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I give the student a look that I hope conveys how unimpressed I am. “Are you quite done?” I’m ready to go off on him, but he raises a hand and knocks his hat off his head.
“Uh, sorry, Professor. I think I might be in the wrong class.” His eyes dart around the room. “Or maybe not?”
“Professor Connelly is out for back surgery. Professor Sweet is taking over the class,” the student beside him says.
“Oh shit.” His vibrant green gaze, ringed in hazel, meets mine.
All the air leaves my lungs on awhoosh. The room tilts, and I’m suddenly light-headed. I can tell instantly that he recognizes me, and the silence in the room is deafening. Fortunately, he fills it by rambling out an explanation.
“Sorry about the phone call. And for being late. Coach kept me after practice and my dad’s on my ass because I had a bad game. I’m so sorry, Cl—” He clasps his hands in front of him and bites his lips together.
“Don’t let it happen again.”
My mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, and the rest of me feels disconnected from my body. Because this student, sitting in the middle of my sophomore class, is my summer fling.
My one-night stand who left behind an origami crane and a lot of memories I wish I could now erase.
Fuck my life.
Three
Not the Best Day
Maverick
Six weeks later
Forty-eight percent.
That’s my grade on my most recent creative writing assignment. I tried to get out of this class—went straight to the registrar’s office after Clover took over as the professor and begged them to change my schedule. But I’d missed the deadline by a week, and I needed the elective to graduate, which meant dropping it wasn’t an option either.
So, I had no choice but to ride out the semester and hope to hell I could eke out a passing grade. I probably would have managed if Professor Connelly had been the one grading my papers since he’s a hockey fan. It didn’t seem to matter that the last time I’d written a creative anything was probably in high school.
But Clover taking over the class changed things. In theory, sleeping with my hot professor sounds awesome, but in practice, it’s really fucking awkward.
And now I’m sitting here with a forty-fucking-eight percent because I’m 2500 words shy of the minimum word count. That’s like ten fucking pages of words. Also, according to my mental calculations on my other assignments, I’m at risk of failing the course. My initial grades were decent, but since the professor swap, it’s gone downhill, and my midterm grade was trash. And now I only have a handful of weeks to bring it up.
My dad is going to shit a brick if I fail a class. He was pissed enough when he saw I was skating on thin ice with two of my courses at midterm. I got the whole speech: “Just because a team owns your rights doesn’t mean you’re going to get called up. Everyone needs a backup plan.”
He’s not wrong.
Nothaving a backup plan is stupid. And at the end of the year, I’ll have a kinesiology degree. With hockey seven days a week, school, and my part-time job at the gym, which includes teaching self-defense, I didn’t want to overload myself with difficult classes. This course was supposed to be an easy C. And maybe it would have been if the woman who replaced Professor Connelly hadn’t been on the receiving end of my orgasm delivery before the semester started.
I spend the rest of the class trying to find a way to appeal to my professor that doesn’t entail sexual favors. Though I would willingly provide those, because hot damn, Clover Sweet—her last name has become a bit ironic—is incredible between the sheets. But considering the way she’s avoided any and all contact with me, I don’t see her jumping at the opportunity. Also, it would be considered bribery.
So I need to find a way to dig myself out of this hole. And I’m not exactly sure how to do that.
At the end of class, I take my time packing up, watching student after student approach her to talk about their creative writing assignment.
“You going to the pub, Mav?”
The girl sitting to my right is twisting her hair around her finger and snapping her gum. She looks a lot like my cousins Lovey and Lacey Butterson—they’re identical twins and only people who know them well can tell them apart. I think this girl’s name might be Sandy or Suzy or something. I’m pretty sure it starts with an S. Despite the gum snapping, she’s damn well brilliant. She always has an entire monologue prepared on whatever we’re discussing in class, and it makes Clover—Professor Sweet—absolutely glow. Which makes me hard. In turn, I don’t have very fond feelings toward Sandy-Suzy.
“Not today. I got a few things I need to take care of.”
Her face falls fractionally before her smile widens and she twists more of her ponytail around her finger, pulling her head to the side. “Maybe next week.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Have a good time tonight.” I force a polite grin and wait for her to leave with one of the other girls in the class.
