Page 28 of Teach Me

“What about you? Are you getting any sort of downtime to yourself? Seeing anyone special?”

“Hooked up with one of my students and then decided that was probably a poor career choice, so I ended it,” I said drolly.

Laura stared at me for a beat and then burst into laughter, which nettled me, though it shouldn’t have. Was I really so predictably dull? “Jesus, Grady. Good to see your gallows humor remains intact.”

I chuckled. “No, I’m not seeing anyone. Still married to my work, as you would say.” I winked at her, appreciating that we could laugh now at what had once been a major source of tension between us. “I’m not sure I’m meant for marriage or anything approaching that.”

“Never say never.” She waggled her brows at me. “Mauricio has a colleague at the DoD who?—”

“No, thank you. No matchmaking. Everyone and their brother has tried. I’d probably have better luck at a glory hole,” I quipped, and she cracked up again, swatting me.

“Maybe once the book comes out.”

“Maybe,” I hummed. “Or maybe I’m not meant for that kind of lifestyle,” I said more sincerely. “Look what happened with us. You know how consumed I get by work. I don’t know if I can be a good partner for anyone right now.”

Laura’s expression softened, and she caressed her fingers over my hand again. “You better than anyone else should know not to let your own confirmation bias run amok. One failed marriage between two people who simply weren’t in alignment does not mean a life sentence of failure. We made sense on paper. So much sense that we ignored the reality. Mauricio and I make absolutely no sense, and yet it somehow works. Maybe”—she tapped a finger on the table—“you should stop putting so much of your faith into what’s practical and keep an open mind to the impractical and nonsensical.”

“Oh gee, what a surprising statement from a professor of philosophy,” I teased.

But after we’d finished our lunch and said our goodbyes, I couldn’t shake her admonition. Cameron’s message lingered in the back of my mind like a persistent itch, and the desire to scratch it by reaching out to him grew stronger. I wanted to tell him I’d gone to the maze, explain to him how simultaneously phenomenal and impossible it had been. I imagined he’d get a kick out of my frustration as I wheeled around corners and backed away from dead ends, growing increasingly disillusioned and increasingly careless trying to determine which way to go next. A small part of me even entertained the crazy idea of suggesting we go together one day after he graduated, if the exhibit was still there. Cameron was tenacious, and I suspected he’d approach the maze with the intent furrow in his browhe sometimes had during class. I’d noticed it when lecturing, though I’d tried not to dwell on how endearing it was. The rational side of me won out, though, warning me against further contact. The line between a professor and a student was a precarious one, and I didn’t need to blur it any more.

In the end, I sent him a simple reply:

Grady:Thank you for the suggestion. See you in class next week.

Before I sent it, I tacked on,Be safe this weekend,and instantly regretted it. Too personal.

I put my phone away after that and lay in my hotel room, sleepless as I stared at the ceiling, my mind circling round and around one of Cameron’s last sentences:Thank you again for linking me up with Paul. We’ve been meeting and he’s really helpful and nice.I tried to pretend those words didn’t make me froth with curiosity over how often they’d been meeting and exactly how damn helpful Paul was being.

And then another thought struck me. Possibly worse. What if Cameron had decided to return to the club and try his luck with another stranger? He said he’d never done it before, and I believed him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be interested in doing it again eventually, despite his protests otherwise. The idea of someone else touching him and being touched by him in return unsettled me for reasons I knew I wasn’t supposed to dwell on.

Despite knowing exactly where I was physically, I was starting to think maybe I was lost after all.

13

GRADY

My office at the U was my haven. I’d lucked out with a view of one of the campus’s quads that caught me a good deal of side-eye and snarky jokes from other department members when it was assigned to me. I’d written at least a third of my book here, but now, as I tried to review my editor’s suggestions on my new chapter, I struggled to concentrate. The verdant expanse of grass beyond the window was mostly empty, not quite warm enough for the pickup games of catch or Frisbee that kept it crowded well into the evenings once spring fully arrived, and yet my gaze kept straying in that direction, snagging on the few passersby, checking their hair color, their gait.

I got up, shut the blinds, and returned to my desk to stare at the same marked-up paragraph for another fifteen minutes before I went back to the blinds and opened them again, chiding myself.

The quad was still empty. To the far left near the cafeteria, a few groups of students lingered outside. I searched among them for blond hair and an athletic build. I assumed Cameron ate there sometimes. Or did he just take leftovers from the cafe thesedays? That I was even ruminating over his eating habits was frustrating.

Dragging my attention away from the cafeteria’s doors, I scanned the other buildings, lingering on the stately edifice of the library with its tall arched windows. Arguably one of the U’s most picturesque structures, I’d spent a lot of time there when I’d first begun teaching because my first office had been little more than a cramped supply closet tucked into the draftiest corner of the social sciences building. And it had, in fact, reverted to a supply closet after I’d been moved to my current office.

An inviting glow emanated from the windows in the growing twilight. I used to take a large thermos of coffee and stay until one of the librarians or student aides reluctantly kicked me out. Simpler times, relatively speaking. The memory filled me with nostalgia, and only half realizing what I was doing, I gathered my stuff and was out the door, locking my office behind me. Perhaps I needed a change of scenery to shake the brain fog and relentless focus on blond men I shouldn’t and couldn’t have.

I took the stairs to the third floor and was pleased, as I opened the door, to see my favorite table blessedly empty. No quad view, just the expanse of bookshelves and other tables. Now there were no excuses. I checked my watch. Two hours until close, which would give me plenty of time to knock out some of the revisions.

It was sparse this time of day, with most students preferring the more “social” hub of the first floor or the basement, where it was commonly rumored that students went to hook up, despite the camera system that had been installed down there a while back. I set my bag on the table, belatedly scanning the other occupied tables, and froze, the cool metal of the laptop against my fingertips a counterpoint to the heat that flared in my stomach and radiated outward. Several tables away sat Cameronin all his golden-haired, boyish-charm glory, along with Paul, their heads nearly touching as Paul pointed out something in a textbook. I scrutinized them. Their closeness, their posture, the relaxed set of their faces, especially Cameron’s, and the heat in my stomach rose to an inferno.

I ground my molars together, then forced a smile and a nod when Paul glanced up and tossed a wave my way. It wasn’t polite to think Paul a prick, particularly when he was doing exactly what I’d asked of him, but it still rankled. A beat later, Cameron followed Paul’s line of sight to me, his expression unreadable as his gaze roamed over me in a way that was almost too familiar. I fought to keep the burn in my stomach from becoming a flush—I was a thirty-six-year-old man, not a hormonal teenager, for fuck’s sake. I nodded to him as well and then forced my attention back to my bag, already suspecting I’d screwed myself. Leaving would be too obvious, and besides, I was too prideful to show anything other than professionalism.

Forced to swallow the medicine I’d doled out to myself, I nudged my laptop open, booted it up, and stared at the shapes on the screen until they finally became words.

Every movement from Cameron and Paul was an enticing flicker in my periphery. Their voices, hushed as they were, still occasionally reached me. I snuck glances here and there, telling myself I was simply making sure my student was finding my TA helpful and that Paul was acting in a professional manner.

Two pages. Do two fucking pages, and then you can look again.Ridiculous that I had to resort to that, but it worked for a while.