Page 9 of In the Light of the Moon

Just near the door, coffee in hand and directly in my line of sight, was the mystery man. Orion.

And he was stopped and staring at me with that unidentifiable look in his eyes. My mouth opened then closed in a panic when I realized that I’d been saying his name to myself while I snooped his faculty profile page. And he for sure heard me.

I clicked Josie’s phone off and shoved it into her lap, as if that would further hide the evidence of me being a complete creep. He stood rooted there, but I couldn’t think of what to say. Wasfinding his very public profile on my college’s website something I should apologize for?

As I opened my mouth again to do just that, someone cleared their throat behind him, and he broke our eye contact and walked out of the shop without saying a word. His eyes were just as bright as I remembered them, even more than in his photo that didn’t do them justice.

“Yeah,” Josie sighed and took the last slurp of her coffee, “he’s fucking hot.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Sylvie

It felt like Orion was haunting me.

The first week of classes, I hadn’t seen him at all. And then, after that embarrassing moment in the hallway and the even more embarrassing non-exchange at the coffee shop, I felt like I was seeing him everywhere.

But any excitement I felt about that fact was quickly dashed by the reality of how those meetings went. Because I was an English major, I practically lived in the ancient brick building that housed all of my classes. At first, I just started noticing him in the hallways. Now that I knew who the head of white, gentle-looking curls belonged to, I couldn’t help but find him in the crowd and home in on him, even during the bustling moments in between classes.

Luckily, I wasn’t taking any of the courses he seemed to teach, but the Monday after Josie discovered that he worked at the college, I was walking toward one of two student lounges in the building. My classmate and I were going together to get some of our required reading done in our free hour. The lounge on thethird floor was a large room with old, mismatched couches and armchairs that was dimly lit and smelled like coffee at all times of the day.

When we entered, I felt my feet stutter and stop, as if they’d fused with the scuffed tiled floor. There he was, sitting near the window at the back of the room, sipping from a ceramic mug that appeared handmade. He had a pair of over-ear headphones on, though they were cordless. He was reviewing something on a laptop, but as soon as I came to a pause just across the threshold, his eyes snapped up, immediately meeting mine before darting away a split-second later.

“Oh, hey, one second,” my classmate, Kara, said and started walking over. To Orion.

It took a few long moments, wherein Kara had nearly made it all the way to him before I scampered behind her. Why I didn’t just slump into one of the couches, perhaps the one that would have had me sitting with my back to the frowning phantom, was beyond me. Because, yes, even without me anxiously sneaking glances at him in the halls or the faculty profile of a certain associate professor pulled up on my phone for days now, Orion had begun to haunt my dreams, too.

I stood a few paces behind Kara, who seemed an easygoing and cheerful person. She stopped a respectful distance from Orion, who took his headphones off with great reluctance.

“Yes?” His voice, deep and husky, sent an embarrassing thrill down my back. I hadn’t heard him speak beyond his hoarse whispers that strange night and the accusing grumbles when I’d seen him again the first week of classes.

“I was just wondering if you were offering any additional extra credit assignments this semester? I tried coming by your office hours but it was all blocked off,” Kara trailed into a flitter of nervous giggles at the end, and I caught myself giving a small, encouraging smile toward Orion whose blank expression hadn’tshifted in the slightest. His hair was slightly mussed from his headphones that were now dangling around his neck. Though it was still unjustifiably warm outside, he wore a full-sleeved, taupe shirt. The muscles in his jaw ticked while he was decidedly not meeting either of our gazes.

“Class?” He started to pull something up on the laptop. Though, if it had anything to do with the extra credit that my classmate was inquiring about, I was unsure.

“Uh,” Kara’s voice faltered a bit, “Topics in African-American Literature.”

Orion sighed and typed something else into the computer, as if it was some great task to do so. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he glanced at her, then flicked his eyes up and down my body before focusing back on his computer screen. “No. Anything else?”

“Ah, no, that’s it. Thanks, Dr. Gealach.” Though she was still polite, Kara had visibly deflated after the brusque exchange. After fidgeting for a moment in uncertainty, she almost turned into me as she went toward the seating behind us.

Just as I was about to do the same, that deep voice sounded again. “Class?”

“Um…” I felt stuck once again, floundering for an answer. Why wasn’t I just turning around?

“Looking for extra credit, too?” He took a sip of his coffee, not even offering me a glance, now. Those bright green eyes were shrouded by long, white eyelashes.

“Ah, I’m not in one of your classes.”

“Okay. So, why are you still standing there?” His tone was gruff, dry, and he began to type more on his laptop. He even began lifting his black, expensive-looking headphones toward his ears.

Annoyance flared up in my throat, heating my face that I knew was growing flushed. I could understand that he wasmaybe still embarrassed about me seeing him injured that night, and then again weirdly mumbling his name in the coffee shop. But I didn’t realize that I had been holding out for some sort of… truce. Or do-over with him. There was something alluring about those eyes of his, and I still had no idea how he’d ended up behind Vinny’s. But no, I continued to stand there, trying and failing to come up with something that wasn’t pathetic or a biting remark.

Before I could findsomething, he settled his headphones over his ears, effectively brushing me off, “Add/drop period has ended, so if you’re not already in one of my classes, you won’t be for the rest of the semester. There’s nothing I can do for you.” A beat passed, and he flitted another fleeting glance to my eyes, “Goodbye.”Goodbye? My head jerked back in disbelief, and that blatant… dismissal.

Finally, I found my voice. “Have I done anything to you?” I tried to keep my words low and steady so as to not draw more eyes over here, as well as maintain a dignified facade against this infuriating man.

He tugged back one side of his headphones to free an ear, though it seemed he heard me just fine, because he answered, “No. But these office hours are reserved for students of mine.” Orion’s voice was steady, blank. And without a hint of irritation or frustration in it, the words somehow stung worse.

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