by Anthology
The thought makes me groan. “Don’t remind me.”
I heave myself off of the floor and power up my laptop. Jess plops down on the futon behind me while I pull up my class schedule and navigate to the drama department website. Underneath Theo’s portrait is his number. Bingo.
The wait while the phone rings is excruciating. His voicemail answers. I don’t leave a message because all of the sudden I’m gripped by crippling paranoia.
“Relax. It was one kiss.”
“Yeah, but this is me we’re talking about. I just don’t go around kissing people. Especially not off limits people.”
“Oh, live a little, Evie. So you kissed your professor. Who hasn’t one time or another?”
CURTAINS
Though Jessica tries to weasel her way to confront Theo, I beg her off. I don’t need her to witness whatever kind of scene is about to go down. Luckily, I’m able to find him in his office and blessedly alone.
I knock on the door, heart pounding fiercely in my chest. “Professor Drake?”
He looks up at me and frowns a little, a furrow appears between his brows. “Evie? What are you doing here?”
“I have to talk to you.”
With a heavy sigh, he runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if now is such a good time.”
I step into his office and close the door behind me. “Then you should probably make time.”
He gestures to the seat in front of his desk.
My hands are shaking when I fumble through my phone for the damning photo.
It only takes him a moment to look at it before his startled eyes meet mine. “Where did you get this?”
“Someone sent it to me today. I was going to ask you if you knew.”
“No, I—”
For the first time he’s at a loss for words.
His office phone rings, breaking the tension that had begun to build. “Drake.”
I pretend to fiddle with my phone to give him some privacy. I’d spent the last hour trying to reason through the situation. Having a relationship with your professor isn’t technically against the rules unless there’s some sort of coercion going on. Seeing as though we’d barely kissed twice there doesn’t seem to be any cause for disciplinary action against him. Way less than I’d heard of other students doing. Realistically this is probably just an irate fan trying to stir up trouble.
Theo hangs up the phone, rubs a hand over his face.
Someone knocks on the door. Jesus, is the world aligning against our having a conversation?
He opens the door to two women, one who looks to be about my age—probably his TA—and an older woman that looks vaguely familiar.
“I’m sorry Professor Drake. I know you said that you were busy, but she insisted. She said she was—“
“My wife,” he finishes.
I surge to my feet. “I’m sorry, I must have heard you wrong. I thought you were divorced.”
“Separated,” his wife interrupts. “The divorce isn’t final yet.”
The icy reality is a cold, hard shock to my system. I don’t even recognize that I’m moving until Theo grabs my arm as I’m halfway down the hallway.
“Look, Evie, I can explain.”
“I’m not really sure that I want to know.” And I’m not. Was this something men like him did all the time? Prey on young, innocent women. Had it all been some kind of perverted trick?
“Look at me.”
I yank my arm from his grasp and toss my head defiantly. Behind him his wife is practically glowing.
“I have to handle this,” he says. “Can you meet me later? At the coffee shop?”
“I’m going to go home now.” There’s no way in hell I’m meeting him anywhere. “It looks like you’re going to be busy for a while.”
“Theo.” His wife taps her foot impatiently.
He doesn’t spare her a glance. “I’m serious, Eve. Meet me there.”
***
I’m lying on the rug, once again face first contemplating how everything had gone so spectacularly shit-sideways in such a short period of time. A few days ago, I thought the most I had to worry about was tripping on stage. A few hours ago, I thought a random stalkerish photo was the lowest I could get. Now, I don’t think I’ll ever leave my apartment.
Thankfully, Jess chooses that moment to come home. She immediately spots me lying on the floor and comes to my side.
“Girrrrrrrrrl. You have completely turned a new leaf! First you make out with Hottie McDicaprio. Then Hottie McDicaprio wants to make you his new boo. Then you become the talk of the campus for having a catfight with Mrs. Hottie McDicaprio.”
“So not the time you asshole.”
“It is always the time. I’m going to take the fact that you’re faceplanted on our floor as a sign that you aren’t the new Mrs. Hottie McDicaprio.”
“That’s wrong on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start.”
She pulls me up into a sitting position. “Cheer up buttercup. Tell Mommy what hurts.”
I glare at her. “Stefan has not been a good influence on you.”
“Stefan has been the greatest influence on me. Just like Hottie Mc-“
I cover her mouth with my hand. “If you say that one more time I will gut you with my cell phone.”
“Morbid, but so not why I came over.”
“Then, by all means, please make your point so I can wallow in peace.”
She pulls me up so that we’re sitting side by side on the futon. “So once I heard about all the drama I had Stefan call his father to get the low down. Apparently, Professor Drake’s wife has gone off the reservation. She filed a report with the Dean of Student Affairs citing misconduct regarding your relationship with Professor Drake.”
“Misconduct?”
“Apparently she’s trying to make it seem like you slept with him to secure your place with the City Theatre Group.”
My mind goes instantly and completely blank as it tries to wrap itself around this new information. “So you’re saying that she’s what, blackmailing him? For what?”
Jessica rolls her eyes. “To get him to stop going through with the divorce, dumbass, what do you think? If he dropped you and you saw him with some hot coed, what would you do?”
“I wouldn’t go all Fatal Attraction on him, that’s for sure. Jesus, that’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“So what’s happening now? Does Stefan know?”
“They’re in a meeting together right now. I’m assuming that’s why she showed up at his office. She thinks the Dean will side with her and penalize him for whatever it is they penalize professors for.”
“But we didn’t even do anything wrong!”
“I’m sure Professor Drake is going to make that clear to them. From what Stefan said, the wife doesn’t really have cause to levy a complaint. I’m pretty sure that it’ll blow over.”
“Pretty sure?” I raise my eyebrows.
“It’s not like he had complete say over your final admission anyway. There were what? Two other department heads combing through applicants. Besides, they’ve been through the whole process with you. They’ll back you up.”
“God, I hope so.”
“I know they will.” She pats my shoulder reassuringly. “Now why don’t you go take a nap or something? You look like shit.”
A hand ghosts down my arm, trailing fingers along my skin so softly that it takes me a few moments to come fully awake. The feeling continues as open my eyes to see Theo sitting on the edge of my bed.
He smiles softly. His button up shirt is undone from top to bottom, revealing a thin white shirt underneath, and the sleeves have been pushed up his forearms. His hair looks wild and untamed, like he’d run his hands though it countless times. Something that I’ve already come to realize is a nervous habit.
“Hey.” My voice is scratchy with sleep.
He doesn’t answer, just presses a soft, sleepy kiss to my lips. “Hey,” he whis
pers against them.
When we break apart I look up at my alarm clock, noting that it’s near midnight. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
With one hand he caresses my cheek. “I’ve had one hell of a day.”
“We both have.”
“I’m so sorry for putting you through that.”
I touch my fingers to his arm and look in his eyes. “Don’t be. I overreacted. I just want to know that everything will be okay with you. Jessica said that you had a meeting with the Dean. What did they decide?”
Theo reaches his hands down to his shoes, unlacing and toeing out of them. Then he pulls off his socks. My brows furrow in confusion.
“Well.” He shrugs out of his button up shirt. “My wife, Claire, in case your Googling didn’t reach that far, doesn’t want me to go through with the divorce. Before I accepted the position here I’d filed. We hadn’t had a good relationship in a long time, arguing more often than not. She was just bitter and angry with me. I was bitter and angry with her for making me choose between acting and our marriage. She thought that if she came here and sabotaged my job that I would come crawling back to her with open arms.”
“You? Crawl?”
I’m rewarded with a small laugh. “Exactly. The Dean wasn’t pleased about what we did, but without evidence that I tampered with your grade or helped you in any way, there wasn’t much he could do.”
I breathe a deep sigh of relief. “That’s great news.”
“Yes, it is, but I have some bad news.”
“Bad news?”
Instead of answering he climbs into bed behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. His heat feels incredibly good and I instinctively snuggle into it. The movement elicits a soft sound from him. My first instinct is to repeat it, but I force myself not to get distracted.
“What bad news?”
He uses a hand to lift the hair from my shoulder and nuzzles into my neck. “The bad news is that I don’t think I can wait the four months until the semester is over to be with you.”
“You don’t?”
The scruff of beard along his jaw does delicious things to the sensitive skin of my neck as he shakes his head. “No. I can’t.”
“You don’t think it would be better to wait until class is over to pursue this…whatever it is?”
“No, I don’t.” He presses a kiss to the underside of my jaw.
“I don’t know, Theo. No matter what they said today I don’t know how comfortable I am with going public about our relationship. You saw how much shit we got from one person. Imagine what all of your screaming fans would do if they found out.”
I’m trying desperately to keep focused, but in the middle of my argument his fingers began to tease the hem of my t-shirt.
“Fine.” He lays his hand on the bare skin of my stomach. “We will keep it very low key.”
“I don’t think you do low key.”
He growls in my ear, causing me to shiver. “I really don’t care what they think.”
His fingers make slow, aching movements up and down the length of my torso and hindering my ability to continue with the direction of the conversation. Each upsweep brings him closer to one spot and each down to another. I find myself completely mindless as his sweeps across my skin get higher and lower.
“If we can’t be together here, why don’t we go somewhere else?”
“Somewhere else? I don’t think there’s any more room on my bed to move.”
Theo laughs and his hand tightens reflexively, the movement bringing his front closer to my back. “I mean we have a break coming up, don’t we? We should go somewhere together.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I think it’s a great idea. Though not as great as what I have planned for tonight.”
