“Because it was a thrill. The thrill of wanting something that you can’t have. But being so close to getting it. I swear you can get drunk on the feeling. I think I was.”
“I think you were probably just regular drunk,” Asher mutters while taking a sip.
“You clearly have never experienced that feeling.” I wave down the bartender for another vodka soda.
“You’re right, because there’s never been anyone I couldn’t have.” He gives me that arrogant smirk, and his eyes trail back to the bartender.
“Maybe one day there will be.”
“Doubt it.”
“Well, it’s exhilarating. Sitting in a room full of people every week knowing just the two of you know this thing. It’s in the stares from across the room, and the brushes of skin when turning in an assignment, like a secret language that only you two speak.”
“You’re just romanticizing fucking your teacher.”
“Itwasromantic. He loved me, and I’d never... had that kind of love before.”
“But you didn’t love him back?”
“I thought I did, but it started to become something else. Possessive, jealous, controlling. He needed to know where I was at all times, who I was with, what I was doing. And then the day he told me he was leaving his wife for me it felt like a wave washed over me and snapped me out of a trance. The whole thing felt wrong suddenly. Then his wife walked in one day while I was there. I saw her face and I just knew that this wasn’t the first time. That there were other people before me that he found to be worth knowing, and it repulsed me. I wasn’t the one; I was just one of many. She left him, and I tried to as well, but he was not going to let me go as easily. He would show up wherever I was, he would threaten to tell the dean about the relationship even if he got into trouble for it, he would say anything to get me to stick around. It got so bad that I went to the dean and told him myself just so he didn’t have anything to threaten me with anymore. Miles resigned and I blocked him on everything. That night was when I went out and got a DUI.I thought I was going to be in trouble with the university over the relationship even though he was more so at fault here than I was. It didn’t feel like that then, but looking back on it... he was my professor. Maybe I should’ve known better, but hedefinitelyknew better. But I said fuck it and just dug myself a deeper hole. I barely remember the night but I do remember sitting in the Pembroke jail cell, cold, in just a crop top and jeans, thinking, Yep, this is low, this is an all-time low for me.” I take a long sip of my drink. “Now if I don’t fix this fucking mess I might end up back in a cell.”
“Probably not in a crop top and jeans though,” he jokes.
“Do you ever take anything seriously?”
“Do you ever not?”
Ivy Gate scores the first touchdown of the game and the whole bar whoops and cheers, loud enough to put an end to our conversation.
They win the game, and people are hammered. I realize I may be on my way to that state as well. When my head starts to feel heavy from the alcohol I rest it on my hand, watching Asher laugh with the guy on the barstool beside him. I notice the faint few freckles on his cheeks and how his hair seems to get darker in the fall, not the same shade of blond it was when we came back to school in August, almost a golden brown now. When he laughs, you can see all of his white teeth, and I note how his canine teeth are just a little bit pointy, and it reminds me of a vampire. When his lips come back together, I wonder if they’re soft—
“Sloane?” He looks at me like he’s waiting for an answer.
“What?” When I lift my head up the room spins a bit.
He hands me a water. “Chug that. Then we’re going back to you-know-who’s house to see if he’s gone.”
I take the water. “He’s not Voldemort—you can say his name.”
“Professor Miles Holland?” he says with a raised voice. My eyes go wide and I look around to see if anyone heard that. He laughs. “Thought so. Come on, Harry Potter, let’s go.”
The air is significantly cooler than it was this morning. A light breeze blows over me and it feels good on my skin. It also keeps the drunkenness at bay. We made sure to mix in water and food with our drinks over the past few hours but I still feel a good amount of buzzed. The happy, laughing kind. The flirting kind.
By some stroke of luck, the white Jeep Wrangler is not in the parking lot when we get back to the block of townhomes.
“Huh, he’s not here. Well, that’s lucky,” I say.
“Not luck.” Asher smiles. “I got his number from your blocked list and texted him anonymously pretending to be Ivy Gate’s campus emergency line. I told him there was a string of break-ins in the faculty offices and that all staff should come down there immediately to report anything stolen.” I just blink at him. I need to keep a better eye on my phone, clearly. “I don’t know how much time we have here, so let’s make it quick. I’m not trying to have another trunk situation.”
The trunk. Somehow, I forgot about that until now. How his body felt pressed up against mine. “You wish you could have another trunk situation.” I mumble it but it’s loud enough for him to hear. He stops on the stairs up to the front door before just shaking his head and putting a key in the lock. “Wait, where’d you get a key to his house?”
He opens the door. “Found it in his gym bag in the trunk, figured it might be for his house.” The entryway is dark, the only light coming from a small kitchen light at the end of the hall. The sound of pattering paws comes down wooden stairs to our left until Moose, the golden retriever, is standing in front of us wagging his tail.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, bending down to pet him. Moose licks my face excitedly.
“Looks like the professor isn’t the only one who misses you,” Asher says. We walk farther into the house followed by Moose. There are books, papers, and clothes scattered on every surface. It makes me wonder if the only reason his old apartment was so clean was because of his wife. Asher looks around with his arms crossed. “This is worse than the trunk.”
“Just start looking for my journal,” I say. “It’s small, brown, and made of leather with a string that ties it together.”
