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I wasn’t doing dating apps like Rina had suggested, but if I did, and that photo popped up, I would swipe right on that so hard I gave myself carpal tunnel. I kept looking at the picture and my fingertips were tingling. What did that mean? Why was I tingly over a professional headshot on LinkedIn of my physiology professor? My breath was coming faster than it should and I felt warm. I reached down and peeled off my socks, wondering why I was sweaty.
It had been so long that it took me a moment to realize that I was turned on. I had all the signs of arousal. I shut my eyes and closed the laptop, feeling a blush rise on my face. Of all inappropriate reactions to a picture of my instructor---it was embarrassing really. I was not going to have a crush on him. It was probably just a flattering picture, good lighting. Maybe he was one of those brutal-looking bodybuilders after all, and the headshot just didn’t show it. He might swagger into class in sweatpants holding a can of Monster and perhaps smashing it against his forehead before grinning idiotically and showing that he was missing some teeth from all of his bar fights.
Berkley would never hire someone like that. I was trying to make a repulsive cartoon out of him to cool down my body temperature and it just didn’t fit with the paragraph I’d read about him. I admired that man before I ever saw what he looked like. I went and drank some water, and then opened the laptop up again and clicked through to read the articles that were linked.
One article featured a big photo at a ribbon cutting for a fitness facility he donated to a women’s shelter. He was shown at full length in jeans and a t-shirt with the logo for A+ Gyms on it. The man was very tall and ripped, broad and strong but not bulky or cartoonishly muscled.
He had a killer smile, and he had his arm around a pretty blonde who was smiling shyly. Double cheese and crackers, he was glorious to look at and also evidently attached. I scolded myself—he’s myprofessor,not a Tinder date, and his relationship status should be no concern of mine. I also didn’t need to know exactly how tall he was—I was guessing by the people around him that he topped six feet by three or four inches.
The only thing I should think about was my grade and graduation. That was it. No more staring at his photo or getting hot and bothered just thinking about him. This was going to make for an interesting final semester, for sure.
CHAPTER2
AARON
Boys Night looked a hell of a lot different than it did just a couple of years ago. Back then, our night out before the semester began was a bacchanal, a sendoff to the summer and a rededication to pursuing our goals and good times. The Bachelor’s Club. There had been five of us. Now I was the only one left with true bachelor status.
First it was Kyle, our senior member, the successful author and professor of Women’s Studies, who fell for a student and wound up married with twins. After him, the ranks fell like dominos. Drake veered off course from being a stalwart retired cop teaching criminal justice to running around trying to save one of his students from assassins dispatched by a rival crime family. Again, married with a child. Hamilton and Rick both crashed and burned over their students, too, and it gave me a vaguely itchy sense of doom. These guys, the best men I knew, one-by-one flew in the face of their own ethics and pursued a romantic relationship with a student.
None of them ever abused their authority or anything like that, but it looked bad, like we were a bunch of unscrupulous men in our thirties who were using the university students as a dating pool. Despite the fact that nothing could be further from the truth, despite the fact that anyone who met Kyle and Mindy and thought they weren’t made for each other must be a complete fool—the optics were not ideal, as Rick would say.
Rick was the most recent casualty, and he’d left the faculty at Berkeley as a result. Because Hailey was more important to him than teaching—which is both romantic and not that hard to decide when you’re also the founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar marketing firm. They had their happily ever after, and I’d fight anyone who suggested my best friends had done anything wrong in following their hearts. I knew perfectly well how they had struggled, how they had tried their damnedest to protect the women they loved, how they did everything possible to stay away, only to find that love was a force even more powerful than the stubborn human will.
Nevertheless, it was new for me, being the odd man out. I’m the youngest of the group, and while I’d never seen myself as not becoming a dad somewhere down the road, it was different to speculate about that when none of your friends were married yet. It’s another thing when they’re texting you photos of their kids cutting teeth and videos of them at the aquarium or zoo or a ball game. There’s a sense of—almost of missing out. I had a great life and never suffered from FOMO before. It was an uncomfortable sensation.
There I was, same bar, same table, but the only bachelor on the block this semester. Rick bought us a round of drinks and we toasted to the new classes and the year ahead. Hamilton also suggested that we toast to Preston’s ear infection clearing up so that he and Roxanne could get some sleep. I drank to that, but it seemed weird to toast to a kid hopefully getting ear tubes soon.
“Luke’s tubes helped a ton. No more snotty nose,” Drake pointed out. “I’m pretty sure I never have to buy Carla anything again since I agreed to getting tubes for Luke. She said she’s more relaxed than she’s ever been now that she’s not checking his temp and remembering amoxicillin doses all the time.”
“So, you’re saying my sex life could pick up again if the tubes work out?” Hamilton joked. “I’m not complaining at all—it’s hot as hell and considering her workload at the firm and the baby being sick at the drop of a hat it’s a wonder she’s interested at all.”
“Trust me,” Drake said with a smug look that made me think he meant that, yes, your toddler getting ear tubes was a recipe for spicy Sexytimes with your wife once again. Hamilton nodded as if taking note of this excellent advice.
“None of us have a damn thing to complain about,” Rick said. “Except maybe Aaron here who isn’t getting any.” He was joking. I knew that, but it was still annoying.
“You mean Aaron here who can get laid anytime he wants and doesn’t have to worry about ear infections being a cockblock? Or Aaron here, who can have any woman he wants instead of waiting around for just one to make up her mind she isn’t too tired to bang tonight?” I asked.
“Someone’s grouchy,” Kyle snorted, taking a drink. “Must be because he’s not getting any, Rick.”
“Come on,” I said, “there’s no way that married men with small children are having more sex than I am.”
“I’d take that bet,” Drake said.
“So would I, with or without the complication of ear infections,” Hamilton chimed in. “At least three times a week. Usually more.”
“Same,” Rick said, “but we’re morning people. If we have a week when we’ve only managed three or four times, we just do it in the shower every day for a while.”
“Showers are the best,” Kyle said appreciatively. “I never knew how much I’d look forward to the sound of that water and the slide of the shower curtain. It’s Pavlovian now for me.” He chuckled but looked so damn pleased with his life that I kind of wanted to shove my beer away and stalk out.
Because they were right. They were definitely getting laid more than I was at that point and had the promise of more sex with a woman who loved them, every week, forever. I felt a pang, not of jealousy really. I liked my gym, my job, my life. I just had a flash of what it must be like to be them. Loving your job and life and having a great wife and a baby on top of that. I seemed like too much good luck, an abundance that kind of blew my mind.
I was lucky to live the life I had, I reminded myself. And if I was not going home to a hot girlfriend currently, that could change at any moment. I just had to find someone I liked well enough to see them more than once or twice. That hadn’t happened in a while, not since Kelly, and that wasn’t a springtime I cared to relive ever.
The bonuses of having someone to wake up with and go places with, as well as the promise of regular sex, were not worth the cost of those perks in my experience. I liked the idea of them, but in practice, I’d found that incompatibility and conflict went right along with any relationship. Not to say I was cynical, just that I’d learned to be realistic about what I can expect. A short- to medium-term involvement before the woman and I decide we never want to see one another again.
“Yeah, but to have the fun showers, Aaron would have to commit to being with the same woman next Thursday that he’s with today,” Rick said.
“If you try to commit before you’re truly ready, that’s when you end up spending a lot of money with one of my colleagues,” Hamilton offered, which was as close to sticking up for me as they were going to get.
