Page 296 of The Winslow Brothers

Don’t just stand there, you idiot. You have to do something.

“You’re—” he starts to continue.

“And you’re Professor Winslow, correct?” I blurt out in a rush, cutting him off before he can say anything else.

Seemingly, my knee-jerk reaction, when I’m confronted by the consequences of giving my underwear to a complete stranger and then having to face that stranger again in a professional setting, is to ignore the giant pair of pink panties in the room.

“Yes…” He nods and narrows his eyes. “That’s me.”

“Well, it’s really great to meet you.”Again.

“You lookfamiliar.”

Ha-ha-ha…fuuuuuuck.

“Really?” I retort a little too loudly and have to fake a soft cough into my hand to hide my nerves. “You know, I get that a lot. I think I just have one of those faces.”

I circle my head with my hand,a laisn’t-Rachel-so-casual-and-collected.

“No. I don’t think it’s that.” An amused, all-too-knowing smirk lifts one corner of his mouth. “We’ve met before.”

“No,” I lie, shaking my head three too many times. “I don’t think so.”

“It was two Friday nights ago,” he states. “At Orchid.”

Are you really just going to act like it never freaking happened? Is that what you’re doing right now?!

“Orchid? What’s that?” I question, completely ignoring logical thought and settling, instead, for a fake bout of amnesia.

“A nightclub.”

“Oh,” I respond and shrug. “Never heard of it. But that’s probably because I just moved back from the West Coast.”

“You’ve never been to Orchid?”

“Nope. Can’t say I have.”

He furrows his brow and stares at me for so long that I feel compelled to break the silence and distract him.

“Is it fun?”

“Is what fun?”

“Orchid. The nightclub you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” he says suspiciously. “It is.”

I nod and force a laugh from my throat. “I guess I’ll have to go sometime, huh?”

He’s not convinced, but who could blame him? I’m talking from so deep in my ass, a proctologist wouldn’t even know what I’m saying.

“So…it looks like I’ll be your TA for spring semester,” I muse, in an attempt to change the subject.

“What did you do Friday night, two weeks ago?” he asks, calling my bluff.

“Huh?” I question, so far down this rabbit hole, there’s no coming out. I might as well change my name to Alice and do some networking in Wonderland. Hopefully, it’s easy to get a job there, because I’m well on my way to tanking this one at NYU.

“Friday. Night. Two weeks ago.”

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