Page 6 of Dear British Professor
“Great." He pulls out his phone. "I'm going to call in an order for dinner, and we can pick it up on the way back. Do you want to meet me by the front doors when you are all packed up?”
“Sounds good.”
He stands and makes the call as he heads towards the front doors. I can't help but notice all the eager female eyes on him as he walks past. But when he doesn't appear to see any of them, a thrill courses through me. He notices me, and I want to yell that to all of them—but I don’t.
We pick up the food from one of the food trucks and walk back to his office building. The night air is colder with the sundown, and I'm regretting that I forgot to grab a jacket this morning when I left the apartment.
“Are you cold?” he asks, stopping for a moment to shrug out of his jacket.
“Thank you, professor,” I say as he drapes his jacket over my shoulders. The rich woodsy scent of his aftershave makes the butterflies in my stomach flutter wildly.
“Please, call me Simon.”
“Thank you, Simon.”
We walk together in silence, but it’s not awkward. It's comfortable. It's like we've taken walks like this together all our lives. The only way this moment would be better is if he reached out and took my hand in his.
“I have to say that the work you are doing is invaluable,” Simon interrupts my internal pleas to whatever gods are listening for this moment never to end. “But that is to be expected. You are my best student.”
“It’s been an amazing opportunity.”
“Have you thought much about after you finish your education?”
“I’m leaning towards becoming a professor as well.”
“Professor Munro. That has a nice ring to it.” He opens the door to the building where his office is located and holds his for me to go in first.
We walk down the quiet hallway towards his office. When we turn the corner, we both stop when we see a female student taping a note to his office door.
“Can I help you?” Simon asks.
The girl jumps in surprise.
“Professor, you startled me.” She turns with a bright smile, but it quickly fades when she notices me standing with him.
“I was just leaving you a note. I had a few questions about the assignment. But since I have you here—”
“Miss Brooks, we can discuss your questions during my office hours.”
The girl looks pointedly at me like she wants to point out the fact that I'm here with him and it's not office hours, but she doesn't. Instead, she snatches the note she's written off the door.
"Well then, I guess I will be seeing you tomorrow between eleven and one,” she huffs off in anger, shoulder checking me in the process.
Simon doesn’t say anything until we can’t hear her heels clicking on the tile floor. “I’m sorry about that.”
“I hope you didn’t send her off because of me,” I say. “I could have waited until you two were done.”
He shakes his head and pulls out his key. "Miss Brooks likes to try and push the boundaries of proper behavior, and I find it best to make it clear there is nothing but an educational relationship between us.”
The still-missing letter to Simon pops into my mind, and it feels like my heart sinks like a rock into my stomach. Maren and I looked everywhere for the letters, turning the apartment upside down, but we never found them. I guess the fact that he hasn’t said anything to me clarifies that our relationship is nothing more than an educational relationship as well, and he doesn’t have the letter. That’s good news—I guess.
5
SIMON
I try to shake the awkwardness of finding Miss Brooks waiting for me. We discuss the project a bit as we eat.
“You've helped me so much in such a short time that I think that we could be finished a couple of weeks earlier than scheduled.”
