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As we walked out to our cars, she did seem more reticent than usual. She barely spoke until we arrived in front of my Honda.

At that point, she pressed her lips together. She looked me in the eye, then darted her gaze away. “Listen, Jaz…” she said, looking at the ground.

“Yeah?”

My heart beat faster. Something romantic. Something romantic.

“When I called you last time… when we talked about my suspicions…”

Her long pauses were driving me up the fucking wall. I had half a mind to grab her and shake the words out of her. “Yeah?”

“I… I didn’t really let you have a chance to speak.” She caught my eye for half a second, then looked at the pavement again. “I was talking about students who had hopes of dating their professors. I thought it might be, uh, relevant to your life.”

I opened my mouth to yell “It was!”—but Faye wasn’t done.

“It didn’t occur to me at the time, and it did happen to cross my mind since, that sometimes interest might be more… of a carnal variety.”

I blinked. Then blinked again.

I blinked so many times I was probably mid-blink when Faye looked up and met my eyes again. “With everything that’s going on for me, I still don’t think it’s the right time for me to begin any official entanglements. But…”

“But…?”

She cringed, visibly uncomfortable with having to speak the words out loud. “But a physical one, I… I mean… maybe I could manage.”

My throat went dry. Dr. Faye Charlotte Erwin wanted to be fuck buddies.

My inner nympho was leaping for joy. Oh, my inner nympho was more than happy about this new development.

My heart, though? It sat heavily in my chest, lamenting that I was right after all.

There was nothing romantic about this.

10

Faye

It took a long moment for Jaz to speak. A moment longer than I’d anticipated. Much longer.

That moment was long enough for me to start questioning whether I’d just made a terrible mistake. Was it possible that I’d misread everything? That Jaz had never had a crush on me at all, and had only let me believe she did because she was too scared to say she didn’t?

Was it possible that I’d just propositioned a former student who wasn’t even interested in me?

At last she spoke and quelled my fears. “That, um, yeah.” She fingered the collar of her jean jacket, gazing up at me shyly. “Maybe we could do that.”

“All right. Ah… Gretchen’s with Pauline for the night, so…”

“Your place?”

“Yes. Um, if that’s okay with you.”

Jaz nodded.

“You can follow me there.”

“I know the way.”

“Right.”