Our administrators were old school. The oldest sometimes. Strange for a technical college.
As much as I mentally complained about it, at least taking a small trip to the office broke the monotony.
Picking up my leather satchel, I slid my laptop inside. I chose to teach at the school instead of online, mostly to get me out of the house and avoid cabin fever. The stroll through the city every morning helped me organize my thoughts, and the stop at my favorite coffee shop and then the bakery made everything okay.
But even my morning walk grew stale sometimes.
On days like today, it seemed like a lot of things had gone flat.
My bond brothers, my pack, we all had grown into a comfortable system. We rotated the chores. Each had his own jobs. Shared housecleaning. All too…routine.
Something was missing from our lives. Not something. Someone.
We’d found each other years ago, but packs needed an omega.
The administration office. It was a huge room with glass windows and a partition between the student and faculty and staff sides. Students flitted in and out, confirming details. Making appointments for financial aid. Getting in trouble.
“Miles, it’s good to see you.” Jessie, at the front desk greeted me by my first name. I didn’t know why. Even the older staff called me Professor Kurt, by my last name.
“Jessica.” I used her real name, not the one I’d heard other people call her. “I received a text regarding some paperwork to sign?”
Right to business. She’d flirted with me a bit in the past, but unless a female was potentially our omega, I didn’t flirt with them. Didn’t date them. Nothing. I preferred to save those things for my mate. Our pack’s mate.
My wolf snarled a bit inside me. He had no patience with flirty females. He only had eyes for an omega we hadn’t met yet.
“Oh. Yes. Where did that folder go?”
While Jessica talked to herself and fumbled through folders, someone walked into the adjacent office. Bright-pink hair flowed to her lower back. Jeans hugged her like a second skin, and she wore a shirt not fit for the winter chill we still experienced.
She wrapped her arms around her chest. Maybe from cold. Or to protect herself from something?
My wolf perked up.
“Miles, here we are. This is the professor’s contract. Sign here.” Jessica slapped the document on the counter. I picked up the pen and almost signed. Almost.
“Jessica, this isn’t my contract. Someone else’s name is printed below the signing line.”
Her face reddened. “Oh. Shoot.”
While Jessica disappeared into the next room to search for the correct document, I returned my attention to the student again. I’d never seen her before, but it was a new quarter and most students attended online classes at this school. Perhaps this was the first time she’d been on campus.
“Good morning,” she said to the receptionist on the student side. “I tried to enroll…something about…” The glass partition muffled her words, and I strained to hear.
“Here we go!” Jessica popped back into view with some new papers in her hand. “Sign these, please. I swear they’re the right ones this time.”
I flipped the pages with a bit of annoyance. Not only at Jessica’s disorganization but at being interrupted while trying to hear the woman not ten feet away from me. Her voice sounded distressed. She was enrolling online, it seemed, so that meant she may not have been here before.
For some reason, the thought of passing the woman before and not seeing her distressed me. More than that, it upset my wolf. A beautiful woman like that? I didn’t think it was likely.
There were no explicit rules about dating a student but it was an unspoken one.
I used that unspoken rule more than once to fend off female students. Not puffing up my own chest, just the truth. They flirted. Sat on the edge of my desk and tried to touch me. Asked for private tutoring sessions. Sometimes I was more gruff than I needed to be in thwarting their advances.
“There you go. And the newsletter?”
“Right here, sir.” A lilt appeared in her voice at the wordsir. Interesting shift fromMiles. Maybe I was overly defensive, but was she alluding to something else?
“Thank you, Jessica. Have a great quarter.”
