She missed their morning walks through the streets of Florence as if they were an amputated limb. She missed his opinions on Hemingway and his recommendations for operas and symphonies she had to listen to, his easy recitation of history as they passed famous landmarks. Mostly she missed how safe she felt when his arms were around her, how treasured she felt with his breath hot on her skin. Even as she reminded herself that it was pointless to want him, that she was once again pining after a man for whom she could only ever be a dirty secret, she couldn’t help it – she wanted him too much to be reasonable.
She spent her free time reading Neruda, her nose buried in the book he had given her. It was beautiful and romantic, desperate and erotic, and only served to amplify her longing. Dr. Jacobs was so much more than just a professor attractive enough to have groupies, or a conductor brilliant enough to bring out the best in even the most inexperienced singers – he was the first man in a long time to make her feel like she could let her guard down. The first to see the cracks in her armor and to respond by holding her closer.
Something had to give.
On her way to rehearsal that afternoon, she ducked into Starbucks and ordered two lattes – a chai for herself, and a caramel macchiato with an extra shot of espresso for Dr. Jacobs.
She was laughably early to rehearsal. Placing the Starbucks cup on the music stand on the podium, she carefully slipped the paper sleeve over the cup, concealing the note she’d left him in clear, deliberate strokes of sharpie. Dr. Jacobs always threw away the paper sleeve. Always. He liked to feel the heat of the cup against his hands.
By the time everyone else arrived for rehearsal, Min was seated in her usual place and reviewing the notes in her score, her own Starbucks cup sitting on her music stand like a confession. Dr. Jacobs arrived a few minutes before rehearsal began, looking even more incredible than usual. His dark jeans hugged his ass in all the right places and clung to his muscular thighs. The top two buttons of his emerald-green shirt were undone, revealing the hollow of his throat. The grey vest he wore over the shirt was fitted perfectly to emphasize the triangular shape of his muscled frame.
Dr. Jacobs strode to the podium, but paused when his eyes landed on the cup. He glanced around the room, his gaze falling on Min. She raised her own Starbucks cup ever so slightly, a silent acknowledgment, and took a sip of her chai, maintaining the eye contact. He ran his fingers through his hair and pressed his lips together before picking up his own cup.Take off the sleeve, take off the damn sleeve, she silently urged him.
With the cardboard halfway down the cup, he froze.
As he read her message, her heart pounded, hands shaking slightly despite her grip on her tea. His eyes traced the letters over and over and she recited the line of poetry in her mind as she watched him read:Do not go far off, not even for a day.
The edge of his mouth turned up in a sexy smirk and he slid the sleeve back in place, concealing the message. As he raised the cup to his lips, he met Min’s gaze again and arched an eyebrow over the top of his cup. She wasn’t sure what would come next, but she was certain the message had been received – she was willing to try,wantedto try, obstacles be damned. It was up to him what happened next.
The next day, she arrived at rehearsal to find a Starbucks cup sitting on her music stand. Dr. Jacobs and Jeff stood in the corner conferring with the pianist. As she slid into her seat, Dr. Jacobs tracked her out of the corner of his eye. Her pulse pounded and her mouth went dry as she lifted the cup and lowered the paper sleeve. Sure enough, there in his neat, all-caps writing was a message:A day is long and I will be waiting for you.
She read it again, instantly recognizing the line from Neruda’s poem.
She slid the sleeve back in place just before Maria dropped into the chair next to her. Her roommate babbled a mile a minute, complaining about the newest assignment in Dr. Warren’s class, but Min didn’t hear anything as her eyes locked with Dr. Jacobs’ across the room. She lifted her cup and took a slow sip, holding his gaze with her own.He will be waiting.What does that even mean?
Tammy entered the room in a whirlwind of decorative scarves and the pounding of her sensible heels. “Everyone on your feet!” she said, clapping her hands.
Min didn’t understand how, but with two lines of poetry scrawled on disposable coffee cups, they had crossed some new invisible boundary. Maybe they could do this. Maybe they could find a way to be together and no one else had to know. Maybe the only thing that mattered was the fact that they wanted each other. Because that’s what his message meant, right? That he wanted her, too?
She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would burn it all down to be with him. And she was starting to think maybe he would, too.
∞∞∞
“You’re coming tonight.” Maria stood in Min’s doorway popping peanut M&Ms into her mouth. “You have to, Mel. We haven’t gone out even once since you got back – and it’s Lucy’s birthday.”
“I don’t know.” Min sat on her bed, one earbud in, Dr. Jacobs’ French recitation playing on a loop in her ear and Dr. Warren’s score analysis assignment spread out across her bed. Not that she was actually getting any work done. She’d been analyzing the same key change for an hour, too distracted by thoughts of Dr. Jacobs.
A week’s worth of Starbucks cup messages, each more beautiful than the last. A week’s worth of clear suggestions that they both wanted to explore whatever was between them. At least, they had seemed clear when she received them. But there she was, a week later, and they still hadn’t actually talked about it or even seen each other outside of rehearsal.
She typed message after message into her phone. She debated cornering him in his office and demanding that they talk. But she didn’t send the messages and she didn’t corner him. Because what if he was just talking about literature? What if he was just sharing his favorite poet with her, the same way she’d told him about Hemingway and Fitzgerald all those mornings in Italy? What if the lines he had chosen had no deeper meaning and she was sitting out there on that limb all by herself?
And what if she wasn’t? As badly as she wanted him, she wasn’t sure how to navigate this. After Aidan, she’d promised herself that she would never again be someone’s dirty little secret. And she couldn’t be more than that to Dr. Jacobs, at least not until she graduated. It had felt like an important promise when she’d made it. Now she wasn’t sure.
So she didn’t want to go to the bar. She didn’t want to spend the night looking at Bobby and Phoebe and wondering when she’d ever have a chance at what they had – a real, out in the open relationship. She didn’t want to worry about every guy around her who had a few too many drinks and feel that sickening drop in her stomach at every drunken innuendo. She just wanted to sit in her little cocoon with Dr. Jacobs’ voice on a continuous loop in her ear and stoke the hope that he was sitting somewhere thinking about her, too.
“It’s Friday night. Your homework can wait,” Maria pouted.
Jeff appeared over Maria’s shoulder, swiping an M&M from the package before she could pull it out of reach. He gave her a mischievous grin in answer to her scowl. “What Maria is trying to say, is we miss you, doll,” Jeff said. “Come out with us. I’ll buy the first round.”
Min smiled in spite of herself – she wasn’t getting out of it.There are worse things than being forced to spend a Friday night with friends.“If you insist,” she sighed theatrically.
If her friends could hear her lingering reluctance, they didn’t let on.
Jeff beelined for Min’s closet. “Great! Now what are you going to wear tonight?”
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Min asked, glancing at herself. She wore what she often wore when she was hanging out at home: her favorite jeans, the ones that were stretched out enough to really be comfortable despite the threadbare fabric at her upper thighs; a loose blue and white tank top; and an oversized white cardigan in a chunky knit with pockets deep enough to hold a paperback.
“We’re going to a bar, not a church potluck,” Maria said.
