To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(23)

Some days, I just wanted to give up, and sleep in, or skip work, or just totally blow off weight training and not even attend classes. But I had a sinking feeling that slipping, even once, would come back to haunt me. So I kept plowing forward with everything I had, hoping it would all come out okay.

But, God, I was so tired. Felt like there was a fifty-pound weight on my chest. If I could just unload all my crap onto someone else, talk to someone...

Caroline had me to listen to her problems, but I told no one about all my worries and concerns. Not even Ten. He had no idea what my life was like outside Ellamore.

Still half out of it after my sleepless night, I tromped to class. I was so far gone, I’d completely forgotten about my dreaded make-up assignment I’d turned in to Kavanagh on Tuesday. I didn’t think a thing of it as I entered the room on autopilot...until she called my name.

Damn, but her voice always did something to me.

I paused, my foot lifted to step up the first set of stairs to head toward the back of the class where I saw Ten lounging. Turning my gaze, I glanced her way, but she wasn’t looking at me. With her attention on a paper she was examining on her desk, she reached over and lifted another stapled pile off the top of her briefcase and held it out for me to come fetch.

My stomach dropped into my knees. Shit. She’d already read it?

I froze, unable to move an inch. She continued to read over the sheet on her desk for another ten seconds before she finally lifted her face and arched me a dry look. As she wiggled my paper in an invitation to come take it, I just stared at her, my entire life flashing before my eyes.

She’d read my paper, and now she knew. And, huh, I guess I’d unloaded all my problems on someone after all, hadn’t I? Shit, why did it have to be her? I studied her face cautiously, fearing the worst. But she gave away nothing except a half-annoyed expression because I wasn’t moving.

She just had to be one of those people who had a freaking good poker face, didn’t she? I couldn’t decipher a single thing she was thinking.

More concerned with what she must think of me now than I was worried about my actual grade, I took a step toward her, only to pause. God, I didn’t want to take it back. It had to be littered with red, telling me exactly what she was going to do with all her newfound knowledge about me.

Lowering my gaze to my paper in her raised hand, I strode the last few steps and slipped it free, only to roll it into a tube so I couldn’t see the score or all her comments in the margins.

My heart banged in my chest as I walked sightlessly to my desk. She’d read it. She knew. So what the hell did she think of me now? And what was she going to do about everything she’d learned?

“What’d you get?” Ten demanded as soon as I sat down. I glanced at him but I didn’t see him. Fear and anxiety completely fuzzed my vision; I could only feel the loss of my paper when he ripped the essay out of my hand.

“Hey! Fucker.” I snagged it back before he could unroll it. “Hands off, *.”

“Well, what’re you waiting for? The grade fairy to come along and magically transform it into an A?”

I set my jaw and sent him a look. When he merely stared back, waiting, I sighed and rolled my eyes. Trying to act as if it wasn’t the end of the world, I slowly unrolled the pages, hoping to God he didn’t notice the slight tremor in my hand.

When I saw an A staring up at me, my mouth fell open. I blinked, thinking my eyes were still f*cked up. But the A didn’t go away.

“Holy shit.”

“What?” Ten ripped it out of my hand again, but I was too shocked to yank it back. “Holy shit,” he echoed. His mouth fell open too as he lifted his eyebrows my way. Then he leaned in to grin. “And you said you didn’t f*ck her, you freaking liar.”

“Excuse me?” Instantly irritated, I jerked the paper back and cradled it to my chest. “I earned this score, thank you very much.”

He lifted his hands. “Hey, I’m all for fixing your grade with a make-up paper. But from a D to an A?” He glanced around before leaning in closer. “Man, that’s suspicious. What’d you have to do to get it?”

“Nothing,” I growled, scowling at him hard. “I had to re-write the paper.”

Ten lifted his eyebrows in disbelief. “Really? That’s it?”

“Yes.” Eyes snapping, I glared him down until he lifted his hands again and backed off.

“Okay, man,” he said, but his expression crinkled with mirth as if he knew better. “If you say so...teacher’s pet.”

“I do, goddamn it.”

When Dr. Kavanagh stood up and started class, Ten turned around to face the front of the room, but I continued to glare at the back of his head. I wanted to keep arguing with him, telling him how much it had taken to earn this grade. I’d damn well earned it too.

But like him, I also found it impossible to believe.

At the front, my teacher acted as cool and collected as always, as if she didn’t know everything about me I kept hidden from this town. Though I tried to keep inconspicuous about it, I watched her, waiting for the moment she’d look my way and reveal what she really thought of me now and what she was going to do about my turpitudes. But for the entire hour, she didn’t even glance in my direction.

I didn’t want to admit it, but that kind of stung. I’d shared something personal with her, and it hadn’t even seemed to hit her radar. Nothing about her had changed. Gritting my teeth, I glanced at the top of my desk, disappointed she didn’t seem as completely altered as I felt.