Page 59 of Bad Professor

We’re going to make this work.

But it’s a very long weekend because I don’t see Tilly until Monday night.

I try to understand Tilly’s reasoning why we can’t see each other when she has her daughters, but it’s hard because she’s all I think about. I’ve never dated a woman with children, so it’s new for me. I find myself wondering about them, asking Tilly questions when I text her, and when I FaceTime late Saturday night after the girls go to bed.

For the rest of the weekend, I try to keep busy.

Max and I drag Nick out for a drink, alarmed that our good-natured friend has sunk into a funk after his injury. His surgery went well, and the doctors seem hopeful that there won’t be any lasting damage that will prevent him from playing next season, but Nick doesn’t seem positive.

I know he’s bored, at a loss without the sport that takes up so much of his time.

I get us tickets to a basketball game on Friday night, and we go to a movie and have dinner on Saturday.

It’s like we’re dating.

On Sunday, I play basketball and mark essays.

It’s a very long weekend because I can’t stop thinking about her.

And that makes me smile. Thoughts of Tilly make me smile. One night with her has made me the happiness I’ve been in a long time.

It’s still a long weekend.

30

Tilly

Idon’t see Dexter until Monday night and it’s horrible.

I have the girls with me for the weekend, and there is no way I can allow Dexter into the apartment with them. I’ve never expressed an interest in another man, and them coming home to find him here would lead to too many questions.

It would be too much for them to handle.

I don’t know if they could handle me dating, let alone having sex. No one wants to think of their mother as a sexual being, especially not teenagers. But thanks to Dexter, every inch of my body explicitly realizes I’m a sexual being.

Every inch of my body feels a little different, like it’s gone through a metamorphosis. I was in a cocoon and now I’m making my way into becoming a butterfly.

Maybe. It’s early. There is still time for something to go wrong, for Dexter to decide he’s had enough, that I’m too old, not sexy enough. That the sex isn’t that good.

The sex might be the best I’ve ever had, but Dexter has been with lots of women. It might not be the best; simply adequate. Mediocre.

Carlos’s voice is in my head, asking why I don’t like sex more.

His voice is at war with Dexter. The way Dexter texts me constantly—sexy texting. The way he drops innuendos, makes comments about how much he wants me, what he’s thinking about.

He loves telling me about how I sound. That turns him on.

Long after the girls go to bed on Sunday night, he FaceTimes me and tells me exactly what he wants me to do to me.

I make myself come, holding my phone in my hand, as he watches. As he makes himself come.

Put that on the list.

I miss him. I have no idea how that is possible. I barely know him and now I want to spend every minute with him?

I don’t know him.

But I do know that he likes basketball and reading books with magic and dragons and won’t finish it if the world-building isn’t done well. He plays video games, but not the ones with military or guns.

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