To Professor, With Love (Forbidden Men 2)

My mouth fell open. “Excuse me? No, he most certainly does not.”

Oh, my God. Did he? No, he would’ve taken her to the scrimmage with him if he had. Wouldn’t he? Or was she one of those women who didn’t get into sports?

“He proposed to her in one of the classes I took from him last semester.” Noel’s voice shocked me back to the present.

Disappointment spiked through me. And Philip had seemed so promising. I didn’t care that he hadn’t interested me the way the irritating student in front of me did, but he’d been...nice, simple. Doable. Well, aside from the whole ditching me at a bar by myself thing. Oh, shit. He really was a bastard.

“But why...why would he ask me out if he was already engaged?”

Noel shrugged, something akin to regret flashing in his eyes, as if he felt like hell for enlightening me to the truth. “Maybe he thought you knew. And didn’t care.”

“Oh, God.” I whirled away again. Could someone really take me for that kind of person?

“Seriously, why do you keep spinning to face the bookshelf?”

Crap. Now Noel knew what a lunatic I was. “Because I’m looking for a book,” I ad-libbed at the last moment, surprised and proud of myself for thinking up that answer so fast. And you know, now that I thought of it, there was a book I’d needed to check. It was one of those second copies where I’d made notes in the margins. And i

f I remembered correctly, they’d been pretty damn good notes. Except, I was almost positive that particular book was tucked away in a box...on the top shelf.

Oh, well. I’d gone this far. Might as well keep on. I grabbed the chair sitting on the other side of my desk because it didn’t have rollers and would hold me firmly.

“What the hell are you doing?” Noel asked as I stepped up.

“I thought I asked you to leave.” Lifting my arms, I used the tips of my fingers to wiggle them under the box and draw it further out from the shelf.

“For God’s sake. Here. Let me get that before you hurt yourself.”

“I put it up here; I think I can take it down. And you’re supposed to be gone...like I asked.”

“You didn’t ask. You demanded and—Jesus, Aspen.” His voice filled with warning. “Don’t. You’re going to hurt yourself. I’m six three. I can reach it a hell of a lot easier than you.”

“Well, I’m five four. What’s your point? I can reach it just...fine.” Crap. My fingertips barely touched the surface. I hiked myself up onto my tiptoes and tried again.

“No, you can’t. Just let me... Aspen!”

“Stop calling me by my first name. It’s not proper.”

“Damn it, woman. Get down!” He grasped my hips and yanked me back just as I grasped the edges of the box. It came flying off the shelf at my sudden heave backward and tipped forward with all its contents raining down on both of us.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love." - Elizabeth Strout

~NOEL~

I tapped my fingers against my knee as I pressed my phone to my ear, waiting for someone to answer.

Pick took his sweet time before giving a sleepy greeting as if I’d just roused him from bed at four thirty in the afternoon. “Yeah?”

“Hey, can you cover my shift tonight?”

“Fuck, you have the worst timing ever, Gamble. Why can’t you work it?”

“Long story.” I glanced over at Aspen laid out on the bed next to me, her arms resting placidly at her sides while her feet stretched out toward the end of the mattress. I suspected she was awake even though her eyes were closed. “I’m at the hospital...with a friend.”

“Everything okay?” The concern in Pick’s voice made me smile. He could act like a thug all he liked, but the guy’s heart was as soft as a kitten’s. He’d cut off his own leg to help a friend in need.

“Nothing a couple stitches can’t fix.” My gaze found the gauze patch at the top of her arm almost to the curve of her shoulder. Fifteen stitches to be exact.