Page 21 of Kismet

His deep baritone voice hits me straight in my nuts. Goddamn, this is bad.

Chapter Seven

Stone

It’s Thursday at five in the evening, and I’mjust nowgetting the papers that have to be graded… by midnight tonight. And there are forty of them.

To make matters worse, there’s a giant storm happening right now. Thunder is roaring, lightning is lighting up the sky, with fat raindrops pelting the ground. I was going to head home to work on these, but it makes more sense to stay put.

Cash texted a minute ago that he’s popping by to pick up his half to get started on. The lights are flickering every so often. I’m pretty sure the school has a backup generator, so even if the power went out, I should be okay.

My classroom door swings open, and in walks Cash, a grin pulling at his lips when his eyes find me. “Hey, teach. The rain paused just in time for me to get here.”

You’d never know he was here to complete an annoying task. He’s always upbeat, willing to help.

“Hey, Cash. That’s a relief. I can’t believe this storm we’re having. It’s horrendous.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me.” He eyes the stack of papers on my desk. “So, these are all due by midnight?”

Sitting back in my chair, I rub the corner of my mouth with my thumb. “Sure are.”

“They sure gave us a lot of time, huh?” He laughs.

Chuckling, I reply, “I know. Sorry about this. I’ve asked about them every day since I was told about it on Monday.

“Nah, it’s all good. I got nothing going on tonight, anyway. This my half?” he asks, reaching for the stack on the edge of my desk.

“Yes, it is. Why she insists on physical copies is beyond me. If you want to grade them, and then put all the grades into Canvas by midnight, we should be good.”

“You got it, teach. Have a good night.”

“You too, Cash.”A wave of relief accompanied by a pang of disappointment stirs inside of me. Having him herewouldbe distracting, but I also thoroughly enjoy his company.

Oh well. It’s for the best.

He strolls out of the room, shutting the door behind him, and I resume my task at hand. This is bullshit. Grading all these damn papers by tonight. Who in their right mind would think that was enough time?

My phone pings from where it’s laying on the desk, face down. Flipping it over, the screen displays a text from Aida. My eyes roll before I even have a chance to unlock the phone and read the message.

Aida: Are you coming home at some point tonight?

As of late, she suddenly gives a shit about my whereabouts. She used to not even notice when I was home late. Half the time, I don’t even know if she’s home when I am because we’re always in different parts of the house.

Me: Later. I’m grading papers on campus. They’re due tonight and it’s nasty outside.

Aida: Figures.

Not even going to respond to that. That’s an argument waiting to happen, and I have too much to get done. As I’m setting my phone back down, the classroom door bursts open again.

“Cash, you forget something?”

“No, but the rain kicked back up again. It’s coming down so hard, I can’t even see in front of me. Is it cool if I hang out here and do the grading?”

Well, shit.

“Of course, that’s fine.” And it will be fine. We can work together… alone… just fine. Doesn’t have to be weird. “Take a seat, and we’ll get these done together.”

We work on grading the papers for the next few hours. We talk here and there, and Cash puts on some quiet music to listen to while we go through them. At one point, we took a break and went to get some snacks and drinks from the vending machine before coming back and resuming our work.I feel silly for panicking when he first got here. This is going well. It’s comfortable being here with him.

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