Page 18 of Bone to Pick
I wasn’t sure why this nettled me so much. Maybe because Professor “You May Call Me Theo” Hancock had been consistently throwing me off my stride since I’d woken up beside him that morning? Because I’d been hard for him for hours and had to forcibly stop myself from getting the release I needed in the shower? Either way, I hated that he could make me so frantic while remaining so perfectly in control himself. It made me want to provoke him.
“You’re not scared of me, are you, Professor?” I murmured.
“Hardly.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I thought we agreed I’m not your professor anymore.”
“You’re right. We did. And that’s good because it seemed like you were looking at me some kind of way a minute ago. Almost like you might want to… kiss me.” I let my voice go low and husky. “Which makes me wonder why you’re trying so hard not to touch me now.”
“Porter.” Theo crossed his arms like a shield. “While you might not be my student anymore, you’re stillastudent. And I would not kiss a student if he had lifesaving anti-venom on his lips and I’d been bitten by a snake.”
Then he scrambled past me into the bathroom and slammed the door.
I stared at the back of the door in surprise. He’d just admitted both more and less than I’d hoped.
It was common knowledge that while professor/student relationships (or hookups) might not be smiled upon at Hannabury, they weren’t forbidden. They simply needed to be disclosed to the administration to make sure that the student was never enrolled in the professor’s class after that and that the professor didn’t exert any undue influence over the student. It was similar to the way professors and other staff members weren’t allowed to date their supervisors or direct reports—which, I remembered Nolan telling me, had caused a scandal once upon a time.
Neither of those situations applied to me and Theo.
Also, it must be noted, Theo had not denied looking at me or about what he’d been thinking.
So what was his problem?
I yanked on another set of Theo’s clothes. This time, he’d loaned me a soft pair of flannel pajama bottoms and an old NYU tee that must have been from his undergraduate days. After pulling on the thick wool socks he’d set out for me, I padded over to the kitchen to see if I could help fix us a couple of sandwiches or something to tide us over until the stew was ready for dinner.
I had to admit that stew smelled amazing. The warm, hearty aroma filled the small cabin and made the entire place seem even cozier than it already was. Inside the fridge, I didn’t find sandwich fixings, but I did find hummus, veggies, and fruit. I pulled a bunch of stuff out and made up a platter to share, hoping he wouldn’t mind me making myself at home in his tiny kitchen.
Luck was not on my side because I was just coming in from fetching the hoodie I’d left outside when I remembered he hadn’t taken any clothes into the bathroom for himself. By the time I stepped into the cabin, he was pulling on a sweater over the clean T-shirt, hiding all the delicious skin I might have gotten a peek of if I’d simply left the hoodie to die in the frigid driveway.
“I made us something to eat,” I said, gesturing to the table where I’d set the platter. “Hope that’s okay.”
He slid his dark-framed glasses on his face and ran fingers through his wet hair to straighten it back from the mess the sweater had made. “Of course. Help yourself to anything while you’re here.”
His voice sounded strangely rough and unsure, as if our comfortable companionship from earlier had been zapped out of existence. I debated making a joke about helping myself toanything… but I figured that would only make things more awkward.
I busied myself fetching us a couple of glasses of cold water before joining him at the table. He popped back up to grab some pita chips from a cabinet to add to our stash, and then we dove in. My mouth was desperate to make all kinds of snarky comments to break the ice—things like the fact his students called that sweater his “touch me” sweater since the cashmere looked downright pettable, or the utter predictability of him not having something as pedestrian as deli turkey in his kitchen, or my realization that him cheating really invalidated our agreement to let him critique my last essay for Professor Burton—but I kept my mouth busy with food and waited forhimto break the ice this time.
A few silent minutes later, he did.
“So you grew up in a small town like this, right?” he asked. “Little Pippin Hollow? Did you ever have dreams to move to the big city the way I dreamed of leaving it?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah. Still do. I was interviewing for a bunch of corporate jobs in New York and Boston last spring before… you know,” I said, giving him a significant look. I hurried on, “It’s not that I don’t love small-town life. I’m gonna miss it, to be honest. But small towns really aren’t practical if your goal is to make money.”
“And that’s your goal?” he asked, like the idea surprised him.
“Basically.” I chomped a carrot stick. “See, my oldest brother, Knox, moved down to Boston and made a killing at his finance job for, like, ten years before moving back to Little Pippin Hollow. He helped put my brother and me through school, even though I was kind of a pain in the ass to him when we were kids—”
“You, Sunday?” Theo clutched a hand to his chest in faux shock. “Never say so.”
I snickered. “It’s all part of my charm. Anyway, it’s not that our family was poor, really—not like some of the kids at the Hub who have to deal with food insecurity and not knowing if the electricity will stay on. But there were six of us Sunday kids, so there wasn’t a lot of extra. Definitely no college funds and not a lot of money for daydreaming about the future, if you know what I mean. If my brother hadn’t been super generous… well, it would have taken a lot more than two years of me commuting to Hannabury part-time for me to save up the money to become a full-time student, you know? And that really inspired me—”
He whistled low. “You worked two years to save money before you enrolled full-time?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “I worked nights and took a class or two every semester. I’m not scared of hard work, especially if it’s for a purpose. And that’s my point. I figure, once I’ve worked at a corporate job for a while and I’ve saved up a bunch, I’ll be able to do good things like Knox did. Endow a scholarship for the kids at the Hub. Maybe more than one. And I’ll give the Hub enough money to actually hire a full staff, too. Because those kids… they’resofucking bright. They need someone to make sure they’re dreaming big, and they need to know someone’s ready to invest in their futures when the time comes, the way Knox did for me. I swear, one of them is gonna cure cancer—probably Raquon, who’s a little science geek with the sweetest heart. And one of them is gonna write the great American novel—I’m guessing Laci, who’s thirteen and started a Bookstagram where she reviews YA stuff. And definitely one of ’em’s gonna come up with a taco recipe that will revolutionize the taco industry because Edgar’s only nine, but he has a really well-developed taco palate. It’ll be a fucking crime if these kids don’t get to pursue their passions.”
Theo looked at me strangely. “And meanwhile, you’re gonna be working a ‘corporate job’ somewhere. Not even a specific corporate job? Just… whatever they’ll pay you the most for? What aboutyourpassion?”
“I don’t really have one. Not yet, anyway. It’s like we were talking about with you taking the Hannabury job.” I nibbled a pita chip thoughtfully. “Serendipity, right? But it didn’t just happen out of nowhere. It happened because you already had an impressive resume and track record at Brown before you took the step of applying for the job up here. It all kinda came together because you were in the right place at the right time with the right skills. I’m hoping the same will happen for me. I’ll start making money to do the things I want to do, and then… you know, the passion will come.”
He shook his head, looking a little like he had in class last semester. Like I was somehow missing the obvious. “Porter. You don’t think you’ve found your passion yet?”
