“Picking up Angel?”
“No, I’m taking this assignment of his to his professor because he’s not feeling so well.”
“What’s wrong with him? How long has it been going on? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Score.
“He’s had this cold for a week or so now. Sounds pretty awful, if I’m honest. Coughing his lungs out and all that,” Devin gleefully explained as he dodged a few students on the steps to the building where he knew Professor Kent’s office was located.
“I will strangle that child myself!”
“Mama, we’re twenty-five now. We’re not little kids. I guess he wanted to just—”
“Be a man about it! That’s what he wanted to do. I’ll call him myself. Stay safe, Devin. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mama.” He put the phone back into his jeans pocket and approached the directory on the wall to see where exactly he was supposed to go.
He hadn’t met Angel’s art history professor-slash-mentor before. All he knew was that the guy was supposedly about a decade older than them and easy on the eyes. Even Angel, who was mostly straight, had paid attention. It wouldn’t be a hardship to get the papers to Professor Kent, Devin thought, smiling a bit.
It was surprisingly easy to find the right office. He knocked on the door and a pleasant voice called him in.
He still wasn’t quite prepared for how handsome Kent was.
“Uh, hi,” he said, trying to mentally take hold of himself. “I’m Devin Rice, Angel’s brother?” He stepped inside fully and tried not to fall over his own fucking feet. Clumsily, he tried to close the door behind himself, but it didn’t latch properly.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” the gorgeous man behind the desk asked him, blue eyes twinkling and crow’s feet scrunching in an extremely attractive way. “You need to really push it to latch it sometimes,” he advised, when the door refused to cooperate.
Finally, Dev’s brain caught up with the program. “Well, given that I look nothing like him, could be either, don’t you think?”
Where Dev had dark hair and pale skin with light brown eyes, Angel had light blue eyes that stood out with his much darker complexion and black hair.
“That is true,” Kent admitted, then held out a hand. “I’m Professor Kent, as you know already. Nice to meet you.”
They shook hands, and Devin could swear a hint of electricity sparked between their palms.
“So, what can I do for you, Mr. Rice?”
“Angel’s got a killer cold, and you needed this on paper,” Dev said, holding out the assignment.
Professor Kent nodded and took the sheets from him. “I’m sorry to hear that he’s ill. There’s some sort of a crud going around the campus apparently. I’ve been saved so far.”
“Ouch. Well, I won’t linger here too long, then,” Dev said, wincing at the thought of catching the awful thing here when he’d so far managed to avoid it at home.
“We have a lecture on Monday at nine in the morning. Tell Angel that if he’s still feeling bad, I’ll have my TA send him notes.” Kent looked at him with a compassionate expression that somehow warmed Dev’s heart and made him even more appealing.
“I’m sure there’s a classmate or something who can help him out. He wouldn’t want to be too much trouble—”
“Nonsense. By now I know Angel, and I know he wouldn’t skip lectures if there wasn’t a good reason. I know he would hate to draw attention to himself, but my TA always has good notes just in case someone is too sick to come to lectures. Mind you, she never gives them to people who were too hungover to show up or things like that, but, you know, illness is different, even for Antoinette.” The grin Kent directed at Dev told him this wasn’t a new topic for him by any means, and it made Dev’s stomach fill with odd flappy things.
“Oh, okay. I sicced our mom on him just before I came in, so he should be getting better soon. If not with medicine, then by pure fear of Mama getting on the plane and heading over from Anaheim.”
Kent threw his head back and laughed out loud. “She sounds a lot like my own mother,” he said, chuckling still.
“Good. I like the idea of people having good mothers,” Dev said, not really knowing where the thought came from. His expression must’ve changed, though, because Kent looked at him more seriously then.
“I take it that statement has some personal experience behind it?” he asked and immediately raised his hands. “No, never mind. I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s none of my business. I don’t know where my manners went.”
Professor Kent looked so embarrassed, Dev grinned. “Should I be calling your mom to have her tell you off?”
