My eyes lift to discover Cade watching me, eyes unfocused, features soft. He startles when he realizes I’m looking at him too. What I wouldn’t give to know what he was just thinking about. Placing the handset on the receiver, I weave my fingers together over my stomach and sink deeper in the chair, which creaks relentlessly. Everything in the annex is unreasonably old, like Mulroney.
“It’s interesting,” Cade notes, closing his laptop. “But… I’ve never actually interacted with Dr. Morton.” He glances at the calendar hanging on the wall, the edges curled from the sunshine and relentless air conditioning. “He’s been teaching overseas or on some sort of sabbatical most of the time I’ve been here.” I don’t say anything, which earns me more nervous small talk from Cade. He’d never admit it’s nervous small talk, but it is, and I fucking love it. He adjusts the peer review papers needlessly. “You don’t address him as doctor?”
I shake my head. “He’s a professor.”
Cade sits up a little straighter. “If I were a doctor, I’d want you to address me that way.”
I can’t help but envision Cade with those pressed khakis banded around his thighs, me on my knees before him, mouth open as he says,“take it for doctor, won’t you?”
“He’s fine with it. Anyway, you’re right, he’s been working overseas at our sister university, then was on a sabbatical but apparently he’s back and just making sure I don’t want him to do my peer review,” I explain, hoping that Eli doesn’t find the time to pull Cade aside. Though knowing Eli’s type, I realize my concern isn’t unreasonable. I’m banking on Eli being so concerned with talking about himself that the peer review selection process never comes up. Also, a reasonable hope.
“Well,” Cade says, getting to his feet. “I’ll catch your morning lecture tomorrow, and we can be done with peer reviews entirely.”
He lifts his sweater off the back of his chair, draping it over his forearm before collecting his notes. He never uses a projector, or works from his laptop. When Cade lectures, the material is so ingrained in who he is and what he is passionate about, he can pace and talk, engaging with students for an hour without so much as a glance at a note.
I love how much he cares about everything, how invested and respected he is. Equally, I’d love to unravel him completely and set him on edge, uncover the invisible flame that burns so brightly inside him, the one he’s never even let himself discover.
We move to the door, and he exits first, lingering in the hall, silently waiting for me. I love that he waits for me. He doesn’t wait for anyone else, and I know it’s mostly because we’re exiting the same office at the same time and this is more manners-driven than interest-driven, still. I take all the scraps of Cade that I can get.
“Coffee, you said?” he asks, tucking his notes under his arm. “I’ll drop my stuff off in the lecture hall and go with you.” He catches a yawn with his hand. “I could use it tonight.”
I nod, and we start off in that direction. “Long day?” I’d rub his shoulders and ease the discomfort and stress of the day from his body, if only he’d ask. If only he’d want to ask.
He swipes a hand up the back of his head after smiling at a student who says hello as we pass. “Yeah,” he says finally, “and I had planned on catching a nap on my break earlier but I forgot I agreed to help my sister finalize the seating chart.” He shakes his head, casting me a crooked grin that makes my stomach flop. “My sister’s getting married. I told you that, right?”
I nod. With another guy, I may pretend to not remember, just to make sure he knows that he doesn’t hold too much of my mind. But with Cade, I feel pressed to make sure he knows I remember everything he’s ever told me. “In a week, yes, of course I remember.”
He does a double-take, searching my eyes in a matter of seconds. “Oh.” He nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and my eyes snag on the very light freckles that dustthe apples of his cheeks. I bet those freckles get dark when he gets worked up. “I didn’t even get to eat lunch. I just wrote really, really small on tiny, folded pieces of paper until my sister said I could go.”
I can’t help but snicker a little at that. “But you made your sister happy?”
He volleys his head as we approach the closed lecture door. Cade moves to dig his keys out of his pocket, but I already have mine out. Pressing the key in the lock, I smile. “I got it.” He releases his grip on his keys, protected by his pocket, and nods. “Thanks.”
Inside, the lecture hall smells of new carpet and melted plastic, which is a sign that Professor Williams used the projector in his last lecture. Darkness envelopes the stadium-style seats, upholstered in blue and black, matching the new carpet the department so graciously installed last summer. It took the pool flooding for the annex lecture halls to get new carpet but if that’s what it takes, we’ll take it.
I stand in the doorway, watching as Cade makes his way into the class, up the steps to the small stage centering the room. He straightens his papers, placing them perfectly in the middle of the desk, aligning his favorite blue pen right next to them. After nudging the AC a few degrees lower, he slips his arms back into his blue sweater, adjusts his frames, and we head out.
I bump my arm into his as we round the first set of double doors, aiming for the next set, which leads usoutdoors near the cafeteria. “Nudge the thermostat down to keep them awake, eh?”
His cheeks get pink but he laughs, nodding. “I want to say no, but I don’t like to lie.”
I shrug. “Trust me. When we’re readingThe Satanic Verses—those first few chapters before I put them out of their misery and tell them about the study guide, I set the air conditioner to sixty.”
Cade laughs, tossing his head back, the sound making my skin hot. “Don’t tell me,” he says through his fading laughter, “that you were the painfully well-read and culturally diverse college student who actually understood Salman Rushdie without the reading guide.”
I make a show of blowing on my nails and buffing them out in the center of my chest. “We can’t all be overachievers. After all, if weallunderstand Rushdie, no one understands Rushdie.”
Cade rolls his eyes, wearing a sweet smile. “I should have known, the great Noah Ryan doesn’t need a guide for Rushdie.”
I lift a shoulder and let it fall, and move back to something far more important than literature. “So how are Kat’s wedding plans coming?”
Cade stammers, almost like he’s surprised that I remember his sister’s name. How could I not? We’ve shared an office for years, and aside from that, Cade’s father is like, one of the most well-known, loaded, players in the city. And his sister has her name hanging on half of the real estate signs in Nob Hill. As a whole, the family iswell-known. There have been a few magazine articles on Kat and Zennie’s wedding, in fact. “Good. They’re ready.”
I nod. “And are you ready?”
His brows pull together as I reach for the door and pull it open, a rush of cool air stinging my senses, making my eyes temporarily burn. “What do you mean?” he asks, peering back at me as we take a few steps down to the first level.
“Your tux ready? Speech ready?” I ask as we curve the corner to the first level, and step off the stairs, onto the pavement. Cade in a tux briefly passes through my mind, and the back of my neck steams at the arousing image.
