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Aled sobered a little and sent Jamie a sympathetic look. He took the chairs and walked them over to the first of the tables that had been placed at the other end of the room. The risk was mostly Jamie’s, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t be a good lover by keeping Jamie from getting into trouble with the university.
He continued to set up chairs along with the others, a little bit lost in thought until one of the other guys he was working with asked, “So it’s true, then?” as they arranged chairs around a table.
Aled blinked out of his thoughts and looked at Vince. “Is what true?”
Vince glanced over his shoulder at Jamie on the other side of the room, then leaned closer to Aled. “Is it true you’re fucking Professor Croft?”
Aled was instantly offended…and blazing hot with guilt. “Where did you hear that?” he asked, fighting to maintain his composure.
One of the other guys, Will, stepped into the conversation, boxing Aled against the table. “It’s all over campus,” he said with a sly grin. “Everyone’s talking about how the two of you are bonking your brains out so you can get top marks.”
Aled frowned. Vince and Will were obviously freshmen, and they still had the annoying, teenage thirst for gossip. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from them to get back to work, “but my personal life is none of your business, for a variety of reasons.”
“Itistrue, then,” Vince said. He and Will continued working, but both of them grinned as though they’d uncovered the Holy Grail of gossip.
“Fuck, Professor Croft is going to get into a world of trouble for this,” Will laughed. “Which is a shame, because he’s one of the best profs I have this term.”
“Aled here will probably be asked to leave the university,” Vince agreed.
“No, I won’t,” Aled said, angry and frustrated, trying to figure out how to get the two lads to stop without giving away anything. “There’s nothing going on.”
“Come on, mate,” Vince said. “I’m not gay or anything, but even I can see the fireworks between you when you look at each other.”
Aled merely scowled at Vince. Mostly because he couldn’t defend himself. It was true. He and Jamie had too much chemistry to hide how they felt when they were around each other.
When Vince and Will finally got that Aled wasn’t going to engage in the gossip, they backed off. But not before Will said a final, “Anyhow, it’s all over campus that the two of you have a thing going on.”
Aled should have let it go, but something niggled at him. They’d been careful. What had changed, or more importantly, who had changed it?
“Who started the rumor?” he asked as they walked back to get more chairs. He already had suspicions.
Vince and Will exchanged a look and shrugged.
“I dunno,” Will said. “I heard it from Ebony over lunch last week.”
“A bunch of us were talking about it out in the square on Thursday,” Vince said.
Aled frowned and left it at that, but he had a bad feeling. He and Jamie really had tried to keep everything quiet. They actually didn’t see each other often on campus, only in passing and when Aled had an advisor meeting with him.
He continued working, avoiding Jamie’s side of the hall—and after one quick look, Jamie seemed to understand, at least in part, why Aled was keeping his distance—and focusing on what he was supposed to be doing for the supper. His limbs felt heavy, though, and his mood was rubbish as he considered that he should probably ask to have a different academic advisor so that there wasn’t even a hint of an ethical problem.
“Aled?” Dawn’s worried voice pulled him out of his grumpy thoughts half an hour after Vince and Will had left him alone.
“Hey,” he said, forcing an easy smile for his sister. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, fine,” Dawn said distractedly. She did a half turn and gestured to the friends she’d been folding napkins with. “I’m going out to lunch with the girls when we break.”
“That’s great,” Aled said, immediately deciding he shouldn’t go anywhere with Jamie.
Before those thoughts could go far, Dawn took a quick, gulping breath and said, “They all know you and Jamie are dating.”
Aled winced. He hadn’t really had the conversation with Dawn about how neither he nor Jamie wanted people on campus to know about things.
Dawn did another, small gulp and said, “They think you’re messing around with him to get ahead at school.” She looked utterly miserable as she spoke. “And someone started a rumor that Jamie forced you into it and that you aren’t really gay, he’s just predatory.”
Anger flared through Aled again. Ronny. It had to be. Just like fucking primary school. Ronny had warned him to back off the other week, when they’d run into each other. It seemed now that the man was true to his word, even if it meant acting like they were all in some teen drama.
The problem was, that particular drama had the potential to hurt Jamie in substantial ways.
