Page 45 of Out of the Storm

It wasn’t much longer before he caught Mel staring.

“Thinking about your broody custodian?” she asked.

“Geez, I’m that easy to read, am I?”

“Always.” She leaned forward and tapped the stack of papers. “Finished with the exams?”

“Almost. I think I need a break soon. I feel like my eyeballs might pop out if I keep looking at half-wrong calculations.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah, some of these kids might need to repeat the class.”

“Oh, I meant your teaching,” she teased. “You’rethatbad, huh?”

Gary picked up a paper and rapped her on top of her head with it.

“Hey, I’mat leastmediocre,” he said. “It’s the class time. How are students supposed to stay awake when they’re full from lunch?”

“You’d prefer to teach classes at eight in the morning instead?”

“I’dpreferthat the campus stop serving pizza and pasta to students right before they have to learn multiple integration.”

Mel began to fake snore, and Gary smacked her with the paper again.

“I hate to break it to you, but I think it’s the subject matter, not the carbohydrates.”

“But I make it so fun.”

“What, with your jokes?” Mel said, snickering.

Gary faked a sigh. “Yeah, maybe they are a little derivative.”

Mel sat up and shoved him. “Yuck. Stop it.”

“Okay, okay,” Gary said, turning back to his papers so that he could organize the piles. “I think I’lltake that break now.”

“Are you leaving to visit your kind-of-boyfriend?”

“Nah, Jeff likes to be by himself at work. I think having to handle Brandon intermittently involves enough stress.”

While Gary packed up his papers, his thoughts wandered back to the night he and Jeff had walked home from Mel’s party together. It had seemed like Jeff had wanted to hug him before they’d parted. But something had held him back. Closing his backpack, Gary replayed that conversation he’d had with Jeff when Jeff had said something like “We can be together on the phone because I can hang up on you.” It seemed kind of like... kind of like how Mel had felt back in college. Hadn’t she said something like that? Or maybe she had said that she was worried she’d be limited to experiencing intimacy through love letters?

Maybe he could try to bring it up. It had been a long time since she’d mentioned it. And, well, she’d clearly moved on. Because she was with Ken now. So, how’d she manage that?

Gary had to know.

“Hey, Mel, I have to ask you something,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“Remember your boyfriend who . . . uhm . . . you know, in college . . . in his car . . .”

Mel shot him a look. “No, Gare, I completely forgot the worst night of my life.”

Gary cringed. “Sorry.”

“No,I’msorry,” she said. “What is it you want to know?”

---