31
Liem
The gasp that Lenora C.Apworth gasped when I entered the classroom with Cody was heard around the world.
“My word, Professor Liem. Is he even real?” she asked without a care for the volume of her question or the proximity of its subject.
Cody looked at me with more than a touch of panic but visibly steeled himself as he studied her, then offered her a hand. “You must be Miss Lenny.”
Another gasp, this time with a hand to her heart. “You told him about me?”
Lenny took Cody’s offered hand and, with force that belied her frame, yanked him forward, looped her arm into the crook of his elbow, and started a promenade around the classroom.
“I am so glad the young professor procured you for us,” she said as she pulled him away from me. “Allow me to familiarize you with the class. We want you comfortable, after all.”
Cody glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes wide but not panicked, and his cheeks still flushed that lovely shade of rouge.He turned his attention back to Miss Lenny and let her show him around the room.
I’d been so eager for his arrival today that all I’d really wanted to do was call him and talk or even just listen to him breathe during his entire two-hour drive here, but I’d distracted myself from the impulse by coming to the Locc early to test-drive the Vespa.
It was probably the only thing that could’ve distracted me enough.
I ambled over to my station that I’d set up on the outer edge of the arc of easels, glancing back at Cody for signs of distress as I went. He seemed to be holding his own, though, and it helped that Miss Lenny was introducing him to people in small doses rather than letting the entire class swarm him at once.
Perched on the edge of my stool, I went through some of my breathing exercises, emptying my mind and touching on that space within that was reserved for creation.
I couldn’t lose myself there today, not with having to guide the class through the project, but still, I visited. Just long enough to summon the colors I wanted and tune out the world around me as I mixed them on my palette.
“Shall I start the music, Professor?” a soft, British-accented voice asked, drawing me back to my body.
Miss Lenny really was a trendsetter.
I sat the palette down and ran my gaze over it, pleased at the assortment, and then smiled. “Yes, Miss Lynae, that would be wonderful. You always pick so well.”
Lynae beamed, her dark skin a beautiful contrast to the paint-spattered pink linen shirt she wore. Glancing at the station beside me, my heart warmed at the palette she’d started, and I angled my head toward it. “You did a fine job with that, too, Miss Lynae.”
“I watched you and tried to do as you did,” she explained, “but you moved so fast. It was incredible.”
My face heated even as guilt crept in. “Thank you, and I’m sorry I was so thoughtless. I should have realized you were there and stopped to assist.”
She waved me off. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll hound you with more than enough questions over the next hour to make up for it.” With a light pat on my shoulder, she walked to the other side of the room and pulled out a vinyl record before placing it on the record player they’d rolled in from the rec room to use for the morning.
There was a soft scratching sound as the turntable spun and warmed, and then soft, slow jazz filled the room.
“This music makes me feel like I’m expected to strip,” Cody whispered in my ear, stopping my heart for the second time this morning.
I looked up and over my shoulder at him, my heart restarting and taking off at a gallop at his proximity. Then I glanced around the room at the eager students, most of them openly gawking at the pair of us.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they requested that you remove your shirt,” I whispered back once my eyes were on him again, “but doing so to the beat or not is entirely up to you.”
“Minx,” he replied, making me squirm as he pinched my side. “Where do you want me?”
I turned slightly in my stool and pushed back against him. “Oh, don’t ask me such questions, Dezi. I’ll be compelled to honesty.”
His laugh vibrated through me, but it cut off abruptly as he shifted his weight between his feet and then muttered a “Goddammit” under his breath, the space behind me suddenly vacant as he strode purposefully to the front of the class.
I tracked him as he ambled easily onto the platform and sat on the high-backed stool waiting for him there, guessing correctly that it was where he was meant to be.
Amused, enraptured, and turned on beyond reason, I stood up and followed the path he’d just taken, treasuring the warning look he shot my way.
