Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
“I want coffee,” I murmured. And company. I kept trying not to think about Jackson Steele. His powerfully muscular body. The way his hair curled gently around his ears. The bright blue of his eyes. The musically energetic way in which he spoke. I bit my lip.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. I saw a text from Annie that I hadn’t known had come in, since I’d put my phone on silent for studying.
Hey Ellie! We all said we should meet up for dinner later. I’m bored rn though. You want to get coffee?
“Ah, yes,” I said happily. “Read my mind.”
Yes please!
We met up at one of the campus coffee shops. The coffee wasn’t great, but there were huge glass windows offering a spectacular view of the sunset.
We sat down in a couple of armchairs and talked about our day. Since we’d had every class together, it was easy to make conversation. I told her I’d decided to add a business minor, and she teased me.
“It was Professor Steele’ idea,” I protested, trying not to blush. I took a sip of my pumpkin spice latte. “He thinks I should have that skill set. It makes a lot of sense.”
“Mm,” she said, winking at me. “He does seem cool though. Very smart. I liked him. Don’t see why you guys are attracted to him, though. He’s got to be at least twenty years older than we are.”
“I’m not attracted to him,” I protested. “I just decided to add a business minor.”
She winked at me again. She’d gotten a matcha latte, and she hid her smile behind a sip.
“What do you think the most difficult part of this semester will be?” I asked, looking for a change of subject. “Professor Traver’s class? She seems intense.”
Annie got quiet for a moment. She frowned a little. I felt as though she was hesitant to respond for some reason.
“Actually,” she said, “I’ll just go ahead and tell you, since we’re friends already.”
I raised my eyebrows and scooted in closer to her. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Oh yes, definitely,” she said, her troubled look evaporating into a smile. “I just…it’s old bad stuff. And not too bad. But…,” she paused. She pursed her lips. “I never knew my dad. My real dad. My mom went here, and she got knocked up by some guy and never told him. My grandparents wanted it to be all hush-hush. She like, went to live with my great-aunt in Texas while she was pregnant with me.”
I listened attentively.
“And my mom married my dad I mean, my stepdad when I was two, and we’ve been a pretty happy family. I have seven brothers and sisters.”
“Wow,” I commented appreciatively.
“Yep,” she said. “It’s a lot. And they’re all great, and I have an amazing family, but I always felt kind of different. Like I was an “other:. First of all, everybody’s got red hair except me, even my mom. She and my stepdad had those genes going strong. When I was ten, I found a wedding picture where Mom was holding me as a toddler. No one had ever said anything about me being at my parents’ wedding, but sometimes I would have dreams about it, so it was like I knew that it happened. I asked her about it, and I asked her why I looked different from everyone else, and she told me. I asked her what the name of my dad was, and she told me it was Logan Green. Part of why I wanted to come here was because I wanted to find my real dad. I thought I could get some answers here go through the school archives. Mom doesn’t like to talk about it, so I don’t want to ask her.”
I nodded, processing all of that. “I think it’s amazing that you’re going to try,” I said. “And I’m so sorry that you never met him.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” she said, shrugging. “Lots of worse things have happened to so many people. The only thing that really bothers me is Mom not telling me. And still refusing to talk about it. Like, I bet she could just find him for me if she really tried.”
“Yeah,” I said.
It sounded like a painful and complicated situation for everyone. I wouldn’t want to be in either Annie or her mom’s shoes.
“Well, let me know if you want help,” I said. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do on a Saturday night than pour through the dusty old tomes of the school’s archives.”
“Unfortunately, I think they’re mostly digital now,” she said, laughing.
“Then we’ll put on a movie and eat popcorn while we look,” I said. “I’m not kidding, you know. I love archives.”
She grinned at me. “I’m so happy I found you on my first day,” she said.
I beamed at her. “Same to you, Annie.”
Wednesday couldn’t come soon enough. I only had one class on Tuesday, in the afternoon. I got up early, got ahead on all the homework I could in the library, and then wandered around campus, hoping I would run into Professor Steele. I hadn’t emailed him, but I was itching to tell him that I’d added a business minor.
“You’ll see him in class tomorrow, Ellie,” I told myself. “And stop crushing. He’s your professor.”
Wednesday finally dawned. I spent a little extra time on my makeup. I wore jeans, a pale pink blouse, and gold hoop earrings. I let my hair down, only tying part of it back.
“Stop it, Ellie,” I muttered. But then I argued with myself that him being my professor was a safety barrier. He wasn’t really going to notice me like that
no matter what I did. I might as well look nice.
My mind wandered during my other classes. I focused well enough, but not as well as I usually did. I felt restless, bubbly. My concentration was floating around somewhere on the ceiling, like a fairy hoping to escape the room.
Annie wasn’t the only one who teased me about adding a business minor. Cynthia and Jasmin were merciless about it, especially during lunch. I just smiled serenely through it. I knew that the more I protested, the more guilty I would appear.
I would never add a minor, make a life decision like that, just because of a professor who happened to be very charismatic and charming.
Right?I said goodbye to my friends outside the lunch hall and made my way across campus to the grey cement building with the oval windows. It felt like a foreign country. Starkly, intentionally modern. I spent my days reading about the past. I’d always loved the look of this campus because of how old and iconic the red brick buildings were. And here I was, about to step into a whole new world.
“What am I doing?” I muttered. “I don’t want to have a business minor.”
Then I reminded myself how practical it was. How I, as an actively intelligent person, enjoyed learning almost anything. And then I thought about how Jackson Steele would be teaching me what I needed to know how his bright mind would be guiding me through this strange new world.
I smiled and walked inside the building. I went to his classroom and sat down in the same desk I’d had last time. I think part of me was worried he might not even remember me if I took a different seat. I had done my hair and makeup differently today. I was wearing a bright pink lipstick. What if he didn’t even recognize me?
The class size was significantly smaller today. I estimated that a third of the students who had been present last time were no longer there. I wonder if I was the only person who had added the class after sneaking in.
A minute before class was due to start, Jackson Steele walked into the room. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. He was wearing a grey suit jacket over dark jeans. He had a leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder. He still had eyes like two blue pools glimmering in the sunlight.
His eyes scanned over the room again, a small smile playing across his lips. He seemed to be amused, rather than disappointed, that so many of the students he’d met on Monday hadn’t really been supposed to be there.
Then his eyes landed on me, and stayed there. I thought I saw his lips part for a moment. My heart began to pound. He locked eyes with me, and then winked.
Immediately whispers rippled across the room. I felt my cheeks flush scarlet, but by that time, Professor Steele had turned back to the white board, writing the title of his lecture across the top.