3. Jonah

CHAPTER THREE

jonah

Cullen won’t shutup about Coach Dalton all the way home, and I get it. It would be difficult not to be enamored by him. But I still can’t put my finger on why he’s so familiar.

It’s possible he’s a student in one of my classes—he looks young enough to still be in college—but I think I’d remember a face like his.

He has plump lips and these amazingly bright eyes. His hair was wild and barely contained in a manbun under his cap. But it wasn’t only his looks that caught my eye. His competence on the ice was hypnotic. Yet, the whole time I was watching, something kept telling me I knew him from somewhere.

It’s like watching a movie with an actor I’m sure I’ve seen in something before but can’t remember what. Only, with Coach Dalton, there’s no simple internet search to find out. I know because I might have spent half the night searching variations of “hockey” and “coach” and “Dalton,” but the only results I could find were about some ex-NHL player turned college coach in Vermont. That dude has an amazing resume, but it wasn’t the Coach Dalton I was searching for, obviously. Even narrowing it down to California didn’t bring up anything.

Either way, I’m glad Cullen is happy. I’ve taken him to football, lacrosse, soccer, and even surfing lessons. None of them have stuck, and I have no doubt this new hockey obsession will be over after one season too. I thought we’d turned him away from contact sports when he gave up football, but no. Hockey is the new thing that he’s determined to use to give his mother and me early heart attacks.

But like Coach Dalton said, they’re not doing contact at this level, and I have faith Cullen will be over it before he gets to that point. Though, he’s already obsessed with his coach.

He was so patient with the kids. Nurturing.

There’s something about seeing a man in a caring role that’s so damn attractive.

An email alert goes off on my phone early the next morning, which is probably a good thing because it distracts me from thinking about the attractive hockey coach who’s familiar but not and is also most likely straight.

The email is from one of my students in my morning statistics class, and I internally cringe.

This is my first year as a professor, and my master’s degree didn’t prepare me for actual students or the constant drama in their lives.

I’m only twenty-five, but it feels so far away from the eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds I teach.

And as expected, even the subject line makes me groan.

Still durkn.

I’m guessing she means drunk. The body of the email isn’t much better.

hi professor brookies,

so i’m still drunk from wknd. how impromptu imports ugh do i needs to class today?

Kristeen

I want to feel sorry for her, but she’s so drunk she can’t even spell her own name, so my sympathy is low.

I reply with:

Kristine,

I’m glad you had fun on the weekend, but weekdays are for classes. I can only assume you’re asking how important today’s lecture will be, and that all depends on the answer to this question:How important is your degree?

If you do decide to come to class, I want to remind you that doors are locked at nine sharp to prevent interruptions.

Regards,

Professor Brooks.

I hit Send and then hold my breath because I’m waiting for a follow-up. There usually is.

When a few moments go by, I relax and go to get ready for work. Kristine will either show up or not, and other than worrying about my attendance record being low and comparing the number of students passing my class against those who fail, I don’t care if I lose a student here or there.

These are adults I’m teaching. If they’re too drunk to come to class, it’s on them when they fail out because they don’t understand the material.

I get everything I need together but don’t have time to make coffee, so I’ll stop by one of the many Bean Necessities coffee carts on campus.

I have a tiny one-bedroom apartment that I moved into as a grad student, and while it’s nothing amazing to look at, it’s cheap and right near campus. A lot of students live there as an alternative to on-campus housing or the share housing options like Liberty Court. I did the dorms thing during undergrad, only lasted one semester in share housing before my roommates drove me crazy, and that’s when I started looking for alternative living spaces in the area.

I could have moved in with my sister, Lauren. It would be easier when schlepping Cullen to all his sporting activities, but considering I don’t live well with others and I know what my sister was like growing up, I decided it would be smart to live apart and still love her than ruin our whole sibling relationship by sharing a space constantly.

It does feel weird, being a professor here and still living in a building that’s majority students, but it’s really convenient.

I get to campus with only minutes to spare, and thankfully, the coffee cart line isn’t too long. I can’t help looking at the few students around me though, trying to see if any of them are Coach Dalton. I also begin to question whether Dalton is his first name or last name. The professor who retired, the one who recommended me to be his replacement, always called students by their last names, and aren’t sports ball people like that too? So it really could be either.

“Jonah,” the barista calls.

Ah. Interrupted obsessing again.

The coffee took longer than anticipated, so now I’m going to be late to class. Not super late, but as ol’ Professor Notting used to say, if you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.

And when I get to the large lecture hall and enter, everyone is in their seats, and their murmurs are loud.

The doors should already be locked.

I hurry through the doors. “Sorry I’m late.”

When I turn, there’s a set of eyes glaring at me. Kristine did make it, evidently. Without brushing her hair or changing out of her pajamas. While here I am, walking in late.

My predecessor also loved the phrase “do as I say, not as I do.”

I get my bag, coffee, and remainder of my crap on the desk by the opposite wall to the entrance and turn to the class. “Let’s get stuck into where we left off.”

Suddenly, everyone’s straightening up and paying attention.

I didn’t mean to fall into teaching the way I did. Being a professor wasn’t part of my five-year plan, but to be fair, I didn’t have much of a plan at all.

For someone who got bullied in school for being obviously gay, standing in front of a room full of two hundred college students isn’t my idea of a good time. But as long as I don’t make eye contact with any of them while I talk, I’m good.

I already made the mistake of looking at Kristine this morning, but it was hard not to. The daggers she was sending were unmistakable.

What I like to do, and it’s something I liked as a student, is to write the formulas on the whiteboard and then get the class to work through the example calculations on their own. I learn by doing, and I know not everyone is the same, but by doing it this way, I’m not slowing down the entire class for that handful of students who don’t understand. Those struggling can come to me personally to ask for help.

The most daunting part is having to turn my back on them so I can get the numbers written down. No one has thrown anything at me yet this year, but hey, old scars are still wounds. It’s always a relief when I can go to my desk in the corner and watch everyone as they work.

“As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to come down to ask me.”

The morning moves quickly, and while some students bite the bullet and make their way down to see me, I’m thankful they all don’t rush me at once.

In between classes, I head out for more coffee, but as I get in line at the coffee cart, I notice a lock of curly blond hair out of the corner of my eye. By the time I turn to look properly, the curly hair is gone, and I don’t get a chance to see if it was Dalton.

Does he go to this school? Is that where I’ve seen him before?

Stop. Thinking. About. Dalton.

But it’s driving me crazy not knowing where I’ve seen his face before.

I’ll have to ask him next time I take Cullen to hockey practice and insist we’ve crossed paths somewhere. I won’t stop until I figure it out.

I head back to my lecture hall as it begins to fill with students again.

I wasn’t sure how I’d like being a professor, but it’s easy, and it puts my master’s degree to use. Do I love it? I haven’t decided yet.

But I know I don’t hate it. So that’s something.