Page 11 of Bone to Pick
I expected to see my own shock mirrored on his face, but his expression didn’t change.
“Yes, you are. Not much gets by you, does it, Sunday?” he asked mildly.
I blinked. “But…whyam I naked?”
The other eyebrow lifted to join the first. “You tell me, Sunday.”
“Stop calling me that,” I shot back. “Last-naming me only works if we’re buddies, which we aren’t, or if it’s a cute nickname, like my brother calling his boyfriend Goodman, which doesn’t apply here either, or if you’re trying to put distance between us, which is really fucking uncool when I’m naked and tumbling out of your bed.” I lifted my chin. “Theappropriate wordis Porter. Por. Ter.”
Professor Hancock regarded me for a long moment—long enough to make me regret my impetuous words and wonder why I’d chosen that particular hill to die on—before finally nodding.
“You have a point,” he agreed. He cleared his throat and inspected the fabric of his pajama pants as he offered awkwardly, “You may call me Theo.”
A startled puff of sound escaped me, almost like a laugh but not quite. “Uh. No. I may not.”
He turned to me with… ah, yes, there it was. The scowl of disapproval. “Why not?” he demanded. “If you expect me to call you Porter, then you’ll call me Theo. End of subject.”
I shook my head. I would swear before any court of law that Professor—Theo—hadn’t particularly wanted me to call him Theo… until I’d refused. Why did I find that so adorable?
“For the record,” he went on, “I found you passed out on my bed wearing nothing but a towel after your shower last night, despite me giving you spare clothes to wear. I couldn’t tell youwhyyou made that choice any more than I could explainanyof the choices you made last night. But after cursing you heartily, usingallthe words in my very impressive vocabulary—”
“Naturally,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“—I opted to let you sleep it off. I debated taking the chair, but I’m still recovering from the last time I fell asleep there, grading papers last semester. Since the floor wasn’t an option for me either, I came up with the only other viabletemporarysolution.” He spread his hands to indicate the rumpled bedcovers.
Despite his calm words, his cheeks were definitely rosy, and it settled something in me to know I wasn’t the only one feeling the awkwardness of the situation.
“Right. Well. Good.” I stood up, clutching the sheet around me like a Victorian gentlewoman. “I… appreciate that. I’m just going to…”
I bolted into the bathroom. Once behind the closed door, I let out a long, slow breath. I deliberately avoided looking in the mirror because I didn’t need to see my bloodshot eyes and bloodshottier face.
“Fuck,” I breathed for the millionth time. Dr. Hancock was right. I had a piss-poor vocabulary for an English Lit student.
I cleared my throat and tried again, this time using the Bard’s own words. “O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth! Then with a passion would I shake the world.”
“Sun—Porter?” Dr. Hancock called through the door. “What the fuck are you doing in there?”
I jumped and banged my hip on the corner of the sink. “Fuck!” I cried again.
“If you’re trying to convert me by showing me the many, many applications of the word, I assure you I have already discovered them all,” he muttered before adding with a definite hint of amusement, “Mostly in the last twelve hours.” His voice trailed off as he wandered away from the door.
I couldn’t help but grin. Theo Hancock had a sense of humor. Who knew?
After splashing my face with frigid water, I looked around for the clothes he’d mentioned and found that someone, possibly me, had hung them on a row of hooks behind the bathroom door. Navy blue sweatpants, worn to softness, and a hoodie from last year’s Hannabury Faculty Fun Run, which had benefitted the Hub.
I’d been at that event. I ran my fingers over the faded logo while my memory tried to place him there. I’d been a volunteer, as usual, checking people in and handing out race numbers. But I hadn’t been the only volunteer at the table, and with the crowd that day, it was possible he’d escaped my notice.
Imagining him among the happy crowd wasn’t easy. Even after seeing him in pajamas, it was hard to picture him without his usual dressy jeans, Oxford button-up, and textured blazer. Would he still have worn his dark-framed glasses, or would he have worn contacts for something like that?
Because I was still curious—and, okay, came from a long and proud line of nosy, small-town gossips—I nudged open the medicine cabinet door over the sink and took a peek.
No contact lenses, but among the usual items found in a medicine cabinet, there was also a half-empty bottle of silicone lube, an unopened box of condoms, and a small black enema bulb.
Oh. Oh, shit. Okay.
My heart skittered faster. Professor Hot-Cock liked to bottom.
This knowledge did absolutely nothing to calm my flaming cheeks, so I had to rinse my face off with cold water again. And again. After the third icy-cold douse, my cheeks had faded from “call the paramedics” to “mild sunburn.” That was as good as it was going to get.
