Page 99 of Brat Baby
“Okay, so back to our conversation. Do you have any other ideas about how to confront Derek?” she asks in what I assume is supposed to be a whisper, but she isn’t very quiet.
I grab the sugar and scoop in a few spoons, a male noise of irritation from behind me making me smile. “Not really, no. I guess I could go wait in the staff parking lot by his car. He has to leave sometime, right?”
There is a scraping of a chair before Xavier brings his cup to the sink. Oakley and I go quiet as he rinses it out and places it on the drying rack. “You could go to his open office hours.”
Oakley’s eyes shoot to him, then back to me. “Do you know when they are?”
Xavier smirks and heads back to my bedroom. He is back a few seconds later, shoes on, and pulling on his shirt. “This afternoon. Three to five.”
Then he steps in close, captures my jaw, kisses the life out of me, and waltzes out the door like he doesn’t give two fucks if the students in the building see him.
I sigh.
The Monarchs thread on the student forums is going to go absolutely nuts, wondering why he was in the dorms.
It’s only then that I see the pink gift bag, from the photo in the thread earlier this week, sitting on our table.
Chapter 52
Derek
I will never, ever state that a student isn’t intelligent enough to earn a mathematics degree. However, there are some students—like the one sitting in front of me right now—that should probably consider doing something else with their lives.
With a flourish, I finish writing out the example methods he needs to memorize in order to at least pass next week’s test on differential equations and hand him the piece of paper.
“What I would like you to do between now and the test is to memorize each of these methods. The important part is determining which method is required based on the data provided in the question. I’ve broken it down into each of its components. Learn to identify them before the test and then how to put them into practice, and you’ll keep your current B average.”
Joesph, a student from my second-year calculus class, nods his head as he stares at the page with a furrowed brow. While math might not come to him quite so instinctively as it does for the rest of the students in his cohort, he does make up for it in tenacity. And extra credit.
“Thanks, Professor King. This really helps. Same time next week?”
“Of course, but remember, if there are other students here, you have to give way to them,” I gently remind him. “And please consider getting a tutor. I know that Justin has a vacancy at the moment.”
Joseph ducks his head and immediately starts packing his things into his backpack. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
I don’t push him on it. It’s a topic that has come up every week since his very first F last year, on the same pop quiz that Emery hit out of the park. He always promises to consider it, but like clockwork, he is back every Thursday, taking up far more than his allotted ten minutes per student.
Sighing, I relax into my chair, the back reclining the smallest amount. Joesph doesn’t say goodbye as he stands, already lost to the inner workings of his mind.
But what is out of the ordinary for him is the way he pauses in the doorway, then turns beet red in a matter of seconds. “Oh, ah,hi. Sorry, but office hours are almost over. If I’d known you were out here, waiting, I wouldn’t have taken so long.”
There is a murmured response that I don’t pick up, then Joseph ducks his head again, the tips of his ears pink, and disappears before my heart all but explodes in my chest as a person steps into view. The feeling is so visceral that I can’t help but press my palm into my sternum, like that will ease the ache.
Emery.
She fills my doorway with her petite presence.
Sneakers, bare legs, denim miniskirt, white off-the-shoulder T-shirt, and her hair loose, framing her heartbreakingly beautiful face. And that look in her eyes that screams trouble.
Her existence this close to mine is beyond painful.
I have no clue how long we stay like this, staring at each other, her expression neutral. What mine looks like, I have no idea. My face has gone numb. I’m entirely numb and have been for weeks now.
Eventually, she steps into the room and closes the door behind her.
“Hey, Daddy,” she says quietly into the sudden vacuum silence of the room, a smile flirting at the corners of her lips.
“You do not have permission to call me that,” I reply, my throat practically strangling around the words.
