Professor next Door

by Summer Cooper

  What was Alex talking about? What had Dean done? She was beyond curious now and she desperately wanted to ask, but knew he might bite her head off if she did. There were certain things that you just didn’t push with guys; buried secrets between bros were pretty high on the list. She had figured that one out long ago.

  Chelsea moved in line behind Alex, following him. Jess had not even noticed she had finished her run and was standing quietly a few feet from them. Jess stared at Chelsea’s impressively athletic and lean body. She sometimes wished she had a body like hers. She would be an even greater athlete than she was now. She wondered how she had beaten Chelsea. It had to be all a matter of skill, because Jess was a good forty pounds heavier than Chelsea and probably not much stronger. It made the win that much more satisfying.

  “We gonna go for another run?” Jess asked. She was hoping they would do a few more, but now she wasn’t so sure that Alex was in the mood. He had very nearly gotten hurt a few minutes ago and even though he wouldn’t show it or admit it; he was probably still a bit sore and shaken up.

  “Sure, let’s do it.”

  Dean was instantly cheerful again and acting as if nothing had happened at all. He had that look of a champion back in his eye and he was ready to roll. He moved off towards the lift. Jess paused a moment just staring at him. Who was he? How was he able to just change his whole mood and attitude that way? That was probably why he had such a great poker face. In his line of work you couldn’t compete if you got rattled easily. You had to have nerves of steel. Jess liked to think she had nerves of steel, but she knew that hers paled in comparison to Dean or Alex. The men were both superhuman. The way they were able to compartmentalize their emotions was staggering. She envied that; it was a rare talent.

  The next run turned out to be the last one of the day for them, but it was nonetheless fun. It actually was the most fun run of all, because it seemed that Dean and Alex both simmered down and just enjoyed themselves without getting all psycho alpha male and going crazy.

  Jess was even finding that she tolerated Chelsea for a bit, but she still hated the girl. She was the poster girl for all of the things that Jess was against as a woman. She was superficial, shallow, and lazy. She was a princess and she expected everyone to treat her that way because her rich daddy had. Jess hated those types of women because she knew they never appreciated anything and they expected everything.

  That night at the cabin Dean was rather quiet. As they sat on his couch watching some old John Hughes DVDs from the eighties, he didn’t utter a word. Occasionally he would grunt a laugh when something silly happened, but he was content to be quiet. He just sat and sipped his bourbon.

  Jess was absolutely beat. She had forgotten how much skiing took out of you and she was in very bad shape compared to the shape she used to be. I’ve got to start working out, she thought.

  She was starting to get a bit bored, so she decided to see if she could draw Dean out of his shell. He looked like he really did not want to be bothered, but she didn’t care. Sometimes it was fun to just push people to see how far you could get away with pushing them. It often ended badly, but it also sometimes ended splendidly. She was hoping it would end in the bedroom. For some reason she was really hot tonight and Dean was looking extra delicious.

  It might have been the way he was being all standoffish and aloof. She had always been attracted to the strong silent type. There was something about a man who was stoic and spent a lot of time inside their own minds, as if separating themselves from the rest of the world.

  “So, what’s on your mind?” Jess asked.

  Dean looked somewhat annoyed for a split second, but quickly popped a huge smile across his face as he looked over at her, flashing those sexy eyes at her. That was such a huge turn on, but she held her poker face. She had to make sure that he didn’t’ catch onto the game yet. She had to make him squirm a little bit.

  “Nothing, much. Just enjoying the flick. Have you seen it before?” Dean asked.

  “I’m not sure; which one is it?”

  “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s a classic,” Dean said. He was genuinely in love with the movie. Jess had only half watched it, so she had no idea if it was funny or not.

  “Oh, I may have seen it before. It sounds familiar.”

  “I tell you, they do not make flicks like this anymore.”

  “Really? You a big teen movie fan?”

  “No, just this era. The eighties movies had so much pizazz and fun. They were all about never growing up and avoiding responsibility, but at the end of the movie the kid always learned about responsibility anyway. It seems that no matter how hard you try to push it away, growing up happens whether you want it to or not.”

  Jess was taken aback. She had no idea that Dean could be that deep and introspective. She now had a whole new appreciation of him and of these goofy teenage movies he seemed to love. There was something so sexy about a man who was passionate and brainy about something that she cared nothing for, because he had just made her care about it too. She wanted to watch these films for herself and see what she would take from it.

  “Wow that is very interesting. I have never seen these movies in that light. How did you get into this particular era?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess they used to play these movies on spring break and winter break on television when I was a kid and these ones were the movies that just hooked me. They taught me a lot about life and how to make sure I never ended up like the geek who couldn’t get the girl,” Dean said with a wink that made Jess blush.

  “So, we aren’t getting much work done this weekend, are we?” Jess asked.

  Dean laughed. “No, I guess not. But screw it. We get paid no matter if we win or not.”

  For a while that might be true, until we end up with no clients because no one wants to go to jail so they never hire us, she thought.

  “How do you have such a cavalier attitude about life?” Jess asked. She had moved slowly closer to him, inch by inch. She wasn’t sure he had actually seen it, but she was going to be right next to him on the couch in just a few seconds. He was still too preoccupied by the movie.

  “I just don’t allow myself to get too emotionally involved in things. Getting bent out of shape never helped anybody. Like today, I was just about to break Alex’s neck, but then I stopped myself. It wasn’t worth it.”

  “So, you don’t really think he tripped you on purpose?”

  “Oh, that dick totally did it on purpose. I’m just saying I’m prepared to wait until the perfect time to strike to get him back.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Jess said. She was practically whispering in his ear now.

  “It’s not. I can totally—"

  Dean stopped short as he suddenly realized that Jessica was putting a move on him. He looked her deeply in the eyes and his eyes widened with desire. For a few seconds neither one of them moved. No one blinked and no one breathed. They were just getting lost in the look. It was here and now. They were here together and they were sharing a moment.

  Dean grabbed her and pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers, hard.

  Jess smiled inwardly. This was turning out to be a great weekend.

  Chapter 7

  Jessica was awakened by her phone vibrating.

  She rolled her head slowly to the side pretty sure that she was dreaming. It took a few moments and another round of buzzing for her to come to the conclusion that she was not dreaming and she had just received a text message. In the dark she could read that it was from Alex.

  She picked up her phone, noticed that it was three-thirty in the morning. What in the hell could he possibly want at this hour? She debated ignoring it and thought about just drifting back off to sleep. She darted her eyes to the left, making sure that Dean hadn’t heard the phone.

  He was dead asleep.

  She decided to ignore it. Whatever Alex had to say to her he could say in the morning. Now was the time for sleeping. She had been dreaming about somet
hing amazing, but she could not remember what. She hated when that happened. It was something that was going to bug her the rest of the day and she silently cursed Alex. Hopefully her subconscious would remember it and she could get back to sleep easily.

  A few minutes later she was on the verge of drifting back to sleep when the phone vibrated again. It somehow seemed to be louder this time. She couldn’t believe it. The man would not take no for an answer. She used to find that sexy, but now she was finding it totally annoying.

  She slipped out of the covers and grabbed her phone. She clicked on the first message.

  Hey, meet me outside the cabin. I want to talk.

  That is a very vague message, she thought. Why would she even take that bait? Come on, Alex. You are going to have to do better than that.

  She clicked on the second message.

  Come on, don’t be a chicken shit.

  Jess glared angrily in the dark. How did he know how to push her buttons? How did he know that being called that was the worst thing in the world for her?

  She tried not to give in. It was late and she was exhausted. She had actually thought about going into the other room to get some work done; she always worked much more efficiently when she was tired. She was not sure why. Maybe it was because her brain was moving at a slower pace and she could actually concentrate better. She had read an article once about the effects of limited sleep on overachievers and she believed one of the studies had proven that theory on its test subjects. She wondered why they had never contacted her. She would have been great for a study like that.

  It was going to eat at her if she didn’t go. Being called chicken shit or anything close to it had always had the same effect on her as telling her that she couldn’t do something or that she couldn’t be something. Jess had always been the type of person who could not stand being told what to do or being told that she was inferior in some way. She had gotten better with it and at times she thought she had even cured it, but then some idiot would say something to her and it would send her over the edge a bit. She hated to be treated that way and could not stand the idea of someone looking down on her.

  She knew that Alex was just teasing and he was trying to aggravate her. Well, it’s effing working. She knew as soon as she had read the words that she was going to be going out there tonight. It was stupid and he was probably going to try to get her naked or do some other weird shenanigans.

  On second thought, he was a grown man. She had dated far too many insecure little boys in her time who needed to grow up. Alex was many things and most of those things were shadowed in a negative light, but he was a strong, dominant man who was in charge of his own life. That was one of the things she found most intriguing about him. She had really been giving him an extra hard time of things and she wasn’t sure why.

  Maybe it was because Alex was the quintessential bad boy and she had vowed never to get seriously involved with one of those. This was precisely the reason that she had pulled herself back from him, she realized. She liked Alex way more than she liked to admit and that scared her. She was as afraid of him as she was turned on and drawn to him. It was a weird bad boy sickness and most women alive today had dealt with it and they either moved on or matured out of it or they clung to it convinced that they were right in assuming that these men could change. But they could only change a little bit. If they changed too much then they were no longer exciting and bad. There was no excitement, mystery, or danger. Some women thrived on it.

  Jess knew she was one of those women, but she had refrained from allowing herself to become too involved with that kind of man. She knew that if a man like that ever sank his teeth into her then she would be his forever and it would be hopeless. She would fall madly in love and then her heart would eventually become shattered into a million pieces, never to be repaired again.

  Jess took a deep breath, got out of bed, put on a pair of sweats and a hoody. Five minutes later she was standing outside of the cabin looking for Alex.

  She saw no one. The anger began to rise inside of her and she felt like screaming. Had he just sent her this text so that she would go outside for no reason? It was freezing out and she wasn’t dressed that warmly. She didn’t think she would be out there that long. And she was right. Alex was nowhere in sight so she was going back inside.

  “Hey, looking for me?”

  Jess stopped mid step and spun around. Alex’s grinning face was standing there. He had been hiding behind a tree and now he stepped out into full view, his face lit up by the huge, bright full moon that hung low in the clear sky. He was clearly enjoying himself and his little trick on her. She was filled with a sudden urge to ram his face into a tree. But the way he was laughing was beginning to make her laugh. She held onto her straight face by sheer force of will.

  “What are you doing?” Jess asked.

  “I was out for a walk and I got bored. So I came up here.”

  “You walked all the way up here?”

  “It’s not that far. I’m at the resort about two miles down the road. It’s a pretty nice walk actually,” Alex said.

  “You take a lot of midnight strolls?”

  “I do when I’m this close to the beauty of nature,” Alex replied seriously.

  Jess was trying desperately to figure this man out and just when she thought she had him, he threw her another curve. It was exhausting but also very exciting. Oh, no--- those are two of the symptoms, she thought.

  “Ok, I’m here. What was so important that you had to drag me out of bed at four in the morning?”

  “I needed to talk to you. I need to talk to you about Dean.”

  “What about Dean?”

  Alex walked closer to her, his feet shuffling the snowy asphalt beneath.

  “Dean is dangerous,” Alex said.

  Jess laughed. “What do you mean dangerous? He is your best friend.”

  “Yeah, he is. I know him better than just about anybody. Trust me when I tell you the man is dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?”

  “A few years ago he got a girl pregnant. She was one of our interns. The girl tried to blackmail him into marrying her. Her grandpa is Judge Williams. If you know anything about Judge Williams then you know that you never want to piss this guy off.”

  “Ok. I’m listening.”

  “Well, Dean wasn’t sure what to do. He was really in a bind. If he didn’t marry her then she was going to make him pay out the ass for child support for years to come. Based on his earnings and some extra doctoring from the judge with the court documents, the man was looking at paying a king’s ransom for a kid with a woman that he barely knew.”

  “Wow. So what happened?”

  “That’s where it gets weird. Dean decides to marry the girl and a few weeks before the wedding the girl is driving home from work when she loses control of the car and rolls it over a big hill. She was found dead at the scene.”

  “Wow, that’s awful. Did he ever recover from it?”

  Alex laughed. “You don’t understand. The girl meant less than nothing to him. He had been forced into marrying a woman he hated and suddenly in a flash all of his problems are solved.”

  “No, way. You aren’t suggesting that he actually did something to make her crash so he wouldn’t have to marry her.”

  “That is what the cards are showing.”

  “Did the cops ever look suspiciously at him?” Jess asked.

  “No, of course not. It was a pretty clean, textbook case.”

  “So, you have no way of knowing he did that.”

  Alex smiled. It looked wicked in the moonlight.

  “Did you know that Dean’s dad was a mechanic?”

  Jess shook her head no.

  “Did you know that Dean worked there part time until he was in high school? The man knows how to mess with an automobile. His dad used to do it all the time. You know, a customer comes in who knows dick about cars and needs a repair. He cuts them a deal and fixes it, but then he tampers with something
else that is a lot more expensive so they have to come right back for that.”

  “That’s messed up. You really think he did that?”

  “I don’t have any irrefutable proof and neither did the cops, but there are far too many coincidences there to ignore for my comfort.”

  Jess thought a moment about what Alex had said. Was that what they were talking about before? Was it possible? Could Dean actually have gotten away with murder? Maybe more than once? If it was true then who was to say that he wouldn’t do it again if the opportunity presented itself to him?

  But it all could be a coincidence. There was no proof and why would she believe Alex about any of this? He saw Dean as competition where she was concerned and he wasn’t past saying anything to tarnish Dean’s good name to put him in better graces with her.

  “So, where is Chelsea?”

  “Oh, God. I had to get away from that girl. She has a body that will melt your mind, but she has a brain that will fill it with air.”

  Jess laughed.

  “So, your weekend is a bust?” Jess asked.

  “Well, not totally. I still get to spend time with you.”

  “Yeah, but I’m here with Dean.”

  “Well, actually you are here…with me,” Alex replied.

  Jess smiled. She was now aware that Alex had closed the gap and he was invading her personal space. What was weirder is that she seemed to have no problem letting him. She did not know what it was about this man that had such a huge allure over her, but she wanted to touch him, almost like a driving need. It was weird because between him and Dean she was being pulled equally hard in two directions. She knew that she had to pick one of these guys. She understood now as Alex pressed his mouth against hers and began to pull her close to him—as she wrapped her arms around his thick neck and enjoyed his lips massaging hers—that she needed to make a decision. She could not have it both ways here. This feud of theirs was getting out of hand and she was the cause of it. They were best friends and business partners who had built a hugely thriving business that was in jeopardy of being dismantled with some stupid jealousy and lies.