Impossible To Resist (BWWM Romance Book 1)(78)
He smiled at her broadly and shook his head. “God, it’s good to see you. I was going crazy without you! I couldn’t stand you being gone. So… tell me all about your trip. How did it go? How was the photography?” he asked with interest, his eyes set on hers.
A rush of thoughts roared through her mind, like a crashing river coursing through canyons and boulders, making its way swiftly to a destination unknown. There was so much to share with him that she felt overwhelmed.
She laughed a little and reached her hand up to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure that I know where to begin.”
He shrugged. “Just begin from where you left and go from there.” He smiled, gazing into her eyes and rubbing his fingers over her hand affectionately.
She glanced at her hand and chose to look away. “Well, let’s see. Start from when I left. Well, Connor and I-“
Reggie frowned darkly and cut her off. “Didn’t we talk about this? Do you know how inappropriate it is for you to call him by his first name? Call him Professor James like the rest of the world, please, and show some respect. You aren’t that close with him. First names are reserved for people who he is close to.” Reggie looked at her pointedly and she bit her lip, wondering for a moment just how much she was going to tell him about the trip that she had shared with Connor. She decided she would have to just tell him and see how he reacted.
“Well, okay then, Professor James and I,” she felt her insides cringe at referring to him so formally; it reminded her that they could not be close on campus and that she would have to treat him as a distant professor, and with some deference, not as a lover and friend, she continued to speak about him, “we left here early in the morning and he drove us through a terrible snow storm.”
Reggie nodded and frowned. “I know, I saw that storm on the news. We didn’t get much snow here, but I watched where the storm went and it basically followed you all the way to Springfield. I was so worried about you! Why didn’t you answer my texts while you were there?”
She shrugged. “I had next to no service while I was there, so no one really heard from me while I was gone.”
He shook his head in disapproval.
“Anyway, we finally got there, but it took forever because Con… uh… because he was driving so carefully and slowly on the roads. When we got to the hotel there were tons of people there, not only for the political event, but also because the roads got closed behind us, so the hotel had to do this consolidation thing, where they try to get as many people into the hotel as possible.
“Even though he and I had separate rooms to begin with, we wound up having to share a room because the hotel put us together to save space for other people.” She thought back on it and realized that she and Connor might not have made love like they had if it weren’t for them having to have shared a room.
Reggie’s brow furrowed and his dark look grew even darker. “You shared a room with him?” he asked as if it was the biggest sin that could have happened.
Catalina sighed. “Let me finish, please?”
He looked away for a moment and then nodded at her. “Okay, go.” She hoped that he let her finished telling him all of it without interrupting her again.
“Well, so anyway, we wound up having to share a room. So we settled in and then we went to the first day of the event. It was crazy! There were so many people there! Tons more than I ever expected. So I started photographing everything, and there were four politicians up on the stage participating in the debate. They started talking about gun control right away and a bunch of people in the audience got really opinionated about how they felt, and before we knew it, some of them got up to fight and Connor had to pull me away from it so I didn’t get hurt! He saved me just in time,” she told him with a shake of her head.
He sighed and shook his head. “Professor… James…” he repeated slowly as if that might get the idea stuck into her head.
Catalina looked at him sharply, her eyes bright as she spoke. “You know what, you’re going to have to let that go. I call him Connor. That was his idea a long time ago. He is Connor to me, and that’s what I’m going to call him. It’s not disrespectful, and it’s not going to change, so you’re just going to have to let that go, okay?” she asked without really making it a question.
He frowned a little again and sighed, then nodded his acquiescence. “Fine. Go ahead.”
She could see that he didn’t like it, but she went on anyway. “So there was a small fight and he saved me because he pulled me out of the way just in time. I felt so lucky, but that was just the first day.
“Then, the second day, we went back again and there were tons more people and security guards, and when they started the debates, they warned the entire crowd to keep their cool, but then they started talking about women’s rights, women’s bodies, and abortion, and the crowd got really angry again, arguing over it all, and a bunch of them got really ugly.
“In fact, one huge guy was going to punch another guy, but the other guy ducked out of the way and the huge guy almost hit me!”
Reggie’s eyes grew wide and she saw anger growing in him.
“Hey, that’s just the nature of photojournalism. That’s how it goes sometimes,” she told him earnestly.
He didn’t look like he wanted her anywhere near it in the future, if that was how it was going to be.