“I’m an art history major with minors in Roman Studies and Folklore,” I force myself to correct. He isnotgoing to leave out all the work I do to make those one cohesive thing, even if I have to drag the words out of my throat when he looks at me like I’m a speck of dirt.
Well, at least his eyes are pretty.
“All right,” he shrugs. “I was only saying it because Professor Carmine speaks highly of you… and she never speaks highly of any student. I was curious about who you were when I saw your name on my roster, and…” He looks at Oliver, then back at me, and my heart skips a beat. “You’re not really what I was expecting.”
Yeah, that feels like an insult.
“But at least you have good taste in seating partners. He’s good at this. Though, I guess he should be, given the training he’s had with me.” Oliver grins at the compliment, but doesn’t say anything before our professor goes on. “If you want to be good at this, too, you should listen to him. Sometimes.” He goes toward the door and halts without looking back. “Unless you’re going to unenroll and I never see you again,” Professor Solomon remarks offhandedly, before breezing through the doorway and into the hall beyond.
I stand there, confused as hell, as I listen to him go.
“You good?” Oliver asks, moving to stand in front of me again. “He can be a lot. I get it.”
“I think I’m… uh, insulted? Offended? Maybe I’m flattered.” I blink a few times, trying to sort through his words. “I don’t know yet.”
“Ah, yeah, he’s good at that. Something to look forward to if you don’t drop the class, huh?” Oliver chuckles. “Anyway, I’ll see you on Monday, I hope?” I realize that this class is a terrible way to startandfinish the week, and frown. “Have a good weekend, Blair.”
“You too,” I say, when he’s already halfway out the door. I almost add that hewon’tsee me on Monday, because I’m about to go home and get out of this damn hellhole of a class that I don’t have to put myself through.
I’m not amasochist, after all.
Chapter 3
It’s only a little after four when I get back to the apartment, and I pause in the foyer, listening for sounds of life within. Though, since Juniper has class until seven tonight, if I hear something, then it’s probably a ghost.
We’re in St. Augustine, though, I should probably just take that as par for the course. Is property value raised by the presence of the dead? Since it feels like that’s the whole point of tourists coming here?
Letting out a soft sigh, I go to my room and thump my backpack down on my desk. It’s absolutely time to get out of photography. I can’t deal with that attitude all semester, even if he is nice to look at and Oliver, while also gorgeous, is actuallynice. If Professor Solomon was a little less bad, I’d think it would be worth staying.
But he isn’t, and it’s not.
Before going to my bed, I close my door on a whim, laptop in my hands so I can lay it on my comforter. I hesitate, and decide that it’s not going to kill me to change out of my school clothes first. They’re uncomfortable. Especially since, for the first time in my life, I’m trying to dress like a real person instead of a zombie that crawls out of bed, hits class, and crawls right backintobed, thanks to my friends asking me if I’m doing my best, continuous audition of a modernSleeping Beauty.
Shimmying out of my snug black jeans and red tee, I kick off my shoes as well and go to my bed, pulling on a pair of comfy, ripped sweatpants that are at least two sizes too big. On the left leg of the black fabric, WICKETT is spelled out in big, blocky letters, while the other leg is just black. Once my bra is off, I drag on a much looser t-shirt, this one purple and black tie-dye. It’s not like I’m going anywhere else tonight, unless it’s to get takeout, so I’m safe to be comfortable. On the off chance that Juniper wants to go somewhere, I’ll put jeans back on and complain about it for a while.
When I bring up my browser, I immediately go to my saved links, finding the one that will log me into my student portal for classes. I click through the info, get to my page, and immediately find what I’m looking for.
My schedule loads instantly, popping up before my eyes. It’s not bad, as far as semesters go. My sophomore year was worse when I added Roman Studies as a minor. Back then, I’d had to take eighteen credits in one semester, and I’d definitely prefer not to do it again. Though, if I drop Photography, then next semester isn’t looking so great.
God, I don’t want to do eighteen credits again. Especially during my last semester as a college student. Already I’m working on my senior project, or at least planning it out. My idea has been to incorporate folklore and art history together to do a report on it, and some dumb little part of me had thought about applying some photography to it as well when I’d signed up for the class. After all, I have a camera now, thanks to enrolling and getting a student deal on a nice one.
It seemed like a great idea at the time.
So great, in fact, that I’m having trouble dropping out of the class now. It would be a waste. A total waste of money, credits,and effort. There really aren’t any other electives open that will fill the gap, and I’ve already bought the damn camera.
Could it really be so bad to just stick around? Professor Solomon will take up two hours of my week, sometimes three, when we have a project to turn in and work in the darkroom. But it’s not like he can do anything other than look disapprovingly at me and be shitty.
He isn’t some kind of real life monster, after all. Just an unhappy, dismissive college professor. I can handle that. Instead of taking myself out of the class, I sigh and close out of the browser, leaning back against the head of my bed. There’s no homework for me to do, and it’s becoming more and more apparent that I’d really like a nap. It’s quiet, and nice, and the view into the city of St. Augustine from my window gives me something to look at other than my phone screen.
Absently, I return to my favorites menu on my laptop’s browser, pausing when I see what I’d added last night.
The camsite. It’s never made it to my favorites before. It probably doesn’t deserve to be here now. But the guy from last night gave me weird, questionable dreams that weren’t completely bad… and he was hot.
Plus, the way he’d talkedtome? I haven’t been flustered by porn in a long time, and I hadn’t thought I would be now.
Curiously, I click on the link to the site,funxcams, and end up firmly on the home page. Damn. I realize now that my mistake from yesterday is going to haunt me today.
I never found that guy’s name. With hundreds of people streaming at once, the best I can do is click on the menu for guys that are live now and scroll through it, hopefully landing on him. At one point I do end up checking my history, but when I click on the link from yesterday that isn’t just the base site, it takes me nowhere.