Page 35 of The Love Interest
FIONA
* One Week Later *
I’m back on track. I’m in grad-school mode. It’s the first day of class for me in the MFA Creative Writing Program, so I’m too busy managing my debilitating Imposter Syndrome to think about Assface anymore. I skimmed through the first book in his Jack Irons series and convinced myself that he’s a hack. That made it easier to convince myself that it was a good thing that he ended things so abruptly and without explanation. Unfortunately, it made the fantasy hate sex so much hotter—but I’m done thinking about him now.
Jed helped me pick out an appropriate First Day of Grad School outfit, and then I chose to wear something completely different since he apparently thinks I’m studying to become a stripper. Yesterday I timed the walk from my apartment to the building my fiction workshop is in, so I’m here five minutes early—not so early as to get nervous while I’m sitting there waiting for one of my favorite authors to show up. Marjorie French wrote one of my favorite collections of short stories. I read them over and over again when I was in college. Back when I was a contemporary American fiction snob. I was so excited when I saw that she was a visiting professor this year.
I had to work when they had the grad student mixer, so I don’t know anyone yet, but as I walk through the corridor to the classroom, I swear I keep hearing the name Emmett Ford being whispered around me. Do these people somehow know that I made out with Emmett Ford last week? Have I been thinking about him so much that his name is now etched on my forehead? I touch my forehead, just to make sure. Maybe they’re talking about cars. Or mispronouncing Harrison Ford. Or saying “helmet floored.”
There’s a tall guy with longish brown hair standing in the doorway to the classroom. He’s talking to someone who’s in the hall, just blocking the door like it’s no big deal. He’s an artsy-hippie type, the kind I was used to seeing in Northern California. He gives me a thorough once-over and nods.
“Hey,” he says, finally stepping aside to let me pass him.
“Hi.” I scan the room. It’s not large, and there are four long tables arranged in a rectangle. Five other people are already seated. Marjorie French isn’t here yet, but I’m sure she will sit at the table by the far wall, near the dry-erase board. I take a seat in the middle of the long table that faces the door just as the tall artsy-hippie-type guy pulls out the chair next to me. He smells like Nag Champa incense, espresso beans, and money. He must be an East Coast faux-hippie type. They come into the restaurant where I work.
“Hey,” he says, giving me yet another once-over and nod. “I’m Beowulf.” He holds out a large hand and patiently waits for me to place my bag on the table. He’s not smiling at all, so I guess that’s not a joke.
“I bet a lot of people say their name is Grendel when you tell them that.”
“My parents actually named our dog Grendel. After I was born. It was intense.” He continues to hold my hand. “Your name is?”
“Oh. It’s Fiona.”
“Nice.” He slides his hand out of mine and pushes his hair behind one ear. He lowers his chin to his arm and mutters while glancing at the door, “So what do you think of Emmett Ford?”
I drop my laptop while pulling it out of my bag, and it slides onto the floor with a terrible thud. “What? Why? Shit.”
“He’s replacing French as our prof.”
“What? Why? Since when?”
“Pregnancy issue.”
“Wait. What? Who’s pregnant?” I’m so confused. Did Emmett get someone pregnant and now he’s teaching this class? I touch my forehead again. I must seem like a total idiot.
“French is pregnant and has to stay off her feet. They didn’t send out a notification or anything. Probably afraid we’d all complain or try to switch workshops. Or more likely they just didn’t think to tell us.”
“It…didn’t say that on my class schedule.”
“Yeah. He probably got the job because of his dad. His father’s Graham Ford, you know?”
I did know that. Because of the Wikipedia page that I kept hate-reading until I had memorized it and clicked on every single link within the article about Emmett Ford.
“I can’t believe nobody told us.”
I think I continue to babble about how weird and rude it is that nobody would tell us about something so significant as a professor change, but I might just be screaming these thoughts in my head. Regardless, Beowulf’s attention has strayed to a stunning woman with shiny jet-black hair who struts into the room like it’s a catwalk. She heads directly for the table by the dry-erase board and takes the seat next to the one in the middle, which one would assume would be the professor’s seat. Her porcelain skin is flawless, her eyeliner is perfect, and I already hate her, but I’m sure she’s a very nice person. If she’s a good writer, then I may need to have her killed.
More importantly: WHAT. THE. FUUUUUUCK?!
I suddenly remember that my laptop is on the floor and reach down to pick it up. I hit my head on the edge of the table, yell out “Shit!” and when I look up, rubbing the crown of my head, I see New York Times best-selling author and fantastic kisser Emmett Ford standing in the doorway, frowning at me.
I feel like I just pounded a milkshake all of a sudden. Now I have a cold headache and tummy troublesand alsoarctic witch tits. So that’s wonderful. I have no idea why I chose to wear the same thin white blouse that I was wearing the night I met Emmett, but he definitely recognizes it, and he almost does a good job of not glancing down at my generalnippulararea.
He blinks, looks over at the table in front of the dry-erase board, his eyes skimming over Maleficent, then takes the seat in the center of the table opposite her. He’s still frowning. He places his coffee cup and laptop on the table without acknowledging anyone, even though the room has gone uncomfortably silent ever since his arrival. Aside from the sound of my rapidly beating heart and my internal shrieking.
He’s wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and expensive-looking dark jeans with a leather belt that I can smell all the way over here. Even under this uninspired artificial lighting, he has that glow about him like he just came from a spa or something. He is so handsome I want to throw my laptop at him. And then straddle him and lick his face.
Nope.
