by Lane Hart
When I get the courage to glance up, my breath catches in my throat at the sight of not only the most attractive man alive but the one who just so happens to be my digital media professor. He teaches the one challenging course which currently stands between my Master's Degree and me.
“Oh my God. I’m so, so sorry, Professor Daughton,” I apologize in a rush, my mouth hanging open as I watch the delicious fiesta salad drip down the front of his wrinkle-free dress shirt.
He chuckles, and the sound instantly warms my soul like hot chocolate on a cold, snowy day.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s my fault for not watching where I was going,” he says with a grin that causes his sapphire eyes to dance with a twinkle thanks to the bright, overhead lights. He’s so gorgeous that whenever I’m around him, I seem to simultaneously go dumb, deaf and mute. My sense of sight and smell are thankfully intact, as I get a whiff of his fresh and sharp masculine mint scent that reminds me of the Cool Water cologne my dad used to wear. Oh, fuck. I obviously have some bizarre daddy issues that have twisted into a freaking crush on my professor.
My ability to speak like a normal human being has long since scurried right out of the building, leaving me to only mutter various sounds that an infant might make.
“Wow, Reagan, way to make an entrance,” Josie says with her approach from the back of the restaurant. “Ooh, nice. New take on tossing a salad?” she asks with a laughing snort when she’s standing next to my professor and me. I lock gazes with her amused blue eyes, silently begging my best friend not to stick her foot in her mouth, which would be the equivalent of me sticking my own in my mouth, since I still have a week of classes and then exams before I escape the semester with this gorgeous man. One who I’ve overheard plenty of female classmates talk about visiting in his office after hours for “extra credit” with a wink, and then their grades magically improve on the next assignment. Honestly, I should’ve already been to see him for actual help or plea for a passing grade since social media and I are not friends. Now, I have a paper due in a week about the social media revolution’s effect on journalism, and I don’t know shit about twerking, following or anything else online since, as Josie would say, I’ve opted to live in the Dark Ages.
“Sooo,” Josie drawls, looking back and forth between Professor Daughton, who's plucking veggies off himself and me. “Why don’t you two go have a seat right over there while I fetch some napkins for clean up?” she asks, pointing to a quaint little table in the back corner.
“No, no, that’s okay,” I say at the same time Professor Daughton replies with “Ah, sure.”
I glare at Josie until she makes a shooing motion with her hands. Now I have two choices --- run out of the restaurant and then try to explain my departure to my professor tomorrow in class, or sit down with him and try to salvage the semester.
Reluctantly, I follow the man of many of my most erotic fantasies to the table and sit my tray in front of the seat to his left. Being so close to his hotness and delicious smell is pure torture, like the medieval kind, before there was any such thing as cruel and unusual.
“So, how’s your final paper coming along?” he asks after we sit in awkward silence for several long seconds.
I finally gather the courage to lift my eyes to the face God made with the sole purpose to be in front of a camera for the world’s viewing pleasure. I’m not sure what he’s doing teaching, sitting behind a boring desk all day. What a waste of physical perfection, not to mention he’s brilliant. And at the moment, I’m sitting here alone with him, watching in absolute humiliation as he continues to pluck tomatoes and lettuce off his ruined shirt.
“Reagan?” he prompts, his long, manicured fingers pausing in his salad decontamination.
“Ah, yeah?” I ask, meeting his eyes, dazzling indigo eyes that are almost too clear and hypnotic to be real. “I mean, what was that, sir?”
“I asked how your paper is going,” he responds with a smile.
“Oh,” I mutter, ashamed that I forgot his question so quickly. “Almost finished,” I lie.
“Good. I can’t wait to read it,” he says, causing a brighter flush to color my cheeks.
“Here we go,” Josie says when she sits down in the empty seat across from me and offers a handful of napkins. It’s funny that just a week ago I was handing her the same item for cleaning up her own roadside mess.
“Thanks,” I tell her as I grab a stack. I lean forward and start swiping the napkins over the mess I made on my instructor’s shirt before I catch myself. Holy shit, what’s wrong with me? “Sorry,” I say again, shoving the napkins against his chest for him to take over.
“Please, Reagan, it’s my fault.”
“You two know each other?” Josie asks, raising her blonde eyebrows with a grin.
Shit. Once I tell Josie who he is, she’ll probably plow through him like a bulldozer, but there’s no way to avoid it.
“Oh, um, yeah,” I start. “Josie, this is Professor Daughton, my digital media instructor. Professor, this is Josie Carter, my best friend.”
“Nice to meet you, Josie,” he says, wiping off his palm before offering it to Josie.
“You too,” she replies with a smile. I hold my breath while praying that she won’t open her big mouth about me talking about him, about how hot he is or how when he sits on the edge of his desk, it causes his dress pants to pull tight across his well-endowed package.
“I’ll buy you another shirt,” I blurt out to interrupt any comments Josie might have been thinking of making.
“No way,” Professor Daughton says with a shake of his head, drawing my eye to his thick, glossy brown hair that’s combed perfectly to the side. I would be willing to eat baby animals just to have a chance to run my fingers through those locks. “I’m sure my shirt will be fine after a trip to the cleaners.”
“Then I’ll pay your dry cleaning bill,” I insist.
“I would’ve had to clean it anyway,” he says with a smirk. “Please don’t think about it again. In fact, it looks like a delicious salad.” Reaching down he plucks a chopped tomato off of his shirt and pops it into his luscious mouth. Holy moly. The way those luscious lips open and move against the red vegetable is magical. “Yum,” he mutters. “Sweet too. Wait…is that –”
His words are cut off at the same time his eyes bulge. He grabs his throat with both hands as his face begins to turn a deep, horrible shade of red. Oh my God, he’s choking!
Jumping up so fast my chair falls over backward with a loud smack on the tile floor, I rush around Professor Daughton’s chair and haul him up, grabbing underneath his muscular arms, with strength I didn’t know I had. Wrapping my arms around his trim waist, I place my fist above his navel and cover it with the other hand to start squeezing, trying to expel the food blocking his airways.
“Ah, Reagan?” Josie asks while I perform the Heimlich.
“What? I’m a little busy here!” I shout while driving my fist upward.
“I don’t think he’s choking,” she replies calmly. My eyes jerk over to her where she’s still sitting casually in her chair, mouth hanging open while watching the scene play out.
“Of course he’s choking!” I yell as I continue thrusting against his body with all my might. But when the professor begins adamantly shaking his head in disagreement, my hands pause.
“His lips are swelling, and there are red splotches spreading over his face,” Josie says helpfully. “Oh fuck! I bet he’s got a food allergy!” she exclaims.
The professor’s head bobs up and down in agreement so I drop my hands. “A food allergy?” I repeat. “Then what the hell are we supposed to do? I don’t even have a phone to call for help!” I screech, starting to panic even more when I continue to hear the professor’s gasping breaths.
“Here,” a middle-aged, mom looking lady says when she taps on my shoulder. She offers me some sort of slender, dildo looking cylinder with an orange tip. “Do you know how to use an EpiPen?” she asks.
I
take the device from her hand and turn it this way and that. “No idea.” Unless it goes in my va-jay-jay. That’s the point at which the professor hits the floor.
“Oh shit!” I shout. Kneeling down beside him, I watch in amazement as Professor Daughton’s lips and face swell even larger, right before my eyes.
“Here, then let me do it,” the woman says. Crouching next to me, she takes back the dildo and pops the top off, revealing a needle that she slams down into the side of the professor’s upper thigh.
“Oh my God,” I murmur in shock.
Several unsteady heartbeats later, the Professor Daughton’s beautiful sapphire eyes blink open, before widening when he sees me hovering over him. “That wasn’t very smooth,” he mutters softly before he groans and reaches for the big ass needle still sticking out of his leg.
“An ambulance is on the way,” Josie says from above us, still holding her cell phone up to her ear.
“What are you allergic to?” the lifesaving lady kneeling next to me asks.
“Deathly allergic…to pineapple,” the professor answers.
When I glance up, Josie gives me a sympathetic frown because she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
I almost killed my professor.
Chapter Two
Gage Daughton
If there was any doubt left about my epic level of dorkiness, well, this has certainly drilled the point home.
I can practically feel Reagan’s warm, caramel eyes searing into me from across the room while the EMT checks my pulse and whatever else. Despite how many times I’ve told them I’m fine, they insist that they need to transport me to the hospital where I can receive antihistamines and steroids under the care of a physician.
Fucking great.
Knowing better than most the instantaneous way news travels in today’s world, I imagine a video of my embarrassing allergic reaction is already making its way around social media. Tomorrow, I’ll be the laughing stock of not only the entire student body of Madison University but the rest of the world, all because I stupidly tried to be suave in front of one of my students. A beautiful student who I have no business thinking about, other than the grade I’ll give her on her research paper and final exam.
This must be Karma’s way of paying me back for having…less than pure thoughts about a girl in my class. It’s also a reminder that, as a professor, and a recently separated man on top of that, there is no possible reason under the sun for why I approached her outside of the classroom. Or why I agreed to sit down at a table with her. Or, in the stupidest attempt at seduction ever, I picked a piece of tomato from my shirt and popped it into my mouth, not knowing that it had been in contact with the one and only food I’m deathly allergic to – pineapple.
Despite how frightening it felt when I was unable to get any oxygen into my swelling throat, I sort of miss the way Reagan’s arms felt around me and the worry in her eyes before I could inhale air again. Even now, knowing it’s wrong, I silently beckon her closer while I continue to watch her from across the restaurant whispering to her blonde friend, her arms wrapped protectively around herself. The urge to be near her, to touch her, is even stronger today than any of the other days since I first saw her. She effectively ended my marriage before she ever walked into my classroom, not that she or anyone else knows that. Now, my fingers are practically twitching with the need to feel her warm skin against my own. I am so fucked.
My trembling hands could just be the side effects of the epinephrine shot. My heart is pounding so fast it’ll likely give out. I’m also sweating like a pig, which is giving my dress shirt lovely pit stains, and I may very well throw up the chimichanga I just ate.
“All right, we’re all set,” the young, beefy EMT with a crew cut says as he stands before my chair, chomping his gum loudly with his hands resting on his hips. “Are you gonna come quietly, or will we have to nail you with a tranquilizer?” he asks with a smirk.
“I’ll come quietly,” I say on a sigh, anything to get away from this disaster caused by nefarious intentions gone wrong.
“The pretty little hippie wants to come along, too,” he tells me when I get to my feet, making me temporarily lose my balance. He must be talking about Regan. I’ve noticed in her writing assignments this semester that she’s an earthy liberal who wants to save the world of all its injustices. It’s sweet, yet a little naïve. Poor girl is gonna get trampled in the real world.
The tech places a hand on my back to keep me steady which makes me feel like an even bigger wimp.
“She your girlfriend?” he asks.
“God no,” I quickly reply to his question and jerk away from his assistance as we cross the bustling restaurant filled with gawkers to approach the two women.
“Well, in that case,” he says quietly. “I’m gonna try and work a phone number out of her. You know what they say about the quiet ones, right?”
“No,” I say, either in response to his question or in opposition to this sack of shit screwing over a sweet, innocent girl like Reagan. I’m not sure which.
“Freak in the sheets,” he leans over and whispers to me when we’re standing a foot away from Reagan and her friend.
“Watch your mouth,” I tell him sternly, causing the ladies to stop mid-sentence in their conversation to look up at us in surprise. “So,” I say to Reagan and then have to clear my throat. “Thanks for, well, you know.” Wow, I’m about as smooth as sandpaper.
“I didn’t do anything. That lady with the dildo stick thing did. I mean the needle. This is all my fault,” Reagan responds in a frantic jumble of words, her defined cheeks rosy red. And did she just say dildo? “You could’ve…I mean…you almost…” When the moisture fills her eyes and nearly overflows, my heart nearly combusts inside my chest. It was pumping faster than normal before, but now it may very well be ready to explode.
Without thinking, I reach for her, wanting to comfort her since I’m the reason she’s clearly distraught. She’s probably just worried that I’ll flunk her for bearing witness to my award-winning performance of dorkiness. Reagan clutches my shoulders, her exhale of relief fluttering over my ear before her entire body relaxes in my arms. That’s finally when my heart decides to settle back into its normal rhythm. It’s a comforting embrace and so very…nice. I could stay like this forever, pressed into her warmth while her soothing lavender scent surrounds me. But then I remember all the witnesses around us, knowing it only takes one of them snapping a photo to end my career by giving the wrong assumption to the faculty committee at Madison. So, I reluctantly take a step back and let her go.
“Well, babe, you coming with us or what?” the dickhead EMT asks Reagan. She nods before wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her falling tears could very well threaten to flood my soul.
“If you don’t mind?” she asks me.
“Ah, no,” I reply before I even consider the question. Fuck it all. I should’ve said yes. Yes, I mind. More time with her is not good. I’m a man, not a priest.
Okay, that’s not the best analogy, but still…
“Call when you need a ride and I’ll pick you up,” the blonde girl says to Reagan.
“Thanks, Josie.” Yes, that’s her name, Josie. I remember now from the introduction, the one right before I nearly committed suicide by tropical fruit.
The four of us walk silently out of the restaurant and to the sidewalk where the ambulance is still running with the rear doors open wide. After I step up into the back, I turn around to offer Reagan a hand up. She takes it right away, her palm warm and perfect in mine, before the EMT grabs her bottom, hefting her into the back of the ambulance. I glare daggers at him, which he completely ignores because he’s too busy watching Reagan’s ass while copping a feel.
“Up you go,” he tells her, following her inside and then closing the double doors. “You can sit on the stretcher, Mr. Anaphylaxis Shocker,” Romeo tells me with a smirk. To Reagan, he says, “And we can sit right here on this bench.”
“Oh, okay,”
Reagan says with a nod before folding her russet colored dress underneath her and taking a seat against the wall. The asshole flops down beside her and even throws his arm up on the back of the cushion.
“Ready to roll, Vinny,” the tech says to the older gentleman in the driver seat. Then we’re off.
“So, I didn’t catch your name,” Casanova says to Reagan, his face mere inches from hers. Instead of answering, she seems to search his face carefully with narrowed eyes, as if looking for something.
“Her name is Reagan,” my mouth speaks without my permission. “And maybe you should give her a little breathing room.”
“Who are you? Her father?” he asks, slouching back in his seat.
Reagan gasps at his question and turns her face away from him, while I continue to sit there on the gurney with my legs swinging over the side, apparently looking old enough to be her father. Which is absurd. I’m probably no more than ten years older than her.
“She’s a student of mine,” I correct him. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
He and I then share a look, neither of us blinking, both of us silently communicating the same thing. Yeah, well, tough shit. I’m not backing down, fucker. Unfortunately, his arrogant grin is saying, Game on, old man.
Chapter Three
Reagan
Holy guacamole. This is the strangest day ever.
It’s times like this that I wish I had a cell phone just to pretend I have something to do on it for the distraction after the yummy EMT had to make a comment about my father, at the same time insulting my professor. I can actually see my already tanking grade steadily declining with every passing second of this clusterfuck of an afternoon.
Thankfully the rest of the ride to the hospital is silent. Oh, great, and now I’m thinking about how much this ambulance ride and emergency room visit is gonna cost Professor Daughton. I should probably offer to pay for it too, even though my funds are rather limited with my scholarship, and my mom is footing my rent. I guess I may have to tap into the savings account where I put half of my father’s life insurance policy after my mom insisted I take it. Over the years I’ve only touched it once, my freshman year of college when my ancient Nissan gave out and I needed a way to get back and forth to visit my mom in the suburbs where buses don’t go.
