I can sense his body grow tense, but his expression doesn’t change. “Good morning, Brenna,” he says.
My heart is racing. He tells me goodbye, but I hardly hear him over my heart pounding in my ears. We don’t kiss like I want to before he leaves.
Brenna gets a nefarious smile on her face. “Well isn’t this interesting?” she says. “I guess you’re not the prude that I thought you were. An affair with a teacher is sexy-scandalous.” She laughs when seeing the horror on my face. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just impressed, is all.”
“Thank you,” I say and crawl into bed. I don’t know if Brenna can be trusted. I don’t know her enough to say for sure. People say things all the time. Even though she says she won’t tell anyone, that doesn’t make me feel any better.3Being with Leo isn’t a distraction—well, it can be at times, but for the most part we’re able to maintain our relationship and our responsibilities. My grades haven’t faltered at all and I’m carrying the same workload I would have if I were single. If anything, having a professor as a boyfriend is a plus. If I have any questions, there’s someone there to help me with the answers. I’m glad I never have to ask him questions, though. I’ve been studying law long before I ever got into law school. In high school I would borrow books from the library about penal codes and court jargon. I would read procedurals. I know my father and brother’s cases like the back of my hand. Hell, before I even left community college I could have probably argued their case successfully. I can do all of this on my own. Having Leo by my side is just the icing on the cake.
He and I have coffee together every morning before class. Since he has to be to class before me, that time between gives me time to study. I spend time with him between classes and I go to his house most days and we spend that time having dinner together as well as the most mind-blowing sex anyone can possibly imagine.
I love our routine, but as the semester comes to an end and finals start, I’m not able to spend as much time with him as I like. I have a million things to do and so does he. It’s nice, though, having a professor as a study partner. Most people would think having a smarty-pants boyfriend is dull or boring, but for us, we love the challenge of expanding our minds. We turn studying into games that make it easy to learn. We have debates and arguments (not the bad kind, but the kind one would have in court) that can last for hours. Sometimes they get so heated that we find ourselves stripping off our clothes and going at it like rabbits before we’re even done talking. In a way it’s like pillow talk. It sounds strange, but it works for us.
So when I take my finals, it’s no wonder I ace them. Even before I get the results, I already knew that. There’s not a single question on the tests that gives me pause.
While Leo is wrapping up the semester looking over his students’ papers, I rush back to my dorm to change before our big date tonight. We’re going out for seafood to celebrate the end of the semester as well as my perfect scores.
“You look happy,” Brenna says as soon as I walk through the door. She seems the opposite. The dark makeup around her eyes is smeared as though at some point in the day she’d been crying, and there is a big bag of Oreos with only a few cookies left in the sleeve. There’s also a huge bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos on her lap. When she goes to swipe the hair out of her eyes, I notice the tips of her fingers are stained orange.
“I am,” I say, trying not to sound too cheerful seeing her mood. “What’s wrong?”
She shrugs and shoves a cookie in her mouth, talking with her mouth full. “Bombed my finals.”
That doesn’t surprise me one bit. Instead of studying, she has nightly orgies that last until the wee hours of the morning, which is another reason I spend the night at Leo’s most nights. Whenever I see her, she’s telling me stories about forgetting which class is which and falling asleep on her desk. She tells me all of this with a smile, like it’s a joke, or like she thinks being rebellious makes her cool—which it doesn’t, not even a little bit. I know how hard people work to get into this school. It has a low acceptance rate, and even the most excellent and hardworking students can be wait listed. And receiving scholarships like Brenna and I do? The competition for that is fierce. I should know. I worked my ass off to earn it. It surprises me that Brenna would be so careless after obviously working hard to secure her spot here. Her nonchalance is not amusing to me in any way.