The Professor

Chapter 8

NOAH

Dalia had already applied to be my TA.

I had told her to think about it till Friday but I woke up to an email with her application this morning. I hadn’t been surprised about her applying but I had been surprised that she did it so fast.

I hadn’t rejected her yet though. I wanted Kristen to apply before I did that.

I pulled into a parking space in the faculty’s lot and turned off the engine before grabbing my things, pausing when my phone buzzed with a message from Taylor.

Tae: wtf no

I had texted her before I left home, asking her if she gave Shane my number because he had called me several times during the night. I figured he was the one Allison got my number from.

Tae: he probably got it from mum. sorry :(

That was what I had thought too but when I called mum this morning, she swore up and down she didn’t do it. He had to have gotten it from somewhere though and it definitely wasn’t from dad. Now that Taylor had texted me, he didn’t get it from her either.

I heaved a sigh and decided to assume he got it from mum’s phone without her knowing, giving her the benefit of the doubt because when I changed my number due to Shane’s and Allison’s incessant calls, I had told her I wouldn’t give her my number again if she gave the new one to him. This was incredibly annoying though because I didn’t want to have to change my number again.

I climbed out of the car before heading towards the faculty and on my way, I spotted Dalia’s friends – Weston and Tamika – in the yard. Dalia wasn’t with them though and before I knew it, I was searching the other faces in the yard to find hers.

Why am I looking for her? Stop! Stop it!

I returned my attention to the walkway and quickly made my way into the building, reminding myself that I needed to stay away from Dalia as I rode the elevator to the floor my office was on. After I dealt with this TA issue – with her not ending up as my TA of course – the only time I was going to see her was in passing and in class, and with time, my attraction to her would hopefully diminish.

That was what I told myself but the moment the elevator doors opened, the first thing I saw was Dalia crouching in front of my office, her attention fixed on her phone.

For the love of God.

She lifted her head before her focus suddenly veered towards me, as if she had somehow sensed me, and I got out of the elevator while she got to her feet.

Why is she here?

I let out a harsh breath as I slowly raked my gaze over her before making my way to my office with the both of us keeping our eyes fixed on each other. “Miss Campbell,” I said as she opened her mouth to say something and her mouth twisted.

I wanted to kiss her.

Why am I like this?

She schooled her expression and pulled a paper out of her handbag before flashing me a smile. “Professor Anderson. I’m just here to submit my application form,” she replied and I arched my brow.

“You don’t need to. I already got it in an email.”

“I just want to be sure you get it in case the email landed in your spam box.”

My mouth twitched into a small smile at that subtle accusation. “Touché,” I muttered and her smile widened a bit as she stretched out the form.

My eyes lingered on somewhere they shouldn’t for a moment before I dropped my gaze to the form she was holding out to me. I returned my eyes to hers as I reached out to collect it, my fingers accidentally brushing hers as I did, and she sucked in a breath.

I took pleasure in the fact that she reacted to me and I wanted to touch her again but I kept my hands to myself.

“You’ll get a response at the end of the week.”

“Okay, Professor,” she replied before turning around, heading towards the stairwell, and I kept my eyes on her till she was out of sight.

I then moved over to my office door to unlock it and when I walked in, I glanced at the form she had given me. I hadn’t gone through the one in my email and hadn’t even planned to because I was just going to reject her in the end but now that I had it in my hand, I couldn’t stop myself from going through it.

It only took me a little while to realize that she was more than qualified to be a TA and I couldn’t help but feel like an ass because I was going to reject her. When I got to the part where she had stated why she wanted to be a TA, I felt even worse because she needed it for an internship at Surrey Williams.

Damn... Now I didn’t know what to do.

****

It had been two weeks since the semester started, two weeks since I walked into a lecture hall and found out that the girl I liked was my student… and now that same girl was my TA.

Yes, despite wanting to stay away from Dalia, I ended up choosing her as my TA because to my horror, Kristen didn’t apply on Friday. When I had said ‘go think about this again’, it had only been directed at Dalia but apparently, Kristen was the only one that adhered to my words and decided not to apply.

To say I had been baffled when Saturday came around and she still hadn’t applied was an understatement. But I still held out hope that Kristen or any other person would apply and when that didn’t happen by Monday, I caved and accepted Dalia as my TA on Tuesday.

Doing that made me feel good for a while though because she had sounded so happy in the email she had sent me to thank me for accepting her but then I realized I was in trouble.

I had needed a TA because working at the uni would definitely conflict with working in dad’s company and a TA would lighten the load here. How would my TA do that when I didn’t want to be alone with her because I kept thinking of her in ways that I shouldn’t?

I rubbed my forehead as I glanced at the clock on the wall before returning my attention back to the quizzes I was grading. I had to be at the company by eleven AM because my father wanted me to be present at a meeting and it was ten-forty now. I had to leave soon but there were still a lot of tests for me to grade and a couple of things I had to do.

My phone buzzed on the desk and I picked it up to see a text from my dad, asking where I was, before it started ringing with a call from him.

“Crap,” I muttered and got to my feet as I answered it. “Yeah dad. I’m on my way.”

“I know you’re still in your office. You have fifteen minutes to get your ass over here. Some of the board members are already here and Shane is schmoozing with them.”

Ugh.

“I’ll be there soon.” I hung up and grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair before groaning when I thought of my workload. “Crap,” I muttered again because I knew what I had to do to fix this but I didn’t like it.

I didn’t have much of a choice though.

I heaved a sigh as I opened my contacts on my phone, scrolled to Dalia’s name and dialed her number.

Looks like I'll finally start making use of my TA.