To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(20)

I glanced toward number twelve on the field, who was currently getting mauled by his teammates as they congratulated him. The twinge in my chest told me I was disappointed to hear the teacher/student policy spoken aloud, though I already knew it existed. I was even more boggled about my reaction because even if we’d been free to date, Noel Gamble would never give me the time of day, and the last thing I needed was a man-whore like him. So why was I upset?

Turning back to Philip, I took a deep breath. My heart thudded fast in my chest, unable to believe I was actually going to do this. “Okay then,” I said. “Yes. I think I’d like that.”

He grinned back. “Really?” When I nodded, he drew in a deep breath and sent me a huge, relieved grin. “Great. It’s a date then.”

Wow. A date.

A cheer from the crowd had me jerking my attention to the field just as the defense intercepted the ball, and Gamble’s offense trotted back onto the field.

I shook my head in bewilderment. I couldn’t help but wonder what number twelve would do if he knew he’d just assisted me in setting up my first date in eighteen months. Since he hated me, I’m sure it’d annoy him, so I smiled even wider. Good. It served the guy right for making me think about him as inappropriately as I did.





CHAPTER SIX




“Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.” - Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code



NOEL



Tuesday morning, I entered Literature class cantankerous and on edge. After coming straight from the nearest print lab where I’d printed out an eight-page remake paper for Dr. Kavanagh, I felt cracked open and raw.

She had demanded I talk about my feelings. So I’d talked. I’d poured my soul into the dumb assignment. I had dug inside myself and laid it all on the line, uncovering things I hadn’t realized I’d even felt.

Without a word to the woman already seated behind the desk as she dug through an opened briefcase, I slapped the stapled pages onto a bare spot, facedown.

Her head jerked up, wide green eyes making her look way too young to have a PhD.

Narrowing my gaze, I spent a second to glare before I turned away and found a seat.

After settling into my chair, I glanced her way to see her eyeing the essay curiously. Then, without turning it over to read it, she slipped it gingerly off the desk and tucked it into the mesh pocket inside the lid of her briefcase. After clicking the latch shut, she lifted her attention and began class...as if nothing earth shattering had just happened.

I blew out a breath. There. It was finished. Done. I didn’t have to stress about that stupid, ridiculous thing again.

Though a couple of my fingers were taped together because I’d banged them up in the scrimmage this weekend, I drummed them ceaselessly on my thigh. I couldn’t take my gaze off that closed briefcase. With blood rushing through my veins like a speeding train, I just couldn’t brush off this crazy, antsy, panicked feeling flooding me.

Halfway through class it suddenly struck me what I’d done. I’d let a woman I totally disliked into my innermost thoughts. Jesus, I’d spilled everything to her, all my fears and insecurities, my deepest wishes and dreams, my f*cked-up childhood and all my siblings’ problems, too. And my biggest secret ever.

Now she’d know how many times I’d had to stay home to babysit while my mother had left us to get drunk and stoned before she came home to f*ck some stranger as loudly as possible on our couch. She’d know how many times I’d gotten the shit beat out of me in school for being a member of the Gamble family. She’d know exactly how poorly everyone in my hometown really thought of me. She’d know...she’d know...

Holy shit, she could break me with all the fodder I’d just stapled neatly together and hand-delivered to her. What the hell had I done? What had I been thinking to write all that shit? As soon as I’d started typing, though, purposely going overboard on my thoughts and feeling and home life, I just kept on, unable to stop. The words had bled out of me.

But now... Now...

A cold sweat leaked down the center of my back. I didn’t hear a word of the discussion going on around me. I could only stare in bleak doom at that closed black briefcase.

As soon as she dismissed class an hour and a half later, I shot out of my seat, determined to rectify this. Darting past other students to catch her before she left, I found her still at her desk. She’d barely re-opened her case to set her notes inside when I reached her.

“Dr. Kavanagh?” Totally out of breath, my voice caused her to start. She looked up, and I held out my hand impatiently. “I just remembered something I forgot to put on that paper. Can I have it back?”

With a lift of her eyebrows, she taunted, “I don’t know. Can you?”

I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. The woman unknowingly had the power to crush me into nothing sitting innocuously in her briefcase, and she wanted to stand around, correcting my f*cking grammar? It figured.

“May I?” I ground out obligingly. I’d play her way as long as I got that paper back.

“I’m sorry, but no.” Sending me a tight smile, she slapped her briefcase closed, the sound echoing through my chest and tightening my muscles with dread.

No? What did she mean by no?

As she grasped the handle and pulled the case off her desk to leave the room, I dogged her steps. But she didn’t seem to notice, so I dodged around her to block the exit. “But I forgot to proofread it. Give me another few hours, and I’ll have it right back to you. I swear.”