"No, Mr. Hunter, I will not be doing that."
"But I prefer it. We don't need to be so formal, do we? I'm not an eighteen-year-old freshman."
She scans me up and down, her lips puckering again. "Yes, you're awfully old to be a student."
Why does everyone keep saying that? And why do I feel the need to defend myself?
No idea, but my mouth has its own logic. "My great uncle went to university for the first time five years ago. He was seventy-nine."
"Mm-hm." Dr. SJ Griffin pulls a file folder out of her bag and spreads it open on the desktop, then she slips on a pair of reading glasses and focuses on the papers in the folder. "Nicholas Hunter, forty years old, a foreign student with transfer credits from the University of Reading."
"I'm impressed. You pronounced the name correctly. How did you know it's Redding and not Reeding?"
She glances at me briefly but doesn't answer my question, then returns to studying her dossier on me. "I see you had an adequate GPA."
Adequate? I don't care how sexy she is, this woman is too uptight to be any fun. "Do I get to know everything about you too?"
"No." She gnaws on her lip like a rabbit chewing on a carrot and tugs on her earlobe, which I find adorable until she speaks again. "Only freshmen get faculty advisers, but someone pulled a lot of strings on your behalf. Don't expect special treatment because you've got connections. Your advanced age does not grant you any favors."
"That would be my brother, Richard. He pulled those strings, I mean. But I expect to work my arse off like any other college student." I smirk. "Despite my advanced age."
She chews on her lip again, rabbit-style, then shuts her eyes and sighs. When she looks at me, her expression softens—a little. "I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot, Mr. Hunter."
"Yes, I agree. Not sure why, but I feel like it's somehow my fault."
"It's not you." She sits up ramrod straight and tugs her jacket down as if it needs straightening, though it doesn't. "I apologize for my rudeness."
"No worries. I've heard much worse lately, and I realize my age is a bit of a surprise."
"That's no excuse for my behavior." She glances at her file folder, head down, then looks at me from under her beautiful lashes. "I know who you are, Mr. Hunter. Your age and your connections made me curious, and I, um, looked you up online."
She can't know about my recent troubles. There must thousands of Nick Hunters online.
"Your home address is in your file," she says, sounding almost embarrassed. "So I didn't have much trouble finding you."
Oh bugger. She must've read all about my scandal. No wonder she's treating me like a criminal.
"Let me explain," I say. "Whatever you've read is not the truth. It's a rumor, one that does not reflect who I am or what my business is about. I'm a massage therapist, and I own a day spa in Cockshire. It's not where I was born, but I've lived there for years."
Her lips tighten, but it seems more like humor this time. "Cockshire? You're pulling my leg. That's too on the nose for you."
"Is it my fault somebody called the town Cockshire? It's spelled S-H-I-R-E, by the way, not S-U-R-E."
My sexy adviser leans back in her chair, her lips curving upward just enough to give me hope she's not as uptight as she seems. "Did you move there because of the name? It describes you so well, and you seem like the type who loves double entendres."
"I do, but that has no bearing on why I moved to that town."
"Why, then?"
Because I didn't want to be just Richard Hunter's brother who runs a massage business. Moving to a neighboring town kept me close to my family without Rick's shadow hanging over me all the time. It sounds narcissistic, though, and I don't care to admit the truth to SJ Griffin. So I change the subject.
"What's your first name?" I ask. "Calling you SJ will be awkward."
"You will call me Dr. Griffin. Maintaining appropriate boundaries is essential in a teacher-student relationship."
"Can't we be friends? I don't know anyone in America. Well, except for a few Scots I've gotten to know lately, but they live in Utah."
"You have Scottish friends? All mine are American, except for Sanjay Desai. He's British, like you."