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Now, fifteen minutes later, she’s almost finished her coffee and bagel, and I have yet to touch mine.
I can’t eat.
I’m stuck in a nervous fog. I still don’t know whether Matthew Hawthorne read my diary.
Common sense and logic are telling me that he wouldn’t have had time since he went into work last night and was at my apartment door at the crack of dawn. The devilish voice inside of me is telling me that before he came over to hand the diary back to me, he thumbed through it, stopping to read the juiciest bits.
That would include the entry I made two weeks ago where I described how I’d blow him.
“Faith,” Gwynn interrupts my thoughts. “I asked you a question about Stingy Stein.”
I didn’t hear it. It’s no wonder since I’m in a state of shock brought about by looking into the eyes of the man I’m hopelessly infatuated with.
“What?” I pick up half a bagel.
I might as well eat while I contemplate what Gwynn is about to ask me.
“Do you think she’s fucking that hottie we saw her with?”
I suck in a breath just as I swallow.
Coughing my way through my next few heartbeats, I shake my head and mumble a one-word response, “No.”
“I think you’re wrong,” she says, ignoring the fact that I’m choking.
I cough my way through two deep breaths until I finally feel the food slip down my throat. “I’m right.”
That’s more wishful thinking on my part. For all I know, Dr. Hawthorne was on his way back from a date with Professor Stein last night.
“She seems so….something.” Gwynn taps her chin with her index finger. “Introverted isn’t the word I’m looking for. Stuck up doesn’t fit. Help me out here, Faith.”
“Professor Stein is highly intelligent,” I offer.
Gwynn chuckles. “I can’t disagree with that, but she doesn’t seem like she’d be his type.”
Since I don’t want to delve into what Dr. Hawthorne’s type is, I change the subject. “Do you want to start with me quizzing you, or should we warm up with you tossing questions at me?”
“I’ll always prefer to be on the receiving end,” she says with a wink. “Throw your toughest questions at me. I’m ready.”
School is my safe place, but today it was pure torture.
I sat through three lectures, including one given by Professor Stein. I listened intently to every word she said, but the notes I typed into my tablet were useless.
I realized that when I looked them over on the subway on my way home from campus.
Nothing made any sense, so I called Gwynn and told her that my tablet was acting up and I needed her to email me her notes.
Thankfully she did, and surprisingly they were thorough and concise.
Gwynn may act like school doesn’t matter to her, but one day, she’s going to be a great doctor.
I enter the lobby doors of my building focused on getting up to my apartment, so I can strip, take a shower and settle in for a long night of studying after I devour an entire box of macaroni and cheese.
I’ve barely taken two steps inside the doors when I hear a man’s voice coming from behind me.
“Faith,” a deep voice calls. “Hey, Faith.”
I shut my eyes, convinced I’m hearing things because I’d know that voice anywhere. It belongs to Matthew.
“Faith,” he calls again. “Wait up.”
I stop but don’t turn around because maybe in my mind, the doorman’s throaty voice has somehow morphed into the gruff sexiness that is Dr. Hawthorne’s voice.
I am overtired after all and hungry.
The only thing I ate all day was half of a bagel and an almost overripe banana that Gwynn found in her purse as she was digging for change to buy a bag of chips to eat for lunch.
My appetite has eluded me until now.
“Hey,” Dr. Hawthorne whispers as he rounds me.
I take in the dark blue pants he’s wearing and the light blue button-down shirt. He’s rolled the shirtsleeves up to his elbows, and it’s giving me all kinds of muscular forearm appreciation feels.
A sliver of his smooth chest is peeking out since the top two buttons of his shirt are undone.
This is just another look to add to my memory bank.
“Are you just getting home from class?” he asks with a perk of one of his dark eyebrows.
“Yes,” I mumble with a nod.
I need to figure out how to harness this nervous energy that jolts through me whenever he’s within two feet of me.
If the man had read my diary, surely he wouldn’t be making small talk with me.
I doubt he could look me in the eye if he knew that I fantasized about him shoving my back against a wall and fingering me to orgasm. I suddenly wish I wouldn’t have written out a detailed accounting of what that would be like in my diary.
