The Professor

Chapter 6

DALIA

Noah was here.

My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I opened the cafe’s door and stepped into the building with my eyes fixed on Noah who sort of looked glad. Glad that I came here? I fiddled with the bracelet on my wrist and took a deep breath as I walked towards him.

I shouldn’t be here. s**t, I really shouldn’t be here and a couple of minutes ago, I hadn’t even wanted to come here but I just… I just wanted to see if he was here.

“You came,” Noah said softly when I got to him and I inhaled sharply, gesturing at him.

“You did too.” Not knowing what else to say after that, a nervous smile crept onto my face. I mean, what was I supposed to say with this situation we had found ourselves in? “...Hey.”

He placed his hand on my arm, making my heart stutter, when a couple of people walked past us before guiding us to a wall that had framed pictures hanging from it. As we came to a stop, I took another deep breath to calm myself down and the first thing that came to mind after looking up at him was ‘He’s so f*****g handsome’. I then gripped the hem of my shirt, reminding myself of who he was, how nothing can happen between us, how no one should find out what already happened between us.

“I–I didn’t bring your jacket,” I blurted out and he raised his brows slightly, gazing down at me with those beautiful blue eyes. I swallowed. “I planned to but I didn’t know I was going to come. I mean, I didn’t think you’d come so I didn’t think I should either but then I realized that you might be here so I came and I forgot your jacket…” What am I even saying right now?!

“You don’t want it anymore?”

I blinked, tipping my head to the side. “Sorry?”

“The jacket.”

“Oh… Oh!” I added when I realized he was referring to what I texted him on Friday night and a small laugh escaped me. “Um…” Butterflies fluttered madly in my stomach as he smiled, waiting for my response, and I pressed my lips together. Please stop smiling at me like that. “Well… Can I keep it?”

He laughed. I liked making him laugh. This was bad.

Feeling the urge to brush his hair back away from his face, I crossed my arms over my chest to prevent myself from touching him instead and his gaze dropped to my chest momentarily, followed by his tongue darting out to wet his lips. Heat licked over my skin.

I remembered the feeling of his tongue and lips on me – licking and sucking – and I let out a shaky breath. It was getting harder for me to draw a line here… Do I even want to?

Noah’s brows suddenly snapped together, as if he’d somehow heard my inappropriate thought, and a wall, which hadn’t been around him when I stepped into the cafe, surrounded him as he took a step back from me.

I frowned. “...Noah?”

He opened his mouth to say something but instantly shut it again and when the barista called out an order, a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I should go.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry.”

What? “Noah…” I reached for his hand but he immediately jerked away from me like I was going to burn him, startling me, and inhaled sharply.

“It’s Professor Anderson,” he replied and I was a bit taken aback because his voice was cold.

What’s happening? “I–”

He turned away from me and headed to the counter to collect his coffee from the barista.

“Noah. Wait,” I called out, moving towards him, but he just walked out of the cafe without looking back.

****

I spent my walk home in a somber mood, thinking about what happened in the cafe. Noah had gone from warm to cold all of a sudden, and I understood that he did that because he remembered that I was his student but I was pissed.

I was pissed that he shut me out like that. I was pissed that I liked him and he ended up being my lecturer. I was pissed that he smiled at me like that before acting cold. And most of all, I was pissed that I was feeling this way… hurt.

What did I expect though? It’s not like we could have carried on with our date after learning who we were to each other.

Why didn’t it come up during one of our conversations though? Him being a professor at Hartman and me being a student in it. And why had he waited for me at the cafe if the only thing he was going to do was go ‘It’s Professor Anderson’ on me then?

I gritted my teeth as I remembered what happened before opening the door of the apartment Weston and I shared to see Norma standing in the hallway with a bag of mini cookies in her hand.

“Geez. You look like someone ran over your dog,” she said as I stepped in and closed the door behind myself. “...You okay?”

“Hmm.” I walked past her and towards the living room, almost bumping into Weston as he stepped out of the kitchen and when he saw my face, he paused.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked and I heaved a sigh as I buried my face in his shoulder. “He wasn’t there?”

“He was.” My reply came out a bit muffled so I withdrew from his shoulder and when I looked up at him, his brows were raised, waiting for me to go on.

I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about what happened but I did because there wasn’t much to say about it and when I was done, Weston pulled an awkward face. I figured that was because he also understood why Noah acted like that and why I was upset so he didn’t know exactly what to say.

“...You can laugh if you want."

“Now why would I do that?”

I shrugged in response just as Norma sidled up to me. Wordlessly, she held a cookie out to me like it would make me feel better and it did work a bit but only because of the ridiculous pitiful expression on her face.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I said with a small smile, collecting the cookie from her, and the next thing that popped into my mind was the ‘Stop smiling at me like that’ I had thought of when Noah gave me that boyish smile. My smile slipped off. Ugh. Enough about Noah!

“Don’t you have that TA stuff to deal with?” Weston asked, changing the topic, and it took me a couple of seconds to process his words before my eyes widened.

Crap! I had totally forgotten about that. I needed a TA job for my internship at Surrey Williams during summer and I forgot about it because Noah had been occupying my mind since Friday night. Well, he won't be doing that any longer.

“That’s right. Which lecturer are you going to apply to be a TA for? I already applied to be Hale’s and she accepted. She told me to come see her by 3,” Norma chimed in and I groaned.

Most of the lecturers in our department already had TAs so they either wanted one more, like Dr Hale, or didn’t need new ones.

“I have a list. I just need to go find out the ones that need a TA."

"Want me to come with you?" Weston asked as I headed into the living room to get my bag. "We can go get the car from the repair shop on our way back."

"Sure."

****

NOAH

“Crap,” I muttered for the nth time since I got back to my office as what happened in the cafe came to mind again, and I inhaled sharply.

I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about her but it seemed like my mind was determined to act on its own.

“Dalia.” Her name slipped past my lips absent-mindedly and the moment I realized it, I snapped my mouth shut like that would undo it. But it didn’t and now she was in my mind again, stronger than before.

She had obviously been surprised by my words and she was most likely upset with me because she had sort of looked sad when she left the cafe after I did. I knew that because I sat in my car for at least ten minutes after I left the cafe and I had seen her leave it.

I felt bad.

I had gone to the cafe with the intention of addressing our situation so things wouldn’t be vastly awkward when we ran into each other, but then I lost my footing when I saw her – our lecture hall encounter was pushed to the back of my mind. And when I realized that I was getting too comfortable with her, I sort of panicked and switched up on her, ensuring that things would be vastly awkward when we ran into each other.

I groaned in frustration and leaned back in my seat, tightening my hold on my phone. “I’m such an i***t,” I said just before my phone rang, and without looking at the caller ID, I answered. “Hello.”

“Noah Timothée Anderson,” my mother’s stern voice filtered through the receiver and I tipped my head to the side because she always called me my full name whenever she was upset. “Where are you?”

I furrowed my brows and glanced around. “Uh... At work?”

“Well, I’m where you claim to be and I don’t see you here,” she replied as I heard the voices of other people in the background and I furrowed my brows even more.

“You’re at campus?”

“What campus?” she asked, sounding confused, and I clicked my tongue because I told her about it last week. She must have forgotten.

“Hartman University.”

She was quiet for a couple of seconds. “I’m… I’m at the company. Why are you at a university?”

“... I’m a lecturer there. I told you about it last week.”

“Oh! ...I thought you were joking,” she replied and I pursed my lips before she cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Uh, how’s work?”

“Work’s -” Dalia’s face popped up in my mind and I shut my eyes as I rubbed my forehead. “Work’s fine.”

“Okay... okay, that’s good. But um, what about work? Company work.”

I exhaled in a rush and rolled my shoulders. The company she was talking about was my dad’s company, Nord Inc., and he wanted to leave it to me but my older brother, Shane, was not happy about that. He was trying to get some board members on his side so he could call for a vote and that was why dad wanted me to start taking over the duties of CEO as soon as possible. I honestly wasn’t ready to take over the company but I wasn’t going to let Shane take it from me too.

“I’ll uh, work out a schedule,” I replied as I sat upright and she sighed.

“So are you coming to the company today? Like soon?”

“Why? What’s happening there?”

“Nothing. I just– I’m here. I thought you’d be here too, so…” she trailed off and I narrowed my eyes, finding her tone a bit odd.

Let me guess. “Is Shane there?” I asked and her silence only confirmed my suspicion. “Yeah, I have to go. I love you.” I hung up before she could say anything else and as I stared down at my phone, I remembered how Dalia looked when she left the cafe.

Should I call her to apologize? Should I just leave things as they are now? …Is leaving it for the best?

A knock came on the door, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I heaved a sigh, dropping the phone on the desk. “Come in,” I called out, expecting it to be the girl who came here earlier to apply to be my TA because it was already a couple of minutes past 12, but when the door opened, it wasn’t her.

What the–

Dalia stood in the doorway to my office, like an invisible force field prevented her from moving farther, and my eyes widened as I immediately got to my feet. What is she doing here?!

“Uh– Good afternoon,” she choked out, blinking rapidly. She then quickly cleared her throat and plastered a smile on her face as she straightened. “Good afternoon, Professor Anderson. Do you need a TA?”