“Will you just tell me already?” he sighed, as if this whole thing were exhausting for him, never mind that she was the one being interrogated. “You know you’re going to eventually anyway.”
He was right. Part of her couldn’t believe she hadn’t already told Jeff about Dr. Jacobs. But she didn’t want Jeff to tell her what she already knew – that it could never happen. Isn’t that what Dr. Jacobs himself said before he left her alone in the garden with an ache not even her best vibrator could ease?I can’t do this.
Jeff was Dr. Jacobs’ student assistant. If anyone on campus knew how all the girls fawned over their gorgeous professor, it was him. Min had heard him make fun of those girls – the Jacobites, he called them – and she couldn’t stand the idea of him thinking of her like that. Like one of those girls who made stupid, self-destructive decisions and didn’t have enough self-respect to know when a man was a dead-end road.
But you don’t have enough self-respect, and you do make stupid, self-destructive decisions when it comes to men, the voice in her head reminded her.Case in point: Aidan.
Still, she didn’t want to hear someone list all the reasons that pursuing Dr. Jacobs would be bad for both of them. She already knew. Even if that knowledge seemed insignificant compared to the way she had felt in his arms.
“I kissed someone,” she finally said.
“Is that it?” Jeff rolled his eyes. “If I had to call you every time I kissed someone, we’d never get off the phone,” he laughed. When she didn’t join in, he glanced at her again, his face softening, pity edging into his tone. “Oh, doll. You like him.”
“I didn’t –“
“I know you, Mel. Are you going to see him again?’
“I don’t know,” she lied. What else could she say?
Jeff squeezed her knee reassuringly. “That’s a whole lot of pout over just a kiss,” he said.
She bit her lip, focusing her attention on his hand on her knee so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. “I think I could really fall for this guy, Jeff.”
“Then what’s the problem.”
“It can’t happen.” She shrugged, gnawing on her bottom lip to keep from telling him everything. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure, doll,” he said.
Min’s stomach twisted – not just at the idea of not being with Dr. Jacobs again, but at the thought of continuing to keep this secret from her best friend. She had never held back with Jeff before. She usually relied on his advice. After all, if she’d listened to him, she never would have allowed Aidan to be more than a one-night mistake…
But this was different. She couldn’t tell Jeff that the man she kissed in Italy was their professor – and that it wasn’t even the first time she’d tasted his lips. She couldn’t explain the look in his eyes when he called her “contessa,” or how the obstacles between them seemed to melt away when they’d been across the ocean.
She couldn’t explain what torture it would be to sit in rehearsals with Dr. Jacobs now, to be so often near him and not be able to touch him. To wonder if he was wishing he could touch her, too.
Not that she cared what he wanted, because she absolutely didn’t. After Aidan, she had promised herself she would never again be someone’s dirty little secret. And what more could she possibly be to a man like Dr. Jacobs?
I can’t do this.
His words echoed in her head. Maybe he didn’t want her after all. Maybe he’d had too much wine and he got carried away and it wasn’t actually about her at all. She couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that. But she also couldn’t dismiss the idea entirely.
“Did you hear about Professor Michaels?” Jeff asked as he fiddled with the radio.
“No, what about him?” Min didn’t really care about the theater professor, but at least this was a safer topic of conversation.
Jeff’s eyes sparkled as they only did when he was recounting the juiciest of gossip. “Rumor has it that he’s been hooking up with the girl who was the lead in the spring Shakespeare.”
“Naomi,” Min supplied.
“Yeah. Apparently, a janitor walked in on them getting it on in his office right after finals.”
Min’s stomach churned. She was going to be sick.
“At least that’s the word on the street to explain why she transferred to some school in Jersey and he resigned to teach children’s theater workshops in New Hampshire,” Jeff laughed.
Oh, God.
“You okay?” Jeff asked, his laughter dying down. “You look a little pale.”
