Professor in the West.
It had really just been a matter of time.
But that didn’t keep me from wanting to kill someone. I’d be a good sport about it, though.
What choice did I have?
I smiled, picked up the eraser, and stopped. Fuck all. I was going to leave it there.
I scanned the room of thirty-some-odd people. “You all got me. Yup. I’m the sexiest professor in the West.”
Laughter swept through the room.
Awesome. I had them now. Cool guy who could take a joke. No problem. That was me.
Fuckers were going to feel the pain when they found how hard I planned to grade them. Not that I was vindictive or anything.
“Okay people, starting in the corner here,” I said, pointing to the first row, far left, “tell us your name and what your favorite book is.”
As the task worked its way down every row, the students responded with the usual just-out-of-high-school fare—The Call of the Wild, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, etc.
It was so predictable I could have told them what they liked reading. Not that there was anything wrong with those books. I just wished high schools had a little more variety.
A young woman named Mabrie was introducing herself, explaining that she was from out of state and that it had been her lifelong dream to attend Wellshire, when the classroom door flew open.
A tall, buff guy breezed in.
Wearing a letterman’s jacket and an insufferable smirk.
Every semester had an asshole. Guess this one was not going to be any different.
“Yo,” he said in a deep baritone, “sorry I’m late.”
He wasn’t sorry.
A titter ran through the girls in the front row, who pulled back their shoulders and straightened up in their seats, straining to see where he was going to sit.
Jesus.
“Glad you could make it. Please grab a seat, introduce yourself, and tell us your favorite book.”
“Sure, Professor,” he sang, grabbing a seat in the middle of the room, I supposed so he could enjoy maximum female admiration.
At least it took some of the pressure off me.
“Hey, y’all,” he began, looking around the class like they were his subjects. Which I guess they were, evidenced from the admiring gazes. “Most of you guys probably know me as Ty Duvall. I’m on the football team, for those of you who don’t know who I am.”
He acknowledged the nodding heads in the room, and ignored the eye rolls. Someone muttered douchebag, but if he heard it, he ignored it.
Then he turned back to me. “As for books… I’ve never read one.”
A snicker ran through the room, and someone in the back combined a cough with a loud bullshit.
My sentiments exactly.
“Never read a book, Ty?” I asked, approaching him slowly. “Not even one?”
He leaned back in his chair, legs sprawled in the aisles. He tilted his head and looked up at me. “Nope. Not a one. You got a problem with that?”
Keep it cool. Keep it cool.
“I don’t have a problem with that Ty,” I said, placing a hand on his desk and leaning close to him. “But you’re about to have a problem with that.”
A momentary scowl passed over his face, quickly replaced by another smirk.
“Sure, Prof. Whatever you say.”
I wandered back to the head of the class. “Let’s continue.”
I was flipping through my papers when the next person took her turn.
“Hi. I’m Senna Duncan. My favorite book is Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham.”
My head snapped up in the direction of whomever had said that. No one ever said Somerset Maugham. I figured he just wasn’t taught in school, if he ever had been, and that few kids picked up his work on their own.
As I looked around for the student whose favorite book was also mine, a gut-punch unlike anything I’d experienced in a very long time traveled through my abdomen. If I hadn’t been in front of a class of thirty, I might have winced. Instead, I casually put a hand on the desk in front of me to play it cool.
“Well Senna. That’s my favorite book, too. In fact, I have a signed copy. There’s a bookstore down on University Ave that carries special editions. You should check it out.”
She took her seat and looked down, writing in the notebook on her desk.
But it was too late to hide her face.
It turned out that my fellow Maugham lover was the very same woman who’d given me the lap dance of a lifetime just the night before.
Chapter 6
SENNA
College sure was off to a great start.
My English professor,