Page 54 of Overeager
Eli was … genuinely speechless.
“Eli?” Faith prompted. “Did you hang up on me?”
“Faith, you can’t make mecrybefore my lecture.” Eli let out a thick laugh. “Goddamn.”
“Ooohh, I hit it out of the park, didn’t I?” Faith couldn’t have sounded more delighted with herself if she tried.
“Don’t be cocky about it. It’ll ruin the effect.”
“Fine. I’m hanging up while I’m flying high. Your wise, wisdom-y, wizened older sister.”
Eli hung up before she could. That was what she got for being smug.
He lingered at his desk, considering her words. He hadn’t thought of himself as closed off since the divorce. Just … focused, maybe. On work. On rebuilding.
Although, what exactly had he built in the year since Richard had officially left? All Eli really had to show for that time were some dead herbs and a lot of lonely nights.
Eli thought of Noah’s vision of the kind of couple he wanted to be—quiet and intimate and selfish; wasn’t that what he’d said? The kind of couple that lived the life that suited them in the moment. The kind that valued flexibility as well as a firm foundation.
They could really do that, couldn’t they? This could be real, what he had with Noah. Really real.
They just had to get through the semester.
And then …
And then Eli would make it all up to Noah, with everything he had in him.
Eli couldn’t exactly go to college parties with him, even when Noah wasn’t officially his student any longer, but he’d invite Noah’s friends over to the house, let them use the pool andspend time all together. And he’d take Noah to Faith’s for dinner and let Faith rib him mercilessly. He’d meet Noah’s parents and hope they didn’t murder him on sight.
And when Eli’s own parents got back from whatever European retirement tour they were currently on, they’d do the perfunctory boyfriend meet, just so Noah knew exactly how much he mattered.
They’d be a real couple. They might even get married someday.
And instead of that thought terrifying Eli like it rightfully should, it made butterflies erupt in his stomach. The good kind, made of spun sugar and fairy dust and whatever other nonsense the good kind of stomach butterflies were made of.
Eli packed his workbags and walked to his lecture in a sort of daze.
As he opened the door to the lecture hall, he sternly reminded his body that they couldnotleap on Noah the moment they saw him. Or leap on him at all, for that matter. There would be no leaping whatsoever. Nor could they steal whatever clothes Noah might be wearing off his body and shove them under their shirt. They had to wait. To be patient.
But it wasn’t Noah’s salty-fresh pheromones greeting Eli as he entered the hall. Instead it was the heavy, tobacco pheromones of his ex-husband.
All Eli’s daydreams popped in an instant.
Fucking Richard was in his classroom.
It tookeverything in Eli to contain his groan.
Stupid, smug Richard, all pressed and polished in his suit, leaning against Eli’s podium like he had a right to.
A number of students—and more than one of Eli’s TAs—were making hopeful eyes at the undeniably handsome alpha. Eli wished he could tell them to avert their gazes before an entire decade of their lives was stolen away from them, but he didn’t want to sully his reputation as a professor by spouting crazy nonsense at his students.
He’d wait until he had tenure for that.
Noah was nowhere to be seen yet, thank fucking God. But since there were other students in their seats already, Eli couldn’t open with the line he wanted to, mainly, “What thefuckare you doing here?”
Instead, he had to settle with, “Richard. What brings you to my lecture hall unannounced?”
Mature. Professorial. And totally inadequate to the helpless rage Eli felt. He was too close to his heat for this fuckery. His emotions were heightened, and he wantedhisalpha, the one who made him feel safe and seen and held. Not this businessman hussy with no concept of the finality of signed divorce papers.
