She laughs, a little nervous, a tiny bit brave. She bites her lip then laughs awkwardly. “Well, thank you but… uh, full disclosure. That’s not the only reason I’m here.” Her gaze flicks to me, briefly acknowledging me bearing witness to this. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve for weeks. Would you… want to grab coffee sometime? Or dinner? Off campus. I mean, of course not until after the semester is over.”
The words land like a match dropped on dry leaves. I feel the flare in my gut before I even process it fully. Not jealousy exactly—more like the old familiar twist of watching someone else reach for what I’ve wanted for so long it feels stitched into my bones. Lauren is pretty in that effortless way, with abundant dark curls, bright eyes, the kind of energy that lights up a room. She’s not who I’d like to see him kiss. But god, I wouldloveto see him kiss. Anyone. Just once. Just to know that mouth of his can soften, that those shoulders can relax, that the man I’ve been half in love with for half a decade mightactuallylet himself want something back.
Cade’s smile is gentle, the one he saves for students he respects. The one that never quite reaches his eyes when it’s personal. “Lauren, I’m incredibly flattered. Truly. But I don’t date students. Even graduating ones. It’s a hard line for me.”
He says it so softly, so kindly, that it almost doesn’t feel like a rejection. Almost. Lauren nods, cheeks pinking, but she laughs it off with grace. “I figured. Worth a shot, though.” She smiles, nervously smoothing her sweater. “No awkward feelings?”
“None at all. And congratulations again on Long Beach. You’re going to crush that interview.”
Lauren nods at him, gives me a quick wave and slips out, the door clicking shut behind her. The office settles back into its usual hush, the faint tick of the wall clock andthe rustle of paper as Cade turns back to his work like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just shut down another possibility without a flicker of regret.
I can’t help it. The words are out before I can swallow them.
“You could have said yes,” I say, voice low, casual on the surface. “I wouldn’t have told anyone.”
Silence. The kind that stretches and thickens until it feels like it’s pressing against my ribs. Cade doesn’t look up. Doesn’t even tense. Just keeps his pen moving across the essay in front of him, steady as ever. That’s the thing about Cade Mercer—he’s a fortress with no visible cracks. And I’ve been camped outside the walls for five goddamn years, taking notes.
I hate how easily he does it. Shuts attraction down like flipping a switch. Meanwhile I’m sitting here with my heart doing that stupid half-stutter it always does when he’s in the room, recalling the exact shade of his throat when he loosens his tie at the end of a long day. Remembering how his voice drops half an octave when he’s passionate about something in lecture. Thinking about the first time I ever saw him, back when he was still a stranger in a boring suit and I was already ruined.
Five years ago. God, it feels like yesterday and a lifetime at the same time.
I was twenty-five, still riding the high of being a young, tenure-track professor, still pretending I wasn’t terrified of teaching grad student seminars. The department was hiring a new professor, and the chair asked me to sit in onthe final interview round because “you’ve got good instincts, Noah.” I almost said no due to an impending dinner date with a guy I was seeing casually. But I showed up anyway.
Cade walked into the humanities room at 10:17 a.m. sharp–early of course, hair combed back with precision, a stack of notes clutched in one hand, and a leather bag tucked under his arm. Buttoned-up. Gorgeous. Completely oblivious. The second his eyes met mine across the table, steady and serious, he politely nodded once and took his seat. His quiet competence made my mouth go dry.
I asked him about his dissertation on narrative versus non-narrative based works. He answered like he’d been waiting his whole life for someone to care. His voice was low, measured, but there was this spark underneath—passion beneath layers of practiced, patient control. I watched his hands as he talked, long fingers gesturing sparingly, knuckles white where he gripped the table edge when he was making great points. I watched the way his throat worked when he swallowed between those points. I watched the faint flush creep up his neck when the chair pressed him on department ethics, and I felt it like a live wire straight behind my ribs.
By the time the interview ended, I was flushed and half-hard under the table, scribbling nonsense notes just to have something to do with my hands. He was twenty-two then, fresh out of grad school and some simultaneous teaching gig at a community college, having done his undergraduate degree in an impressive two years. I votedyes before the door even closed behind him. Voted yes like my life depended on it. Because at that moment, some reckless part of me already knew.
He got the job. Moved into this office a week later.
And for years I’ve watched him become the kind of professor students line up to take classes with. The kind who remembers their names, who stays late to workshop their terrible first drafts, who turns down every advance with that same gentle finality he just gave Lauren. I’ve watched him run in the campus gym, on the same treadmill, earbuds in, expression distant. I’ve watched him laugh—really laugh—exactlytwicein the office, both times at something I said without thinking. I’ve noted the way his shirts stretch across his chest when he reaches for a book on the top shelf. The way he smells like mouthwash and cedar, even after a long day. The way he never, ever lets anyone close enough to see the man underneath.
And I’ve been half in love with him the whole damn time.
It’s not the frantic, desperate kind of love you see in movies. It’s quieter. Deeper. The kind that settles in your bones and makes ordinary Tuesdays feel electric just because he’s three feet away. I’ve dated since then—women, men, people who were funny and kind and available. I’ve had good sex and better conversations and even one relationship that lasted a year. But none of them were him. None of them made the air feel thicker just by existing in the same room.
I hate it. I hate how patient I’ve had to be. I hate that Iknow his coffee order by heart (black, two sugars, always from the cart by the library) but I’ve never once brought him one without pretending it was a coincidence. I hate that every time I push—just a little, just to see if he’ll push back—he shuts down like a vault. And I really hate that part of me even loves that. Loves the challenge. Loves the way his silence right now feels like a dare.
The clock ticks. I can hear the faint scratch of his pen, the soft exhale he lets out like he’s centering himself. I should let it go. I should turn back to these essays and pretend I’m not focused on every shift of his shoulders. But I’ve been pretending for too long, and today I just don’t want to anymore.
After what feels like an eternity, he finally looks up. Not all the way—just enough to meet my eyes through strands of his golden-honey hair falling over his face. There’s nothing there. No irritation, no curiosity, no heat. Just that calm, professional mask he wears. It kills me every time. He says nothing, and steals his eyes from me, returning his focus to the paper beneath his hand.
His jaw tightens—just a fraction. I note it like I note everything else. The way his fingers still on the pen for a moment as if he’s calibrating to what I said, to moving past it. I don’t miss the way his gaze flicks to the window for half a second.
But he returns to the paper, scribbling on it with his blue fountain pen. And there it is again, that easy shutdown. Like attraction is something he can file away under “professional boundaries” and never think about again. Iwonder what it would take to make him feel it.Reallyfeel it. The kind of want that keeps you up at night, that makes your skin too tight, that turns an office into the most dangerous place on campus.
I want to push harder. Want to ask if there’s ever been anyone. If there’s ever been a single person who made his careful control slip. But I don’t. Because I’m terrified the answer is no. And even more terrified the answer might one day be yes—and it still won’t be me.
Instead I continue on like it’s nothing. Like my pulse isn’t hammering against my ribs. Like I didn’t spend last night lying awake remembering the way his voice sounded during his guest lecture on popular fiction two semesters ago. “Grading that bad?” I ask, internally so fucking desperate for him, though my tone is so light, so careless, like he could ignore me and I wouldn’t even care.
“Freshmen,” he sighs.
I laugh. “Tell me about it. I’ve got three of them who think symbolism is just a fancy word for ‘whatever I feel today.’” Freshman aren’t so bad. But if they are the bridge to get me closer to Cade, I’ll throw them under the proverbial bus any day of the week.
He manages a nod. And I can’t stand not talking to him, so I poke him about some upcoming deadlines, about the English department symposium, and we joke about the dinosaur-esque copy machine dying again this afternoon. We stick to normal, English department banter.
When the chat has reached its lifespan, Cade doesn’t smile. He gives me that long, unreadable look he alwaysgives me, and puts his pen down. “I should head to the gym before my afternoon class. Get my extra miles in.” He normally runs in the morning on the treadmill, but has been running a bit more, training for a half-marathon next year.
