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“But—”
“But nothing. You deleted the video, and all we can do is hope it ends there.” He shrugged. “Now, it’s my birthday, and I would prefer not to spend it with you crying.” He offered me a quarter of a smile. “Unless it’s from so many orgasms you can’t take it anymore.”
I let out a watery laugh. “Okay.”
“And please, don’t let me hear you call yourself stupid again.”
I agreed, but he clearly didn’t believe me.
“Or I’ll take you over my knee. You won’t like it.”
That pulled a grin out of me. “Won’t I?”
With one arch of his eyebrow, I stood up and started to remove my clothes. The corner of his mouth hiked up. “Such a good girl.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
LIAM
Istrode out of my last lecture of the day, Political Theory, and looped my messenger bag around my shoulder as I thumbed my cell phone on, headed back to my office. But an email from the provost had my steps slowing to a stop.
He wanted to see me.Immediately.
Of course.
I knew what this was about. Feared it ever since Kennedy had posted that video. But I had hoped it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. The last clip had been captured on national television, so it was no wonder it went viral. This one was just a stupid six-second video of me, barely anything to look at.
With a sigh, I changed course and made my way across campus to the administration building. Stopping at Wendall Assman’s closed office door, I took a deep breath and knocked twice.
“Come in.”
I opened the door and stepped inside the spacious room filled with dark walnut furniture and a bookcase along the right wall. The fading sun streamed in through the two windows behind Wendall, and I surreptitiously wiped my palms down my pants as I stood in front of his desk.
“Have a seat,” he said, turning his computer screen toward me. Before I even got a word out, he asked, “Care to explain this?”
I curled my lips over my teeth, staring at his screen with Facebook open and a video posted there. The same six seconds played on repeat, me smiling up at Kennedy like a love-sick fool. Hearts practically floated out of my eyes.
I had no excuse or explanation, so I went with a clarification. “I didn’t post or share it.”
“But you participated,” he said as if having a personal life was a fatal flaw. “You knew you were being filmed.”
“It was my birthday, and my girlfriend never expected the video to be so popular.”
“I don’t care about intent.” He sniffed. God, he was such an ass. “I care that this type of digital presence is unprofessional and unacceptable.”
“The video was deleted as soon as we realized that?—”
“Not soon enough, apparently. Students are commenting and sharing this. It’s appalling.”
I didn’t like what he was implying. That I was somehow relishing this, or worse, developing relationships with students outside of my classroom. “I have not interacted with any students outside of my classes, and when I have, it’s been through email. I have never and would never cultivate an inappropriate relationship with a student.”
His eyes bored into me. “Your tenure review is coming up soon, as I am sure you’re well aware, and I know Dr. Lang has already spoken to you about the standards we hold for our faculty.”
I kept my mouth shut, realizing that no matter what I said, I wasn’t going to convince him of anything.
“I will not hesitate to pull my support of your candidacy.”
I didn’t know what his issue with me was, but it felt like he would find a problem with me no matter what I did.
