“She is a nice girl,” Noah agreed. “But she’s not the girl I want to be with.”
Immediately, the anger Melanie felt disappeared as Noah stood from his seat and grabbed her wrist, tugging her towards him. He hugged her, and Melanie relished his scent and how his arms alone made her feel comforted and safe. She could have stayed there all day, but she wouldn’t. No one could find out about their relationship, and maybe she wasn’t in her right mind the last time because she was so moved by his words, but this time she was.
Melanie pulled herself from his arms, ignoring his disappointed sigh.
“I missed you,” Melanie said to soften the blow, though the truth of the matter was that she really did. All day Melanie had been waiting for this moment, and truth be told, she wished the break had been a little bit longer so she could spend more time with him. Though it was nice to be at work again, it was going to be torture being around him while keeping their relationship a secret from everyone else.
“I missed you too,” Noah said as he pulled her back to him. “That’s why I want to show you.”
“Noah,” Melanie said with a warning tone. “We already talked about this. We’re not going to do anything in public that will get us caught.”
Noah sighed again as he released her reluctantly. “Okay.”
“You understand why, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding, but Melanie had a feeling that Noah didn’t truly understand at all. But he needed to. Her career was on the line if anything went wrong with this. She wanted to have him, but she knew that there was no way that anyone would be able to understand their relationship with each other. She wished they would.
CHAPTER
39
MELANIE
A
ROUND FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON, IT WASN’T NOAH OR A STUDENT WHO ENTERED MELANIE’S OFFICE, but Abigail. Melanie blinked, surprised until she suddenly remembered that Abigail told her yesterday that she would be nearby Weston, and that she might drop by to see her if she wasn’t too busy. Melanie couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face because she did miss her friend. She had barely seen her during the holidays because Abigail had left the country to visit her family. It was nice to see her again, and though Abigail got on her nerves with her childish ways, Melanie truly loved her best friend for always being there for her.
“Melanie,” Abigail said brightly as they both gave each other a big hug. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too,” Melanie said as she sat back down. “Give me another hour so I can grade these quizzes, and then we can go out for lunch.”
“Of course, you would already be grading something during the second week of school,” Abigail said, shaking her head. “I would hate your class.”
Melanie snorted. The quizzes weren’t even that hard. It was just a test to see if the students understood the material properly before she moved on to the next chapter. There would be no point if more than half of the class showed that they were having a hard time comprehending the work, especially since this was an upper-level course. Melanie wanted to make sure that her students actually got their money’s worth instead of just letting them skate by with things they wouldn’t retain past the beginning of the summer.
“So, how are you and lover boy?” Abigail asked excitedly as she sat down. “You don’t have to ask how I know. I can already tell. You would have been moping and running up my phone bill if you didn’t give in. But since I really didn’t hear from you that much other than a Merry Christmas and New Year, I knew you had to be spending all of your time with him.”
Melanie glared at her friend and her big mouth.
“I don’t talk about things like that at work,” she said and found herself looking around the room. Every time she was on campus, Melanie couldn’t help but feel guilty for her actions. She was always looking over her shoulders like she would get caught. But she couldn’t help it. That’s how you acted when you did something wrong.
“So, you can’t tell me anything,” Abigail said with a pout.
Melanie sighed and leaned back in her seat, thinking of what she should tell her friend. There was no way that she was going to go into details about all the great sex she had with Noah. Some things you just needed to keep to yourself and your sex life was one of them even amongst a close friend. She could tell her about the gift Noah got her, or what she got Noah or the time they spent together having fun. But for some reason, Melanie could only think about the present. Since the school year started, everything was different now.
With her no longer teaching and tutoring Noah, she barely saw him as much as she had before. And because of the way their classes were scheduled, they rarely got a chance to see each other while they were on campus except for short periods of time when they could meet up with each other. But even when they could find time to have lunch together, it wasn't like they could publicly be the way they were in private. Things were much more different than Melanie had expected, and sometimes, she couldn’t help but feel sad about the fact that she couldn’t spend as much time as she had spent with him before, especially since he was very focused on hockey. He was always late now when he came to her place, something that annoyed her very much. But Melanie found that she couldn't complain much even if she wanted to. The games would end no time soon if their team continued to dominate in the way they had been, and that meant Noah couldn’t slack now. And with agents starting to pour in to represent Noah, their time was very limited with each other, and Melanie couldn’t help but notice it.
“We’ve barely spent time together since the semester started,” Melanie admitted with a sigh as she grabbed her red pen, resuming her quiz grading.
“I bet,” Abigail said, shaking her head. “He’s probably super busy now. You should see how they’ve been talking about him on the sports channel and the radio. Everyone is buzzing about him and the potential teams that might pick him up. He’s going to have to be at his best.”
Melanie nodded in agreement. Whenever they did have time to spend together, Noah talked a lot about his practices and the big people coming to see him. Melanie was happy for him, but she couldn’t help the selfish part of her that wished she had more of his time.
