Page 8 of The Naughty Professor

Chapter Seven

Thorne

The chalk squeaked as I drew the final line across the board.

A crude grid, four little boxes stacked neatly like windows.

I capped it with the words Attack and Retreat, my handwriting slanting a little more than usual.

My students leaned forward in their seats, notebooks half-filled, laptops glowing.

This was the moment I lived for—the pause just before their brains clicked into place.

“Now,” I said, tapping the chalk against the top-left box, “imagine two generals. Each has a choice: attack or retreat. If they both attack, it’s carnage.

No clear winner, but thousands of lives lost. If they both retreat, nothing is gained.

But if one attacks while the other retreats…

” I sketched a little explosion in the box for emphasis. “The attacker walks away the victor.”

A ripple of interest moved through the room. I always loved that shift, the subtle straightening of spines, the soft murmurs, when the class realized they weren’t just learning philosophy—they were learning how people worked.

Miles in the front row, shot up his hand. Bright kid, a little too eager to prove himself. “Isn’t that just gambling?” he asked, eyebrows knitted. “Like flipping a coin and hoping the other guy runs away?”

I grinned, resting the chalk on the tray. “Not quite. Gambling is blind. Strategy is sighted. It’s not just about what you want to do, but what you believe the other will do in response.”

Another hand popped up—Kayla, in the second row, always ready with a counterpoint. “But Professor Carr, what if both generals know the other is thinking strategically? Doesn’t that just make it… endless second-guessing?”

“Excellent,” I said, pointing at her with a flourish.

“That’s exactly the problem. Infinite regress.

You’re not just guessing—you’re guessing what the other person thinks you will do, and what you think they will do in response to what you think they think…

” I let my voice trail off, and the class chuckled.

“It’s maddening. And yet, these calculations run the world—from poker tables to nuclear standoffs. ”

Miles leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “So what’s the solution? Attack? Retreat? How do you win?”

“Sometimes the only way to win,” I said, “is to change the game. Reframe the incentives so that the smartest move is also the safest. That’s what treaties, contracts, and friendships are for.”

I let the word friendships hang in the air, and a few students tilted their heads as though the idea had never occurred to them—that the bonds they built could be strategies in themselves.

I loved that moment. Teaching wasn’t about cramming facts into heads; it was about nudging a thought sideways and letting it bloom into something new.

The clock above the door clicked toward the hour. I glanced at it reluctantly. “All right, that’s all for today. Read the next chapter of The Evolution of Cooperation before Wednesday. There will be a quiz, and yes, Miles, you can debate me about it afterward.”

A groan of laughter rippled through the room. Students began stuffing laptops and notebooks into backpacks, the shuffle of bodies and squeak of chairs echoing in the hall. A few lingered, still talking about game theory, arguing whether you could ever truly predict human behavior.

I loved them for it. For all their distractions and TikTok obsessions, they were sharp when you gave them a reason to be.

As the last of the students filtered out, the silence pressed in, and with it, the dull throb at the back of my skull. I rubbed my temples and groaned.

Badlands. I should’ve left hours earlier last night. But Sean had begged, pouted, and needled me until I’d agreed to stay. He always did. And then, true to form, he’d vanished with a stranger just before midnight.

I envied him sometimes. The ease with which he slipped into someone else’s arms, laughter spilling into the night like it cost him nothing. No hesitation. No consequences. Just pleasure.

But I wasn’t like that. Never had been. I couldn’t take a man to bed unless there was something more. A spark at the very least. A sense that I wasn’t just a warm body filling space. Without it, sex was hollow—a distraction that left me emptier than before.

I sank into the chair behind the desk, fingertips drumming on the wood. And inevitably, my mind drifted to the man I’d seen there last night, standing awkwardly at the edge of the dance floor.

Dr. Felix Sterling.

I hadn’t expected him. On campus, he was quiet, almost invisible—muttering at faculty meetings, hair perpetually mussed, his glasses far too big for his face. And yet, watching him at Badlands, there’d been something beneath the nervous shifting and wrinkled shirt. Sharpness. Curiosity. Hunger?

Felix was smart—I knew that much. I’d caught him once explaining quantum entanglement to a freshman with an enthusiasm that lit up the hallway. And intelligence… God, intelligence was the sharpest lure. If a man couldn’t hold a conversation, I lost interest faster than you could blink.

But Felix? Underneath the tragic glasses and unfortunate wardrobe, I thought he was attractive. More than attractive. There was something real about him—unguarded, awkward, but sincere.

I drummed harder against the desk, considering. Maybe I should ask him to coffee. Just a cup at the little café on Grace Street where I liked to grade papers. Neutral territory. A chance to see if the spark I thought I’d glimpsed could be coaxed into something more.

The idea sent a faint warmth through me.

God knew I needed someone. Not a fling, not a body to pass the time.

Someone who could listen, who could make me laugh, who might ease the hollow that Alastair’s death had left in me.

He’d been my closest friend on campus, the only one I could talk to without pretending.

And now, without him, the halls felt emptier than ever.

A friend. That was all I wanted. At least to start with.

I glanced at my watch. An hour and a half before my next meeting. Plenty of time.

I stood, slid the chalk into the tray, and brushed the dust from my palms. My footsteps echoed up the stairs to the back of the lecture hall, toward the narrow door that led to my office. Inside, I dropped my bag on the desk, rubbed at my temple once more, and stared at the clock.

Should I? Would it be wise to blur the lines between colleagues? The university wasn’t exactly a hotbed of out gay professors. It might be… risky.

But then I thought of Felix at Badlands, his eyes darting around the room like he wanted to belong but didn’t know how.

No, it wasn’t risky. It was an opportunity.

I grabbed my jacket from the chair, shrugged it on, and stepped back into the hall. My shoes clicked against the tile as I made my way toward the chemistry wing, my pulse steady but quickening.

Felix Sterling. Maybe he’d say no. But maybe—just maybe—he’d say yes.

* * *

The chemistry wing always smelled faintly of antiseptic and burnt sugar, like someone had been sterilizing candy.

Felix Sterling’s lab was at the far end, a double-doored chamber with tall windows that threw gray afternoon light across the tiled floor.

My hand hesitated on the handle, a flutter of nerves I hadn’t felt since I was nineteen and about to ask a boy from my dorm out for the first time.

“Good God, I’m being so ridiculous,” I muttered.

I was a grown man, for God’s sake. I could stand in front of a hundred students and hold forth about ethics and Aristotle without blinking—but a cute chemistry professor had me sweating through my shirt.

I pushed the door gently and peeked inside. The lab was empty. Rows of counters gleamed under the fluorescent lights, beakers aligned like soldiers, glass-tubed contraptions waiting silently.

I exhaled, half relieved, half disappointed. Maybe this was a sign I should let it go. Ask him out another day. Or not at all. I turned to leave, and the door on the other side of the room swung open.

Sterling stumbled in, arms overloaded with equipment—two flasks sloshing with amber fluid, a cardboard box of vials clutched under one elbow, and what looked like a bag of white powder balanced precariously against his chest. His glasses were fogged, and his hair looked as if he had been electrocuted.

He saw me and froze mid-stride.

For a moment we both just stared at each other, two deer caught in the same set of headlights.

“Sterling,” I managed, forcing my voice into something casual. “Good afternoon.”

“Professor Carr!” His pitch came out too high, and he winced. He shuffled forward, the box tilting dangerously. “Uh—what are you—what are you doing here?” He dumped the whole precarious load onto the big front lab table. A glass vial rolled away, clinked onto the tile, and burst into fragments.

“Damn it,” he muttered, crouching quickly to sweep the shards into his hand with zero regard for safety.

I took a step forward. “Careful, you’ll cut yourself.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I bleed all the time.” He froze, realizing what he’d just said, and his face flamed. “I mean—not like that—I mean in the lab, I mean—”

He shut his mouth and turned beet red.

Something inside me softened. For all my hesitation, here was Felix Sterling, visibly unraveling in front of me. Shy, awkward, saying exactly the wrong thing.

I smiled before I could stop myself. “Hazards of chemistry, I suppose.”

He bent down further, fumbling at the glass, and in the same breath his elbow smacked a tall beaker still half-filled with cloudy liquid. It toppled, splashed across the table, and shattered on the floor beside him.

“Shit!” he barked, flinching back.

I moved instinctively, stepping into the lab, ready to help him up, ready to—

The sharp clip of heels rang out behind me.

I turned, heart sinking.

Joan glided through the doorway, the pearls around her neck winking in the harsh light. Her eyes went instantly to Felix crouched on the floor, and her lips pursed.

“Oh, Dr. Sterling,” she said, voice edged with syrup. “Another little… accident?”

Felix shot up straight, nearly slipping on the puddle. “No—no, it’s under control.” His ears glowed scarlet.

Joan’s gaze slid to me. “Thorne. What a surprise. What brings you to Sterling’s,” her nose wrinkled, “laboratory?”

I felt my jaw tighten. I’d known Joan for years, relied on her after my divorce, even let her drag me out of my apartment when I couldn’t face the world. She’d been a friend. But now, standing there, her voice dripping with disdain, I realized with a jolt that I resented her.

Why did she always show up when I didn’t want her around? I resented the way she wrapped her voice around my name like it was hers to keep. And most of all — I resented that she was here now, right when I was about to ask Sterling out.

My mouth went dry. Whatever words I’d rehearsed—coffee, Grace Street, just a chat—vanished.

“I—ah,” I stammered, retreating a step. “I should get back to my office. Papers to grade.”

Felix blinked, confused, still clutching a broken shard in one hand. “Oh. Right. Yes. Of course.”

Joan’s eyes flickered with amusement. I forced a polite nod to Felix, turned on my heel, and strode toward the door.

“Thorne,” Joan called, her heels clicking as she hurried after me. “Are you free this evening? Dinner, perhaps? I’m dying for some Greek food. We could go to Stella’s, perhaps?”

Guilt stabbed me. Joan had been a good friend. She’d fed me when I couldn’t eat, listened when no one else would. So why did her voice now sound like chains I couldn’t shake off?

I stopped in the hall, turned back just enough to meet her eyes. I shrugged, forcing something like a smile. “Sure. Dinner sounds fine.”

Her face lit, triumphant. She slid her hand onto my arm as we walked together down the corridor and began gossiping about one of her students.

But all I could think of was Felix Sterling.