I snorted despite myself. “Yeah. Oh.”
“I didn’t…. It wasn’t.” He laughed bitterly. “I was trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince her. It wasn’t…. You have no fucking idea how hard it’s been. How wrong I’ve felt.”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “I have absolutely no idea.”
Silence. Then, “It didn’t start out that way. It wouldn’t have—you were my student. And I could appreciate everything about you. How bright you were. How intelligent. How fucking mouthy—”
I choked on a laugh. “Thinking about my mouth, Professor?”
“Jesus Christ. That’s not what I meant!”
“Riiiight.”
“Would you just listen to me?”
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me. “I’m listening.”
“I was proud to know you,” he said. “Because you were so fierce and strong and I knew you were going to go far. It’s not often that someone like you crosses my path, and I couldn’t wait to see what you were capable of.”
I was starting to understand. “And then I showed up here.”
“You did,” he agreed. “But….” It sounded like he was grimacing. “It might have started before that.”
“Uh. What?”
“The wedding.”
Holy shit. “Paul and Vince’s wedding?”
“Have we been to any other weddings?”
“Hey! There’s no need for sarcasm in the middle of life-changing events! Who the fuck do you think you are? Me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “But seeing you there, surrounded by your friends, it was… something changed. I didn’t know what. And I thought it was nothing at first. But I kept thinking about you, and—”
“I spied on you at the library,” I blurted.
More silence. All the silence. I thought about getting up and running away as fast as I could, but before my brain sent the message to my legs, Jeremy said, “What.” Just like that, flat and without any regard to proper punctuation. How the hell he could call himself a professor, I’d never know.
“Um. Nothing? You know what? Let’s just forget I said anything.”
Because he was the worst, he said, “I don’t know if I can now. I’ve never had a stalker before.”
I turned and glared at the door over my shoulder. “I wasn’t stalking you! I was….” Thinking of something smooth. Thinking of something cool. “I was admiring you from afar!”
Well, fuck.
“Really?” he said, and he should not have sounded so gleeful. I was going to fuck his shit up.
“No!” I retorted. “That’s not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was that you were there, and I noticed you through the stacks and maybe watched you for a little bit, but that was it. Not stalking at all.”
“Except for all the parts where that sounds like stalking.”
“Semantics,” I said, and my skin was vibrating. I still didn’t have a firm grasp of what this was, what he was trying to say. I wanted nothing more than to open the door again, to look at his face so I could take in all the microexpressions, but I was scared about what I’d find. This was monumental, and I’d spent so long fighting against it. “I’m only twenty-three.”
He sighed. “Yeah. There is that.”
“No, I didn’t mean—look. I know who I am. I know what I’m capable of. I know what I’m going to do with my life.” I paused, considering. “Somewhat. But I’m not like—it’s not a thing for me. It doesn’t have to be.”