Two
995 Words
Emma:
There are precisely three moments in my life when I’ve experienced true, soul-shredding panic:
1. When I accidentally sent a nude to my chiropractor instead of my ex.
2. When I realized I’d been drinking from a stranger’s beer at a frat party.
3. Right now.
Because Wright—Mr. Tattoos-and-Trouble, the man whose mouth had been on every part of me last night, is standing at the front of the classroom. Teaching. Wearing his glasses and authority, and a look that says I am experiencing a full-body crisis.
And calling me Miss Hart.
I choke on my coffee, out loud and very violently.
Every single student turns.
Beautiful. This moment is great.
Wright—Professor Wright—clears his throat like someone just tightened a collar around his neck.
He bends to pick up the dropped marker, but it slips out of his hand again. He goes very still. Like a man considering whether faking his own death is a reasonable next step.
My cheeks burn so hot they probably qualify as a heating source.
Oh God.
Oh God, oh God, oh GOD.
He straightens. His eyes flick to mine for exactly one second—blue, panicked, lethal—and then he looks away like eye contact might spontaneously combust both of us.
“So,” he says, voice tight enough to snap, “today we begin our unit on… um…”
He looks at the syllabus.
The syllabus looks back, unhelpfully.
“…on… on narrative structure.”
He says it like he’s never heard those words before in his life.
A blond girl in the front row raises her hand. “Professor? Are you okay?”
“No,” he says immediately, then coughs. “I mean—yes. Yes. Perfectly fine. Thank you, Miss Taylor.”
He is not perfectly fine. He is a man fighting every demon known to academia.
My hangover surges. My stomach flips. My pulse is a drum solo.
Last night. Last night I—
I slept with my professor.
A man who introduced himself only as Wright. Not Professor Wright. Not I teach at the university you attend, so perhaps we should not have s*x within seventeen minutes of meeting Wright.
Just Wright.
I want to scream into a pillow for seven hours.
His voice breaks through the buzzing in my head.
“Miss Hart,” he says.
My entire spine snaps straight. “Yes?” Too loud. Too desperate. Too me.
His jaw flexes. “Could you… ah… read the passage on page forty-one?”
I open my textbook upside down.
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
A girl beside me helpfully rotates the book the right way. I whisper, “I’m having a really bad day.”
She whispers back, “Obviously.”
I start reading. I think the words are coming out of my mouth in the correct order, but it’s hard to tell, because every time I inhale, I catch a faint trace of his cologne.
Warm spice. Danger. Regret.
A memory flashes—his breath against my ear, his hands gripping my hips, the way he’d groaned when I said his name—
Nope. No. Absolutely not. Brain, you’re fired.
I make it through the paragraph, and Professor Wright says, “Thank you,” with a careful, professional tone that does absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he is sweating.
Class drags on like a slow-moving car crash.
I try to take notes. Instead, I draw a raccoon with panicked eyes and label it “ME.”
When the clock finally hits eleven, Wright—Professor Wright—dismisses the class with a clipped, “See you Wednesday.”
Students pack up.
I stand.
He looks at me.
Oh no.
No, no, no.
He says, quietly: “Miss Hart. A moment.”
A slow-motion horror soundtrack begins playing in my head.
Students file out. The door closes.
It’s just us.
The silence is alive.
He runs a hand through his hair, pacing once behind the desk before stopping in front of me.
No jacket. Sleeves rolled. Tattoos. Veins. Trouble.
My mouth goes dry.
“Emma,” he says softly, and it’s wrong—wrong because last night he said it like a prayer, and now he says it like a problem.
“I didn’t know,” I blurt. “I swear. I thought you were… like… I don’t know. A sexy accountant.”
His jaw ticks. “I didn’t know either.”
His eyes meet mine, and for a second—one terrifying, chemical second—it’s like we’re back in that hotel room, bodies tangled, breathless, reckless.
He steps back sharply, like he felt it too.
“This can’t happen again,” he says.
I nod quickly. “Obviously. For sure. Definitely. One-time situation. Zero repeats. No sequels.”
“Good,” he says, though his voice is tight, like he’s convincing himself more than me. “We forget it happened.”
“Right,” I say.
“We move forward professionally.”
“Right.”
“We never talk about it again.”
“Right.”
A beat.
Our eyes lock.
Heat. Memory. Disaster.
“Emma,” he says, pained, “stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“You absolutely are.”
I am.
I can feel it.
He inhales sharply and takes another step back, hands gripping the edge of the desk like he needs something to hold onto.
“Go,” he rasps.
So I go.
Out the door. Down the hall. Into the bathroom, where I lean over the sink and whisper:
“Holy. Shit.”
I splash cold water on my face. It doesn’t help.
Because no amount of water will fix the truth:
Last night wasn’t a mistake.
And this morning didn’t feel like an ending.
It felt like the start of something I’m not supposed to want.
But absolutely, definitely do.
- Writer
