“I hate to break it to you, Mystery Girl, but Diet Pepsi doesn’t taste good any way. I don’t know where you’re from, but here in Massachusetts, we drink Coke.”
“Bold of you to insult my favorite soda and assume I’ll just jump into this coffee date you seem to want so badly.”
He takes a step forward and grins again when I take another determined step back. “I don’t want it that badly. Listen Mystery Girl, I’m just a guy, standing in front of a girl, telling her I’m keeping her phone unless she has coffee with me. Or, I guess in your case, terrible tasting soda.”
“My name is Amelia, not Mystery Girl.”
He shrugs, all casual like. “Can’t it be both?”
“I’m your student. You can’t call your student Mystery Girl.”
He takes another step forward, and I take one more back, the back of my legs hitting the desk. I’m trapped, with nowhere to go, and Elliot takes advantage of it, taking one more step towards me. He leaves enough space so that if I really wanted to duck out, I could, and it’s the consideration in that gesture that fixes my feet to the floor.
With his gaze locked on me, he runs his hand from my shoulder down my arm, the same way he did right before I left him at the airport. He wraps his fingers loosely around my wrist and speaks softly, blue eyes intense. “Amelia. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. Ever since you walked away from me at the airport, all I’ve thought about is you. I looked for you that day, and then for months, and now here you are. In my classroom. It feels kind of like it’s all meant to be, doesn’t it? Have coffee with me. Please.”
I swallow hard, his words affecting me more than I want him to know. I didn’t have to look for him because I knew exactly where he was, but all I’ve thought about was him too. He’s right here now, and he smells amazing, like some spicy cologne I want to sniff like an addict, and he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing he sees. But then I remember all the reasons why I can’t. My low profile. The app no one knows about. The PhD I mostly want, with him as my advisor. And I sidestep away from him where I can breathe again.
“This is a really bad idea.” I point to him. “Professor.” And to me. “Student. All kinds of wrong.”
He nods. “Could be. Probably is. I’m sure there’s a policy against it somewhere in that massive faculty handbook I didn’t read. But there’s no policy against coffee. Or terrible soda, in your case. I’ll even throw in a cinnamon roll.”
I huff out a breath. “I love cinnamon rolls.”
A grin spreads over his face. “They’re my favorite. I bought one this morning, but I gave it to my brother’s girlfriend because she needed it more than I did, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
“Why did your brother’s girlfriend need your cinnamon roll?”
“Because she’s not a morning person,” he says simply, like that explains everything. “Come on, Mystery Girl. Don’t leave me hanging, under-caffeinated, and cinnamon roll-less. Have coffee with me, and I’ll show you the spot with the best cinnamon rolls in Boston.”
I study him. “Can we talk about you being my research advisor?”
Elliot smiles. “As much as you want.”
“If anyone asks, can we keep how we met a secret?”
Something flashes in his eyes but disappears before I can figure out what it is. “I don’t even know what you’re talkingabout. I met you just this morning, in my very first class of the semester. You want me to be your research advisor, and to do that, I needed to school you in acceptable soda consumption first.”
I smile, enjoying the banter between us a little too much. “Okay then, coffee it is. Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.”
He shakes his head. “Hard pass, Mystery Girl. Last time you walked away from me, I didn’t see you for six months. We’re going together. I’ll drive.”
“Where we’re going involves driving? I figured we would just go somewhere near campus.”
He scoffs. “Sure, if you want inferior cinnamon rolls, we could definitely do that. But you don’t strike me as the inferior cinnamon roll type.”
I glance down at my leggings, battered Ugg boots, and hooded UC Berkeley sweatshirt. “What part of me looks like the kind of person who would be a snob about pastries?”
I realize my mistake immediately. Elliot does a slow perusal of my body, sweeping his heated gaze down and back up again. My throat goes instantly dry. “Amelia, there isn’t one single inch of you that isn’t superior, and if you think I wouldn’t give you the best of everything, well, I guess we have some things to learn about each other. So, let’s go learn them.”
I take a long, slow breath because I think I might be in a little bit of trouble. Needing to regain the upper hand, or gain it I guess, since I’m pretty sure I lost it as soon as I walked into this classroom five minutes late and froze on the spot, I hold out my hand. “Phone, please.”
He gives it to me, running a finger over the back of my hand in a deliberate move that has goosebumps breaking out all over my body.
“Knew it,” he murmurs, a soft smile on his face. “You’re not going to be able to resist me, Mystery Girl. I already can’t resist you.”
“Uh-uh.” I shake my head, vigorously. “Teacher. Student. Extremely forbidden.”
He shrugs. “Probably more like strongly discouraged, but point taken.”
