Shame (Ruin 3)

“Bye, guys. See you at the benefit.”

“Dress nice!” Gabe called as I walked off.

“Wear pants!” I called back as I pushed open the door to Starbucks and rammed smack-dab into heat.

My bag fell onto the ground with a thump. “I’m so sorry.” I bent to pick it up and noticed the shoes.

Brown shoes.

Ones that belonged to feet. Feet that I recognized from before. My gaze slid up the dark jeans and settled on a trim waist, finally landing on the same scowl I’d seen a few hours back.

“Maybe if you weren’t so late all the time, you wouldn’t be in such a hurry?” Professor Blake’s eyebrows shot up as he offered me his hand.

Left with no choice but to take it, I grasped his fingers, gasping as the contact singed me from head to toe. Hot professor was a serious, serious understatement. Swear, his gray eyes saw through my clothes.

His breathing changed just briefly before the mask went back on. He nodded to the papers clenched tightly in my hand. “Working on your assignment?”

“Yup.” I rocked back on my heels. “Caffeine’s my drug of choice and all that.”

He smiled.

Not a mocking smile, but a real smile, one that I felt all over my body like someone had just attached me to a freaking tanning bed and turned it on high. I took a step back, nearly colliding with another body leaving Starbucks.

“Whoa! Class meeting!” The male voice said from behind me. “Hey, do I get an A if I spot the professor out of class? You know like seeing a bear in the wild?”

Professor Blake’s eyes darkened as he turned slightly away from me. “No, Mr. McHale.”

“Damn.” He crossed his arms and laughed.

“Assignment’s due at midnight,” Professor Blake said in clipped tones then sidestepped both of us and walked into the coffee shop.

I exhaled in relief and started walking toward my dorm.

“Hey, wait up!” Jack called from behind me. “You finished yet?”

“No.” I wanted to kick every pinecone I saw but refrained, just barely. “I have a few more to write down.”

“Me too.” He smiled warmly. “Let’s do it together.” He blushed and then shook his head. “I mean the assignment.”

“I knew what you meant.” I laughed. “I’m a girl. We don’t think on that same… level.”

Jack eyed me up and down. “More’s the pity.”

“You gonna try to flirt or work?”

“Can I do both?”

“No.”

“Fine.” He slugged his backpack over his left shoulder. “Let’s go watch people.”

I fell into step beside him, and when the coast was clear, when he was jabbering on about homework, I looked over my shoulder to see Professor Blake watching me from the window at Starbucks.

“Hey, you coming or not?” Jack asked. His smile was easy, nonthreatening.

I couldn’t figure him out; then again, I didn’t have to overanalyze everything.

“Yeah.” I quickly turned back around. “Yeah, I’m coming.”