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THREE
Noelle
Noelle!” Hazel waved at me from in front of the dining hall, and I quickly walked to her side. I had texted her that I was going to be a bit late and to leave without me, but I didn’t expect her to be waiting outside for me. I appreciated the gesture though so that we could go in together. She pulled me into a hug, and then surveyed my outfit. “Looking good,” she said, giving me a thumbs up.
“Yeah?” I didn’t know how formal we were supposed to be, so I was wearing my usual favorite attire: a turtleneck bodysuit with a brown pleated tartan skirt, thigh-high socks, and my favorite ankle booties that added a few extra inches. Not that I would ever call myself short, but sometimes I liked to add on a few extra inches so I could look men straight in the eyes. It made me feel more important. I also added my favorite chunky cardigan on top as well as a long necklace. It was my typical attire around the dorm, and it always made me feel cute and cozy.
Hazel was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a black fitted sweater, but somehow still managed to look perfectly put together. Her tight curls were piled on top of her hair in a bun, and I marveled over the fact that she looked so effortlessly calm and collected. Even without her signature tote bag and the doc marten boots she loved to wear; she was still somehow so very… Hazel.
“How was your day?” I smiled at her. “Did you get everything done that you needed to?” I didn’t have to explain further—we always could read each other’s minds when it came to dorm stuff. It came in handy more often than I ever would have thought.
Hazel nodded. “Everything is all a go for the semester and looking good.” She gave me a quick two thumbs up, which made me laugh. We were trying to work a few months out so that nothing piled up on us. It was our strategy, and it worked pretty well. We had planned out dates for the whole semester at the beginning of the academic year, but we liked to wait a little bit closer to finalize all the details. Thankfully, it was a small enough school that it worked out.
She fluffed her hair absentmindedly as we walked into the building. I could tell she was looking around, trying to see if she could spot Lucas, but I wasn’t going to call her out on it. It made me smile.
Normally, I was always early to these kinds of things, but since I had to deal with something for a student, we had been running a bit behind, and I couldn’t believe how full the room was. I wasn’t sure what I had expected from the staff and faculty mixer, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“There’s a lot of people here this year,” I whispered to Hazel, still standing beside me.
She nodded. “Sounds like a lot of the Deans required all of their faculty to come.” Last year, we slipped in and out and were barely there for an hour: just long enough to say hi to our boss, grab a few snacks, and mingle with the other Hall Directors. This year, well…
“I guess they like to keep everyone on their toes.” Hazel gave me a big grin. I rolled my eyes.
“Come on, let’s go get a drink.” I pulled her towards the drink table, hoping they’d have wine. I would have liked something stronger, but, well… I doubted that was an option.
After we had secured our glasses—white for me, red for Hazel—we stood, scanning the room. I saw a lot of professors I had met before standing around—including some of my current professors. But instead, I just stood there gawking, like an idiot.
Because at the other end of the room stood the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Not even exaggerating, he was gorgeous. I think my heart skipped a beat.
Holy hell, he looked like he could have been a painting. Seriously, I was pretty sure someone had sculpted a god and placed him here on earth: tall, well-built, blond hair that just hit the top of his ears. He was so effortlessly handsome, even wearing a sweater over a collared shirt. Which also somehow still managed to give a glimpse of what I assumed was a very fine muscular body underneath the layers of fabric, probably the whole package contained under that wool and cotton.
And what was he doing here? I didn’t mean literally—he was clearly a professor here, just from his attire. His whole attire screamed ‘Hello! A hot professor here!’ I was positive it should have been illegal for someone that handsome to be standing in front of a classroom, let alone teaching here. He should be a model instead. Or an actor. I knew I’d buy something that had his face on it. Or maybe he should be a prince—swooping in to whisk girls right off their feet. He has the arms for it, I thought, resisting the urge to giggle as I ogled him from afar.
What does he teach? I wondered to myself as I sipped my wine. I was naturally curious, and I couldn’t help it—for some reason, I wanted to know his name.
I wondered if Hazel knew who he was, but I was too embarrassed to ask her and have her realize I was completely transfixed by the guy. Especially after she had heard me rant “all guys are trash” approximately one thousand times over the past few semesters.
Something clicked in my head: suddenly, after all these years, I finally understood what people were talking about when they said they had a hot professor or gossiped in the back row. Wow. Like, hello. Eyebrow waggle included. I had never, in all my years of schooling, ever had a hot-for-teacher moment. And it wasn’t like I was trying to start now, either—but one look at him standing there, and I was mesmerized by his being. His icy-cold stare seemed to radiate across the room, a grumpy expression settled on his face as he talked to several other faculty members with a cup in his hand. Seriously, this man was serious. I could just tell.
I might have been staring at him a little too long, hiding the bottom half of my face in my cup as I sipped on my drink—when I realized he was looking back at me.
Our eyes locked across the room. And, oh—I felt my face flush a little under his intense scrutiny, his finely chiseled features not even forming into a smile as his eyes appraised me. I could feel the heat on the back of my neck and my cheeks, the blush blooming on my face, and I resisted the urge to fan myself. After swallowing another drink of wine, I let my eyes drift back to Hazel at my side.
Deep breaths, Noelle, I tried to distract myself. He wasn’t staring at you; you were just in his line of sight. Yeah. Absolutely. Just a completely normal reaction.You will not let this gorgeous man see what he is doing to you, I ordered myself as an afterthought. Yeah, that was going to work. Not.
The heated stare we shared from opposite sides of the room made me feel like sparks were lighting all around us. Like the slightest movement would cause the whole room to burst aflame. Yet I couldn’t look away—I’m not sure that I even wanted to. All I knew is there was something in his eyes, in the way he was looking at me, that I’d never felt before. And for the first time in my life, I thought to myself, is this what it means for fate to exist?
Is there something as beautiful as divine intervention, putting you in the exact right moment that you’re meant to be in? Because this moment—the one I was sharing with a stranger, eyes never leaving the others’ even as we sipped our drinks, even as people floated around us—this must be one of those moments. It was determined by destiny, here to change your life and sure to make you re-evaluate everything you’ve ever known. I didn’t know how long we were standing there—it could have been seconds, minutes, hours, or days, but finally, I let my gaze drift down to the floor.
But I couldn’t ignore the way the air felt charged, though—almost with electricity. Somehow, I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. When I looked back up, as my eyes drew back to his, it felt as if this time I was finally seeing him. For the first time in my life, I was staring straight at him, and I didn’t know what would happen when he looked away. It was like there was a fuller picture now, one I didn’t have before as if I had learned something unforgettable about this man in less time than it took for me to make a cup of coffee.
And his eyes? They hadn’t left me, and somehow I knew, without hesitation, that he was settling into the same knowledge that I had—whatever that was. His eyes swept over my red hair and freckled face. I didn’t even know what color his eyes were, a thought that seemed so intimate despite the way our gazes remained locked on each other. Light, I thought.
I turned to Hazel to say something when I found her staring at Lucas, who was most definitely on his way over here to say hi. Oh. Okay.
I tried to shake the thoughts and intrusive somethings from my head—thoughts I wasn’t even sure how to process. Hadn’t I just sworn off dating and men? Though, maybe I had just sworn off love. No one said I couldn’t appreciate a man or let him look at me like that. I ran my hand through my curls, trying to focus on the strands between my fingers. It wasn’t like I was unused to people staring: my frizzy bright red hair had always done that for me.
There was more than just appreciation in his eyes—it was the zing that seemed to connect us that truly startled me and shook me off my feet. Still, the way his eyes were focused on me …Goosebumps trailed up my skin.
