The V- in 403C
Jonah Monroe might be a genius when it comes to his studies but he’s never been able to find his footing in the real world. A college graduate by the age of eighteen and a doctoral candidate at twenty-one, he doesn’t fit in amongst his peers and lacks the social graces that would attract friends, let alone a lover. He’s resigned himself to his status as awkward and forever alone, until one bad decision turns his world upside down.
He shouldn’t have even been in that club. He shouldn’t have let a sexy stranger buy him a drink. And he definitely shouldn’t have let the man kiss him like he’d never been kissed before.
Reed Matheson has done a lot of dumb shit in his short life but he never would have guessed that kissing a stranger in a bar would be the best decision he ever made. He didn’t expect the intense connection he feels for the shy, socially awkward stranger to linger long after he was gone. And he certainly never expected to see the cute guy from the bar the very next morning, preparing to teach his class.
Reed is a student and Jonah is a TA. Unwritten rules or not, nothing more can happen between them, at least that’s what Jonah keeps telling himself. But Reed has never been one to play by the rules and he’s not about to start now, not when for the first time, his heart is on the line.
For the “late bloomers” who were really just waiting for their special someone.
The V—in 403C
Copyright ©2020 by Jess Bryant
Cover by Jess Bryant
Wrap Cover by Melissa Gill Designs
Edited by Sara Miller of Pretty Little Book Editing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any mention of name brands means the author recognizes the trademarks associated.
Chapter One
This was a nightmare. It had to be. There was no way he had really agreed to go out to a club in downtown Knights Port with his friends the night before he was scheduled to teach his first class.
He hated places like this. The music, if it could even be called that, was so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. Alternating strobe lights threatened to send him into a seizure. The temperature was verging on sauna level, everyone was mashed together in one sweaty throng and somehow, in a room of hundreds of people, he had never felt more alone.
Jonah Monroe sat by himself at the bar, sipping a drink he couldn’t name because when his friend had ordered it for him, he couldn’t make out the words over the noise erupting all around them. Pete had bought the first round of drinks for all three of them because it had been his idea to come here tonight. After that, he and Dawn had disappeared to the dance floor, leaving Jonah to his own devices. With nothing else to do, he’d accepted the bartender’s offer of a refill and he hadn’t found the bottom of his glass since.
He wasn’t sure how many of the sweet little drinks he’d had at this point. Three? Maybe. Whatever the number it was two too many. He would be teaching his first class tomorrow morning at 8 am on campus. He should be at home, prepping his lesson plans and then crawling into bed for a reasonable seven hours of sleep.
Instead, he was sitting on a barstool watching the crowd of people dance, or more accurately, grind their bodies together, and wondering why it was that he had agreed to come here in the first place.
He didn’t fit in here. He didn’t fit in anywhere. Not really. But he was far more comfortable on campus in the TA lounge or hidden away in the library than he would ever be in a loud, overpacked nightclub.
He supposed, if he was anything like his peers, he would blame his parents for his social awkwardness. They were the ones who had moved him all around the world as a kid, never giving him a place to lay down roots and truly call home. They were the ones that had often home-schooled him instead of sending him out with the masses because it was easier on their busy schedules and with the constant moving to be able to control his education