Page 23 of Prosecco with My Professor
“Yeah.” I nod. “I don’t have the schedule yet for the second term.” Screw it. I take a giant bite of my sandwich, the fresh mozzarella über rich and creamy and the tomatoes bright and fresh. Ugnm…so good.
“Are you excited to have him as a professor?” Jade prods with an eyebrow raise. Having lived with her for a month before moving here, I’m not surprised she’d ask. We had a blast in Madrid together, spending late nights out with her co-workers or just the two of us, eating wonderful food and taking in the city. Without that month of watching and admiring Jade, who’s fun and carefree and confident, I definitely wouldn’t have talked to Santo at the bar.
I chew and swallow, covering my mouth even though it’s a video chat, and we’ve all seen far worse than ungraceful chewing—heck, a couple months ago we walked in on Tessa masturbating. It was embarrassing in the moment, but became a funny story. Fortunately, Tessa is confident enough to laugh it off. I would have died of embarrassment and wouldn’t have been able to look anyone in the eye for a while.
“I don’t know,” I hedge. “He’s so good-looking that I think it will be distracting.”
“Yeah, but also wish fulfillment.” That dreamy voice is Sara’s. The other three of us give her a look and a moment of silence. “What? Did no one else have a hot-for-teacher phase?”
“I did,” Tessa chimes in. She’s in her apartment in Portugal, which came furnished with bland, neutral decor. At least mine is shabby-chic. “One of the math teachers at my high school was fresh out of his degree, so he was young and very hot. Obviously, I never did anything, but I still get a flutter when I think about his tight butt in jeans. He’d erase the chalkboard, and then I’d pretend I’d forgotten to write the equation down, and so he’d have to write it on the board again.”
Jade cackles. She’s at home in the apartment we shared in Madrid, and as she leans over in laughter, I can see the corkboard behind her with pictures of her all over the world, including photos of the four of us in Paris and Rome.
Next up on our trips together is visiting Sara in Baden-Baden, and that’s a perfect segue to change the topic from my hot professor.
The call ends and I close my laptop and jump two feet in the air when I see a black shape in the window. Logically, I know I’m two stories up, but the void is so dark and odd that it takes a minute for my brain to go from portal-to-another-dimension to a-furry-body.
And then said furry body blinks at me.
Oh, it’s Zola, sitting on the small ledge of my window again.
“What are you doing here, Miss Zola?”
Sheraowsat me, big golden eyes watching as I stand and approach her. My tall windows open to let fresh air in—the apartment doesn’t have air conditioning and I understand that in the summer it’s uncomfortable. Since Zola knows me, she might come in if I open the window.
Knows me. Ha. I guess if you consider ignoring a proffered handknowingin cat-speak.
Amazingly, I get the window open without Zola hissing and running away from me. How she fits on this ledge, I’m not really sure. The part of her that was pressed up against the window oozes into my apartment.
Zola ignores me.
I put my hands on my hips. “Does your daddy know you come out here?”
She does not answer.
Should I try to pick her up and take her back home? What if she scratches me? Should I put on oven mitts? I don’t actually have any oven mitts.
Maybe I should get Santo first.
As if sensing my intentions to tattle on her, Zola’s head swivels toward me, and she blinks those big, yellow eyes of hers.
“Well, what did you expect?” I ask her. “I’m on Santo’s side on this. Big cities are dangerous for cats.”
She blinks again.
I put my hands together and rub them. “Here goes nothing,” I mutter. I reach out a hand and touch her head, stroking the very top. Her ear twitches.
I don’t know why I’m so scared of this cat. She does look at me with disdain at worst, aloofness at best. “Good girl, Zola.”
I add a second hand and get them around what I think is her shoulders, between her head and the giant poof ball of her body. I do a sort of scoop-and-lift motion, and the next thing I know, I have a cat in my hands. Zola doesn’t react at all, her front legs straight out in the air and her lower ones dangling, just like the way I saw Santo pick her up the other week.
“Well, that was rather anticlimactic,” I tell her. “You’re making me feel pretty silly for talking to a cat so much.” I maneuver my hands and—much less gracefully than Santo did—get her curled up in my arms and against my chest.
Out the doorway and down the hall I go. When Santo answers the door and sees me with his cat, he blinks.
I blink too. Santo is wearing a soccer uniform, tall socks, and short shorts putting his knees on display, and the bright red against his olive skin is lovely.
“I carried your cat,” I say and then flush. Who am I, Baby Houseman? This isn’t the Catskills, and Santo is no Johnny Castle.
