Chapter 8

Megs reread the message three times. Was he happy about that? Upset? He’d given no indication as to what he felt about that fact. She started to type and deleted it when it started to ramble, then started again.

Called the school this morning. I misread the drop date

You dropped it on Friday. That was the correct date

A sick realization flooded over Megs. She’d made Gideon think she’d already dropped the class before they went to the burger place. Is that where you take all your students? I’m kidding. I’ll drop your class in the car.

What was she supposed to say to him? When they went to Sammy’s, he didn’t know she was still enrolled in her class.

I tried to drop it Friday in the car. Cell service was terrible, so I figured I’d drop it when I got back home

Gideon didn’t have read receipts turned on, so all Megs saw was that the message was delivered. When a couple of minutes had ticked by, and she didn’t see anything, her heart started to palpitate. Just when she was about to throw her phone at the wall, a two-word message popped up.

You didn’t?

No, she didn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to her. She’d driven home with only one shoe on, and even that hadn’t managed to pull her attention from what had just happened in the parking lot.

It was honestly the last thing on my mind

Megs’ finger hovered over the send button. Finally, she pressed and waited.

“Everything all right?” John asked as he cleared off the corner booth where Gideon had sat that day he’d come into the coffee shop.

“Yep,” she answered without hesitation. She wasn’t going to open up to a seventeen-year-old about her life crisis even if he was mature for his age. “Thanks for covering while I made that call.”

“Sounded intense.”

“Yeah, just dealing with some college red tape.”

John cleared two dirty coffee cups from another table to the counter, and Megs loaded them into the dishwasher, leaving her phone face up on the counter where she could see it. The bell jangled on the door, and she straightened. Megs flashed a smile at the older gentleman who approached the counter.

“Cup of black coffee and a bran muffin.”

That would be intense for his digestive system, but Megs didn’t question it. “Coming right up.”

Gideon stood at the front of the classroom waiting for the projector to warm up. There were eight students already sitting in their seats, but the room was dead silent. Mondays.

Last year he’d gone on a cruise with a few of his childhood friends, Matt—or Oscar—included. The first day, he’d felt sick to his stomach, but once his semicircular canals had adjusted, the ship hadn’t felt any different than solid earth. Until he’d stepped off and tried to walk down the ramps leading to the parking garage.

Teaching felt that way. During the school year, he was on the ship. Summer was the ramps. And the first few weeks of school, he was waiting to catch his balance again.

Today, Gideon’s stomach was more unsettled than normal. He sat on the stool in front of his laptop and tried to distract himself by swiping through mundane emails on his phone. It didn’t work. Not well, at least. Even after a trip to the gym that morning, he couldn’t unravel the knot underneath his ribs.

He’d kissed a student. Megs had led him to believe she’d already dropped the class. She’d never officially attended, nor had he ever looked at or graded her work, but still. He never would’ve done that had he known.

Mostly because he couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. Or the way his hands tingled every time her number appeared on his screen. How long had it been since he’d felt that sense of anticipation? She was funny and . . . surprising.

There had been two cases of academic impropriety last year, and while he hadn’t stated any of his judgments out loud, he’d had them. Mostly surrounding the incident with Ms. Jones, a Sociology professor. It probably hit closer to home because he knew her personally and had seen her more than once on campus with the student in question. They hadn’t crossed any uncrossable lines, but the whole thing had given him the heebie-jeebies.

And there he’d been eating dinner with Megs. His arm looped around her next to her car. His lips on hers.

When he’d seen her name still firmly planted in his student roster that morning, his pulse had sped. Mostly because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all weekend. The tightness in his chest had jumped on the bandwagon when she’d texted and informed him that she was, in fact, still his student. Motion sickness bands weren’t going to be able to settle his queasiness this time.

Gideon glanced at the clock. Time to start. He stood and cleared his throat. "Alright, everyone. Today, we're going to dive into the basics of sound waves and how they interact with—”

He stopped mid-sentence when the door to the room opened. Megs. What was she doing here? The walls seemed to hold their breath. Or maybe it was just him.

She dropped her eyes and hurried in to find a seat, her face flushed just as it had been when she’d shown up at his office door. The door that led to the room where he met with students and definitely didn’t kiss them.

Her auburn hair brushed over her shoulders in a wild yet enchanting mess as she set her bag next to the leg of the chair. Gideon forced himself to continue talking. His lips formed the consonants and vowels, but it felt as if the neural pathway from his brain to his mouth had been severed. What was he saying? Hopefully something about sound interference.

Gideon lowered his head and dug into his presentation, feeling very much like he was floating outside of his body. Surprisingly, his voice held steady as he heard himself explain how sound interference, whether it was ambient noise, electrical hum, or reverberation, could significantly degrade the quality of their recordings.

He glanced up, and even though he tried not to look in Megs’ direction, he still noticed she had her laptop sitting in front of her. Was she taking notes? Why was she taking notes? She hadn’t wanted to be in this class in the first place.

Her brow furrowed slightly as she stared up at his slides projected on the whiteboard. Gideon stumbled on a word when she tucked a stray curl behind her ear. Curly hair had always been his thing, ever since he’d sat behind Melissa Thornton in Algebra Two. He’d used every modicum of self-control not to reach out and twist her hair between his fingers.

He searched for another student to focus on. There was Jose, a regular front-row occupier, keenly taking notes as always. His earnestness was a striking contrast to Rose who sat beside him, her attention clearly lost to the pencil sketches she was making in her notebook.

Then there was Erik. A fifty-year-old man who’d taken this exact same course the year before and had told him on day one he wanted to solidify his foundation before moving on to a more advanced recording class. He was intense and unintentionally funny. Erik rarely smiled, but when he did, it looked like someone had a piece of string attached to the right corner of his mouth.

Gideon focused on the wobble of Erik’s pencil scratching over his spiral ring notebook. He was able to maneuver through the rest of the lecture with relative ease, even though his eyes were like iron filings drawn toward the magnet at the back of the room. Megs. The magnet was Megs.

Thankfully, she was looking down ninety percent of the time, but the few moments their eyes met sent a spark shooting down his middle. Was she here to talk to him? Was she only trying to fit in with the rest of his students?

"Excuse me, Professor Adams.” Erik’s voice was dry and matter-of-fact. "Are we nearing our discussion of reverberation and absorption coefficients?"

Gideon stifled a grin. He didn’t want Erik to think he was laughing at him. “We are, indeed.”

Erik nodded, and Jennifer, the petite brunette sitting behind him very obviously shifted her position in her seat and flicked her hair over her shoulder. She’d signed up for a recording session that weekend, and he was already planning to ask another professor to be there with him. It seemed every semester there was a young female who wanted more time and . . . personalized attention than he was willing to give.

As the class finally came to an end, Gideon dismissed the students and busied himself with cleaning up his laptop and notes. He felt someone approaching his desk before he allowed himself to look up. When he did, he was surprised to see Jennifer standing in front of his makeshift desk.

She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Hey, Professor, I wondered if at my recording session this weekend you could listen to some of the tracks I’ve been working on?”

He took a step back and crossed his arms. “I typically try to keep the studio slots to what we can accomplish recording.”

“Oh, sure. Of course. Maybe I could stop by your office during your hours?”

Gideon nodded. “That would be fine.”

Jennifer’s eyes lit up. “Thanks so much, Professor!” She turned and bounced back to her table and picked up her bag, then exited the room. That’s when Gideon saw her. Megs. Standing up and clutching her laptop to her chest like it was a new purse and she was walking through Washington Park. “That was a good class.” She tapped her fingers on the bottom of her computer and walked up to the front of the class. “You’re a good teacher.”

“Thank you.” Gideon exhaled and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Megs deflated. “I’m so sorry. I thought—” She pursed her lips and looked down at the top of the small table between them. “I thought it would be no problem to drop the class, but now that I can’t get my money back . . . I don’t know. I came here to explain, and then I was going to go over to the administration building and tell them to pull me anyway—”

“But then I blew your mind with sound wave interference.”

Megs laughed. “Exactly.” She smiled up at him, relief written all over her face. He was annoyed that she hadn’t told him her attempts to drop the class weren’t successful before they went out for dinner. Before he’d kissed her. But he was more annoyed that now she was standing in front of him with her green eyes and auburn curls, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

“It was a good class,” she repeated. “I know you’re upset, and I get it. I should’ve said something, but I didn’t want you to retract your invitation.” She looked up at him through her lashes.

He would’ve retracted it. As much as he’d wanted to ask her out, he never would’ve taken that risk. Was he glad she hadn’t said anything? Glad they’d had that night together even if it meant he could get fired if anyone found out?

Gideon knew he should say something, but every sentence that formed in his head was something he would never say to a student. His relationships with students had to remain professional, but he’d never been in this situation before. When he didn’t open his mouth, Megs took a step back from the table.

“Thanks, and again, I’m so sorry.” She turned, and Gideon exhaled as she walked toward the door. She stopped as she passed her desk, and his heart jump-started as he imagined her turning back.

She didn’t. Megs stared at something on her phone, unmoving besides the swipe of her thumb over the screen. When she finally lifted her head, her brow was furrowed and her green eyes flashed.

“Anything you’d like to tell me, Professor Adams?”

Gideon frowned, and his grip tightened on his laptop bag. There was plenty he’d like to tell her. How he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all weekend. How he’d been planning to come into the coffee shop until her name was still there on his roster. But she was his student, so there wasn’t any of that he could share.

Megs dropped her bag and stalked toward the front of the room, holding out her phone. “Care to explain why your name is next to mine on the finalist list for Oscar Calloway’s audiobook competition?”