“That’s three,” I tell him.
“What? Three strikes and I’m out?”
“No. That’s three extremely moronic things you’ve said. And that’s just today. You need my help way more than you think you do.”
Chapter 7
Holly
You would think that, given that it’s Friday afternoon on a beautiful spring day, fewer students would want to visit my office hours. After all, a lot of the students in my Modern Comm class are seniors who are not comm majors and have put off taking a communications requirement until now. They should have better things to do.
Despite all that, it’s after five before the last of the students leave my office. I’ve barely had time to open my laptop when my friend, Liz, knocks on the doorframe and sticks her head in the office.
Dr. Elizabeth Farrow isn’t in the Communications Department, but a lot of the English profs have offices on the fifth floor. Liz is my best friend at the university. One of my few friends, if I’m honest.
It’s no secret that I got my job as a lecturer because the university was trying to entice Clive away from his previous position at a prestigious private university back east.
That made it hard—okay, impossible—for me to make friends in the Communications Department. Never mind that I’m good. Never mind that my sections are always full. Never mind that I teach filler classes most full professors have no interest in. Never mind that Clive and I are divorced now. There are still people who think I’m just an unqualified bimbo. Thankfully, the head of the department isn’t one of those people. Still, it means my friends all teach in other departments.
“You busy tonight?” Liz asks, distractedly.
She’s got her shoulder propped on my doorjamb, but she’s leaning out in the hall to watch the last student walk away.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask. I still need to update my slides for Monday’s lecture, but technically I can do that at home this weekend.
“I’m thinking a comparative study of modern interpretations of classic literature.”
“So, another Jane Austen marathon.”
She looks back at me, shooting me puppy-dog eyes. “Please? Pretty please?”
I nearly groan. “I love Mr. Darcy as much as the next woman, but haven’t we seen every version ofPride and Prejudicelike, six times?”
“Ah!” She holds up a finger, eureka-style. “But we’ve only seen the newestEmmaonce.” Clearly she assumes she’s already won the argument, because she comes into my office and plops down on the chair opposite my desk. “By the way, why didn’t you tell me Colton Solimar is one of your students?”
“Um . . . Colton Solimar is one of my students,” I tell her. It takes me a minute to pair the name from my class roster to the face of the kid who just left. And, yes, by kid, I mean grown man who is at least twenty-two. But he still feels like a kid to me. “Should I know who Colton Solimar is and why you’d want to know that he’s in my class?”
“Colton Solimar? Pitcher for the university’s baseball team? Probably going pro when he graduates in May?”
I shrug. “You know I don’t do sports.”
Liz rolls her eyes again. Sometimes, I wonder how she doesn’t have eye strain.
“I know you don’t do sports. But you’re a living, breathing, heterosexual woman. Don’t you . . . you know,dohot guys?”
She puts a hard emphasis on “do.” As if there was any chance I could mistake her meaning.
“Ew. That young man is one of my students.”
“Only for a few more months.” She leans forward and waggles her eyebrows at me. “And if I had to guess, that young man is hot for his teacher.”
“Double ew. And I’m pretty sure he isn’t.”
She leans back, shaking her head. “You are so clueless sometimes. He graduates in May. Why else would he be in your office talking to you until after five? On a Friday.”
“Because he’s worried about his grades.”
“Do you have any idea how many tutors the athletes have access to? If he was worried about his grade, he wouldn’t have to walk all the way over here to talk to you about it.”
