Forevermore (3 page)

“What can I do? I can’t let my grade slip in this class, Professor D.”

Now we were getting somewhere. The pleading had turned to reason, and his eyes showed his honesty. I always had extra work for anyone wanting to improve their grades. The University of Virginia was hard enough, the graduate business program one of the best. They’d done the hard work getting accepted. The least we as professors could do was help them to achieve the best grades their level of work commanded.

I turned back to my desk and fingered through the shelves until I found the case study I always kept available for extra work. I pulled a copy from the shelf and handed it to him. “By Thursday’s class. Do a thorough job this time, and it gets added to your grade count to help minimize the effect of the C on this study.”

His shoulders fell a bit, but he bounced back pretty quickly with a cheeky smile. “No chance you can just replace the C with the one I’ll get on this paper?”

“No chance.” My tone was firm. My students knew they could get away with quite a bit in my class, joking around, talking over each other, talking out of turn, but I wasn’t a softie when it came to grades.

“Thanks anyway.” He stood and headed for the open door.

I glanced down at my laptop and checked to make sure he was the last appointment of the day. Shutting down the computer, I sorted through my lecture notes until I found the topic for tomorrow’s classes. Those were added to my bag with the laptop and I exited, pausing to lock the office.

Several doors stood open in the hallway. My stomach clenched. In the past, I would have walked right over to the staircase without even glancing into the offices much less saying anything to anyone on my way out. These days I had to be seen making an effort for Briony’s sake. She was a well-liked faculty member on campus. At first no one understood why she’d be with me, the faculty outcast. Over the last couple of years, she’d gotten me to attend more faculty functions and people were forced to deal with me. They still considered me odd, didn’t understand Briony and me together, but no one seemed to fear me as they used to. I would be happy to go back to barely speaking to anyone, but because it would reflect poorly on Briony, I made an effort.

The first two offices had student appointments. The professor in the third was on the phone. Only one more open office door before the staircase. Fourteen steps away. I could do this.

Dr. Goldberg looked up as I was passing by. Tension tightened my neck and shoulders. I’d maybe spoken to this guy once at a faculty party. I knew nothing about global marketing and that was pretty much all he talked about.

“Afternoon.” I added what I hoped was a friendly expression and nod of my head.

“Dr. Desiderius,” he replied and looked like he wanted to say more, but my pace had taken me past his office and the stairwell door loomed in front of me.

I tried not to take the stairs two at a time as if running from any possible encounter, but it was difficult to break old habits. Meeting someone on the stairwell was even worse than walking past an open office door. Thankfully, it was getting hotter outside and almost everyone took the elevators when it was hot outside.

Pushing through the exit door, I felt the first wave of spring heat roll over me. The end of March shouldn’t be this warm, but it was a nice change from the frigid days we’d had in February. I checked my watch and smiled at the time. I could make a detour before I had to pick up the kids.

Briony’s class schedule flashed in my mind. She had a venture capital overview class going right now. Was it in the i.Lab or not? No, on Mondays, she was over in the regular classrooms. That gave me just enough time.

As I stepped onto one of the brick pathways crossing Flagler Court, my eyes caught sight of a familiar figure. Quinn, the women’s head basketball coach, was striding toward Saunders Hall. I didn’t often see her at work. If I did, it would be closer to her office at the sports complex, but occasionally she came up this way for the excellent café.

Any normal human would go over and greet her friend. Quinn was a nice lady, married to the best friend I had. Of course, I should go over and say hello. I shouldn’t immediately want to duck back into the faculty building to ensure that she not see me. We could talk. I’d talked to her at many of her dinner parties, but she wasn’t Willa. No one in the group was Willa, and because of that, I still wasn’t comfortable striding over with the sole purpose of striking up a conversation.

I checked my watch again. If I went to say hello I might miss my window with Briony. If I didn’t and Quinn saw me, I’d probably be teased relentlessly at the next dinner. Physical torture would be easier than enduring everyone’s attention focused on me.

Sucking in a deep breath, I took one step in her direction. I had to become more comfortable with this. It had been three years that I’d known Briony and by extension these friends of hers. Several years that I’d known Willa and her partner, Quinn. I should be able to do this without breaking out into a sweat or counting just to get through it.

On the fourth step, a group of students approached Quinn and surrounded her. If not for her exceptional basketball caliber height, I would have lost sight of her. Seeing that the group wasn’t going to move on quickly, I swiveled back toward Briony’s classroom. This was an acceptable diversion. I could feel good about avoiding Quinn today.

A few students greeted me as I walked toward Briony’s classroom. I never had any problem greeting students. I stopped trying to analyze why I wasn’t a social freak with students but I was with people I’d known for years.

At the door, I stopped and peered through the glass. Her students clumped together in the first two rows of seats. Any other professor would have had to bribe the students not to spread out in the five tier room, but Briony’s students clustered around her naturally. Most of her entrepreneurial courses were electives, which meant smaller sizes and specialized interest. Four of mine were in the core curriculum, which meant more students but many would rather be in a different class. I often envied Briony her specialty.

With two minutes left in class, I felt okay about slipping inside. Nearly every head turned when I did. That always bothered me, but because I’d already met with this class, it wasn’t unusual for me to be here.

“Hey, Professor D!” one of the students called out, inciting a few similar greetings.

I smiled at them and shifted my eyes to my beautiful partner. Her blond hair had grown out a bit since I’d first met her. The long layered cut suited her as well as the shorter version I’d fallen for. After three years together, I knew every inch of her trim body, how it felt against me, in my hands, under my mouth. It looked just as good wrapped in her elegant professional dress as it did naked in our bedroom.

“Nice of you to join us, Professor,” Briony’s voice spilled over me, soothing every frayed nerve I experienced from the walk over here. “I was just telling the class that you’ll be part of the pitch deck evaluations.”

My eyebrows rose. It made sense to have me there, but we hadn’t talked about it first. Usually she accommodated my more reticent attitude toward new activities, but she must have orders from the dean on this one.

“I’m sure they’ll be dazzling,” I spoke to the class, basically telling them they had better dazzle us if they wanted to be one of the two businesses to get funding through our summer venture class.

The bell rang and most of the students raced for the door. Three went up to Briony but wouldn’t stay long. Time was short so Briony would move them along. I headed toward her. This sometimes hastened the departure of students. Today was no disappointment. Within a few minutes, the last of the students slipped out the classroom door.

“Hello there, sexy prof.” Her tone no longer held any trace of the reserved professionalism that greeted me when I walked in the door. Her eyes raked over me, seeming to enjoy every bit of the view. The heat I encountered outside didn’t come close to what one of these perusals could do to me. “What brings you over?”

“You,” I answered honestly. Games that might make her insecure or incite jealousy so she’d always be working to find out how much I loved her were pointless, and I’d never be good at them anyway.

She blew out a long breath. “Thanks, I needed that today.”

“Hard day so far?”

“You might have guessed that Dean Goudy stopped by. He wants these proposals in top notch condition before they’re presented. He brought up the three businesses that are no longer operational now.”

“Oh, please.” University politics were so exasperating. “All three companies were bought out at a huge profit. What do they have to complain about?”

“It feels like they’re trying to document failures to justify killing the program.”

“Then why not just kill it? It’s not like we’re dying to teach this class every summer.”

“I’ll be forever grateful to it because I got to know you.” She shrugged and looped her arms around me. “But you’re right; I wouldn’t miss having to teach every summer.”

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was spying on us through the window in the door. We were one of five married couples on the faculty and remained professional in the public spaces. But behind closed doors, we didn’t always follow that policy.

Her hand came up to caress my cheek, fingers drawing the line of my jaw. “You off to pick up the kids?”

“Thought I’d just leave ‘em there for a few hours,” I joked. We traded off dropping off and picking up the kids from school every semester depending on our class schedules. I actually preferred picking up to dropping off. It gave me the excuse to leave campus before dark each day.

“You’ve got about thirty seconds,” she reminded me as her fingers moved down to trace the column of my throat.

I’d be fine just standing here in her arms for the rest of the afternoon, but thirty seconds would do nicely. “Missed you this morning,” I said. She’d hustled out the door, running too late to stop back into the bedroom to say our customary goodbye.

“I nearly had to yank Caleb’s arms out of his sockets to get him out of bed this morning. I’m starting to think we need to change his bedtime to an hour earlier.”

“I think it’s more likely that he’s not going to sleep at lights out.” I’d heard noise from Caleb’s room an hour or two later on many nights.

“I might have to clear out his room every night, huh?”

“Take the iPad away at least. Those brainless games are addictive.”

“You always have good ideas.” Her eyes flashed before she pushed in for a kiss. Her mouth was soft and warm against mine. My stomach did a lazy summersault at the first press of her lips. Even three years later, a simple kiss exhilarated me.

Pulling back, I sighed, resting my forehead against hers. “I better go if I want to beat the bell.”

“Wear the kids out this afternoon so we can get them in bed early.” Her eyebrows bobbed playfully.

I chuckled and brushed my mouth against hers once more before ending my happy diversion. “See you later, sweetheart.”

M / 4

At the elementary school I drove past the mile long line of cars waiting to pick up kids in the loading area and turned into the school’s parking lot. I’d tried waiting in the line once but sucking down exhaust fumes as we edged forward one car at a time lost its appeal after one try.

The kids could ride the bus, but the schools were on the way home from campus and one of us needed to be at home for Olivia. Briony and I thought they were old enough to be home alone for a couple of hours after school, but Olivia’s social worker wasn’t there yet. Next year, possibly.

Olivia came into view, walking alone, like usual. It pained me to see her not talking to the other kids. I knew she ate lunch with some fifth graders, but so far only a couple of kids in her class even acknowledged her let alone spoke to her. She thought I didn’t know, but I didn’t need to be an anthropologist to recognize the hordes of sixth grade girls as they emerged. She’d wave to a couple of kids from time to time, but no one huddled close and spoke animatedly whenever I came by to pick her up. I just hoped she could hold on until next year when she moved across the street to the middle school and changed classes every hour. She’d have a much better chance of making friends her own age since this wasn’t the only elementary school that would feed into the middle school. And with outgoing Caleb around, he’d introduce her to everyone he knew.

She gave me a wide smile when she spotted me. I lived for that smile. Back in October when she first came to live with us, she barely spoke more than a few words voluntarily. Incredibly shy, she seemed to be waiting for us to just dump her back into the system. As Caleb drew her out, one of his best qualities, he helped make her feel more secure in our home life and now she smiled and talked freely. She’d probably never be a motor mouth, but she didn’t wait until someone asked her a question before she spoke anymore.

“Hi, Olivia. Did you have a good day?”

“Yep,” she said, like she always did. She could get upset when she couldn’t figure out her homework because she thought she wasn’t smart enough, but she never seemed to get upset that she didn’t have friends coming over to play or a best friend to share her secrets with.

We took a seat on the low wall that sectioned off the landscaping from the sidewalk. Her feet dangled a few inches from the ground. Just a slip of a girl, she might not get much taller than me at five-two. Sunlit brown hair whipped across her face until she turned her head into the breeze. Stick straight, her hair dropped to her shoulder blades in one length. She looked cute as hell the way she was now, but she didn’t like that the tops of her ears pushed against the fine strands. Whenever someone outside the family focused on her, she’d self-consciously tucked it behind her ears. The sprinkle of freckles across her slightly protracted nose and big, milk chocolate eyes told me she’d grow into her looks. Thankfully, she wasn’t one of those girls who seemed concerned about that.

“How’s your homework load?”