CHAPTER FOUR

Snickers emanated all around me as his eyes narrowed and water continued to spill.

“Are you just going to sit there and watch it spill over?” His tone hard and directed at me. It bounced me out of my stupefied state.

I left the class to find a janitor who could direct me to the cleaning supplies room. Luckily, I found one with a mop stick.

I had somehow managed to make a fool of myself in front of the entire class and also delayed the class by extra 20 minutes.

By the time I had returned the mop and gotten back to my seat, he’d scribbled his name across the board and introduced himself.

“My name is Jared. I will be your ECON101 lecturer for the semester. My door is always open to receive you should you have any questions.”

How on earth had I managed to have the worst luck in the world?

Ohio to California was as far away as far away got so, the chances that my one night stand stood in front of me as my Econs lecturer was already the world playing a huge joke on me.

If at all fate had made us cross paths, it shouldn’t have been in an academic environment. He was too young to be a lecturer, least of all a professor. Most lecturers I knew were quite old.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him throughout the class even though I didn’t hear a word he spoke.

The man who’d taken my first kiss and virginity was no one else but my Econs professor.

*

I got to my room, still dazed from the morning. My notes were empty and my pens unused.

I sat on my bed and tried Becka again. This time, she picked up.

“Oh my God! where have you been?” I’d missed her so much.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve been busy with projects. What’s up though? You good?”

“You will not believe whom I saw today.” I looked around to make sure no one was actually in the room so I didn’t land my ass an expulsion or something.

“Are you alone?” I asked her. I wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Yeah. Sure. What is it? You’re worrying me.”

I took a deep breath and told her what had happened. She screamed into the phone. I had to pull my phone away from my ear so I wouldn’t go deaf.

“What the actual fuck!”

“I know right? Although, I don’t think he recognized me. He was rather harsh this morning.”

“Or he’s pretending not to know you so his sorry ass doesn’t get fired.”

“Maybe.. but he hadn’t even had the slightest expression that he had somehow recognised me. Surely he hadn’t expected me to be here or he wouldn’t have even taken me to his place in the first place.” I pulled my pillow over my head and screamed into it.

“Becka, what am I going to do?” I kicked the air as a feeling of trepidation filled my chest.

“Absolutely nothing. It happened before you knew he was your lecturer and outside the confines of school. So, leave it that way and nothing will happen. He’s already acting like it.”

I bit my lip as I thought about what she’d said. She was right. I just had to pretend that nothing happened between us.

How hard could it be?

*

“This class is quite large and I can’t handle a large influx of students to my office every time.”

‘Pretty sure they won't be coming for academic reasons’ I muttered bitterly to myself.

“I haven’t been granted a TA so, I’ll need two class reps from you. One from the previous set and one from the new set.”

The previous set chose some guy named Matt and he was called up to the front so everyone could see him.

“How about the freshers?”

“Water bottle girl.” Someone from the back yelled. That was what everyone had been calling me ever since the water bottle incident.

“Yeah.” People agreed in unison. I flushed from top to bottom as they kept yelling for me to represent the class. Jared motioned for the class to keep quiet. I kept my ass glued to the seat hoping he’d call for another person to represent us.

“Water bottle girl.”

Had he just?

The whole class snickered as Jared asked me to come to the front.

I bristled at the name but came out nonetheless.

Jared didn’t look one bit happy about it, that I could tell.

“Introduce yourself.” He motioned to the both of us.

“I’m Matt, a political science major.”

“Leah, accounting major.” The class hollered at me. I was drowning in embarrassment as we were asked to return to our seat.

The class went on as Jared taught. He was smooth with words and I found myself hanging on to his every words. The girls beside me sighed as he spoke, making giggling noises whenever he turned his head in our direction.

I was ready to chuck my pen at them if they didn’t stop distracting me.

“That’d be all for today. Matt and Leah, can I see you both quickly before your next class?”

“Lucky bitch.” One of the girls had sneered. I rolled my eyes at both of them. If they wanted it, they could come get it. I didn’t want to be a class rep anyway.

The plan was to get in and out of school without any issues. I was off to a quite wonderful start.

“Hey… you’ve made quite the spectacle in class.” Matt smiled kindly at me.

“It wasn’t by choice.” I whined. If I could rewind that day, I would in a heartbeat.

“You’ll be fine. They seem to like you anyway.” Matt shrugged as we entered Jared’s office

“What? They enjoy making fun of me. Both are not one and same.” My voice quietened as I made eye contact with him.

“There are some slight changes to…” ‘Last Resort’ by papa roach on full blast interrupted him.

I chuckled as Matt ransacked his bag for his phone.

“Excuse me sir.” He ran out of the office when his phone seemed to be playing hide and seek with him.

I could still hear the song along the hallway as I silently bopped to it. It was a really great song.

The laughter died in my throat as Jared focused on me, his stare quite intense. I swallowed hard at the fact that I was the only one standing before him with no where to turn to.

“Leah, is it?” My name rolling off his tongue effortlessly.

My hands turned clammy with sweat as I tried to wipe my hands on my jeans as subtly as I could. His eyes caught on to it regardless.

“Still have that habit I see.”