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Alex nodded. “You have no idea.”

“So, no dating? No awkward dances? High school drama is a rite of passage!” Charlotte shook her head as if truly distraught by her plight. “How ever did you learn to navigate your life without it?”

The lopsided smile that slowly crept over Alex’s lips betrayed the memories of Graciela. “I never said no dating.”

Charlotte quirked a blonde eyebrow. “Man, that must have been an awkward break-up when there were so few students.”

“I don’t believe I ever said she was a student,” Alex replied with an intentionally sly grin before taking an unnecessarily long drink of water.

“What?” Charlotte’s eyes projected her horror.

“I was seventeen and she was in her late twenties,” Alex o ered quickly. “It was very legal and consensual,” she added, correcting any wrong idea Charlotte might have formulated.

Charlotte relaxed, but slowly. “How did that even happen?”

“She taught a single summer seminar.” Alex couldn’t stop smiling at the memory of her long black hair and the intense brown eyes hidden behind wire-framed glasses.

“She was getting her doctorate in literature from Oxford at the time, and she was the most interesting person I’d ever met.”

Charlotte laughed. “Yeah. I can tell by the way you just went all googly eyed.”

Alex cleared her throat and sat up. She’d gotten way too relaxed and didn’t like the knowing smirk on Charlotte’s face.

“So how did this woman go from being your teacher to your—”

Alex cut her o before she could be crass. “It was after the seminar ended,” she explained, hoping to cleanse some of the tawdriness Charlotte had introduced with her tone.

“I’d been her best student. It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone make the case that Jane Austin was a subversive author.”

“Jane Austen of Pride and Prejudice ? The reason romance novels are even a thing?”

Alex nodded. “It was subtle. You had to look in her clever use of language and her over-the-top characterizations.

There was a story at face value, but there was one hidden beneath the text if you knew where to look.”

“Do you still have a crush on her?”

Charlotte asked with a chuckle. She cocked her head to one side as her laughter dissipated into a wry smile. “Holy shit! Was she your first?”

For a moment, Alex considered denying it. Was it too intimate a subject for a first date? Her mind was a little hazy and she couldn’t discern the best strategy. It was strangely freeing. Alex gazed at Charlotte’s eyes as if they were the source of her mild intoxication.

“Spill,” Charlotte insisted, crossing one muscular leg over the other as Alex’s attention lingered on her sculpted calf.

Defeated, Alex sat back, savoring the salty spice lingering on her lips. “She was the first one that counted.”

“I knew it. That look said it all,” Charlotte declared triumphantly.

“She was probably only a few years younger than you, but I thought she was the most incredible and worldly person I’d ever met.” Alex laughed. She had fallen hard and fast the way only teenagers were capable.

“It sounds like she rocked your socks o .”

Alex laughed. Graciela had done so much more than that.

She’d taught her about love, passion, art, desire . . . There was no way to put it all into words. “I may have learned a thing or two. What about you? Who was the first to sweep you o your feet?”

“I’m not sure there’s been one yet,” she replied after a beat, her fiery eyes intent as if posing a challenge.

Alex’s lip twitched, but she waited for Charlotte to continue instead of asking for clarification.