Jace: An ant scientist? Wow.
Me: You know what a myrmecologist is? You typed that too quickly to have looked it up.
Jace: Believe it or not, I just listened to a podcast episode about myrmecology. I can’t believe you thought that was boring!
Me: Honestly, this guy could have been an astronaut and it would have seemed boring. He had this monotone voice. Zero inflection.
Jace: You know who doesn’t have a monotone voice? Yours truly.
Me: Watch it. I was serious about reporting you to the disciplinary board.
Jace: If that were true, then you wouldn’t have texted me back after your date.
I tried to think of a cutting response, but I was drawing a blank. Jace was right. He had respected the boundary that I set, and then I immediately broke it after three glasses of wine.
I didn’t really care much about that, though.
Me: You’re my student. So nothing can happen. But, hypothetically, I’ll stop being your professor in May.
Jace: Oh yeah? We could have a lot of hypothetical fun after that.
Me: Like what?
Me: Hypothetically.
Jace: I don’t think I should be texting my professor specifics. Not over an unencrypted chat.
Jace: Hypothetically, there’s a chat program called Signal. Which, hypothetically, has full end-to-end encryption.
Me: That sounds interesting. Hypothetically.
I downloaded the Signal app and added Jace’s phone number. Before I could think of what to type, I received a message from him in the app.
Jace: Hey. You downloaded the app.
Me: Hypothetically, I did. Now what were we talking about? Oh, yeah. All the fun things we could do when I’m not your professor in May.
Jace: Sorry, but I don’t think this kind of conversation is appropriate.
Me: Oh shut up.
Jace: I’m serious. I just wanted to know if you’re as interested as I am. Which you answered by downloading Signal :-)
Jace: You must be into me REALLY bad. You’re practically falling in love. With one of your own students.
Me: Congratulations. You’ve officially lost my interest. You can go back to jacking off to porn, or whatever it is you do on a Saturday night.
Jace: I went out to a bar tonight. I’m home now though.
Me: You struck out? Wow. I would think dating is like shooting fish in a barrel for you.
Jace: Why do you say that? Because I’m devastatingly handsome?
Me: Because you’re an older guy in a college town. You’re experienced, and they’re young and gullible. Plus, girls are probably attracted to you because you can buy them beer.
Jace: First of all, I don’t need to buy girls beer to get them to go out with me. And second, I wasn’t prowling for skirt tonight. I actually met up with an old Army buddy.
A photo appeared on the Signal app. It was a selfie taken by Jace while he had his arm around another guy with a head that was made for a crew cut. My eyes immediately locked onto Jace, though. I found myself admiring the easy smile and the way his shoulder muscles pushed up against his shirt.
