Page 17 of Learn Your Limits
I’ll be a good boy.
Standing alone in the empty lecture hall feels like a special kind of torment. I know I need to head for my next class, but my feet feel cemented in place. Like if I stand here just a little longer, he will come back. He has to eventually. I’m sure he has a full schedule of classes to deal with, and if I wait long enough, this room will once again fill with students.
As tempting as the idea is to stay here and wait for Milo to return, I can’t bail on classes, especially not during the first week. Some professors will drop students from the roster for failure to appear. I don’t need that kind of headache right now.
My shoulders slump as I press the palms of my hands to my eyes, forcing back the tears rising to the surface. I don’t even know where they came from in the first place. This is ridiculous. I’ve only known him for a few days, yet it feels like he took my heart with him when he walked out that door. I refuse to accept that this is over. Thatweare over before we even had a real chance at beginning.
I wasn’t planning on hugging him, and I didn’t expect him to hug me back. But the moment his arms wrapped around me, my entire body melted into his. He lifted the weight of the world from my shoulders with a single touch. Every expectation pressing down on me disappeared with his embrace, only to come rushing back in when he stepped away.
Milo has called me a brat a few times now, and he said he finds eagerness to be as cute as it is sexy. So I'm going to be the most eager brat he's ever dealt with.
I manage to make it through two more classes with my mind distracted before I finally have a gap in my schedule. I have an hour before my next class, and thankfully, most of them are in the same building. Only one, my Child Development course, is clear across campus. I texted Matt as soon as I left the lecture hall, asking him to pick up what I needed and sending him the money to cover it.
“Hot date?” he asks, walking over to me as I make it down the few steps at the entrance of the building. He hands me the white paper bag and cardboard drink carrier, my mouth immediately watering from the smell of grilled onions and melted cheese.
I chuckle. “Something like that. Thanks, man.” Taking everything from him, I head toward Milo’s office. The location and hours were listed on the front of the syllabus, making it all too easy for me to pay him a visit.
The door is open, indicating he’s not currently in a meeting, and he’s sitting at his desk with his phone in his hands. I can’t see what he’s looking at, but it has me wondering if he’s looking at the photos I sent him over the weekend. The same way I’ve been obsessively looking at the ones he sent me.
I don’t bother to announce my presence as I walk into his office and sink down into the chair on the other side of his desk. Milo sits back in his chair, hurriedly slipping his phone into his pocket. His eyes narrow with suspicion. “What are you doing, Mr. Callahan?” His stern tone sends a shiver down my spine, but it doesn’t deter me.
I raise a brow at him. Having remembered his order from the other night when he had dinner delivered to me, I set the bag of burgers and fries down on his desk along with our shakes.
“You wanted to have lunch sometime this week. I decided that sometime is right now,” I say, fighting to keep my tone on the firm side as I open up the bags and begin pulling out the contents. I set his order in front of him, along with a chocolate shake, and then sit back in my chair. “I don’t know about you, but today has kinda sucked.” I pause for a moment, letting the words settle in the silence between us.
This morningsucked. Seeing Milo in person was amazing, but him walking out on me... Well, that’s not something I would care to repeat.
“I swear every class just spews the same information, which I mean, I get. But come on! It could all be posted online and then just dive right in on the first day, ya know? I wanted to hang out in your lecture hall and wait for you to come back, but I know some professors get a little drop happy if students miss class the first week, and I really don’t wanna have to rearrange my schedule.” I’m actively pretending that nerves aren’t completely wreaking havoc on my body.
I reach forward and grab a few fries, popping them into my mouth before taking a sip of my shake, the blend of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla flavors bursting on my tongue. I fight back a groan at the taste, suddenly remembering the way Milo hadn’t wanted the Uber driver to hear the sounds I made.
He had wanted them all to himself.
Fuck.
It feels so surreal to be sitting here with him now. I’m well aware that he could tell me to leave. Hell, he could probably have me removed from his class if he really wanted to.
I’m taking a huge risk by barging in here like this, but I want to push him. I want to watch him give in to me. I want him to admit that whatever it is we’re doing, it’s worth pursuing. The connection between us is worth fighting for.
Chapter sixteen
Emiliano
I could never resist animal style fries.
“Sure, go ahead and make yourself comfortable.” I hide my surprise with sarcasm at Reid’s insistence and the way he plants himself on the chair across my desk.
I should have known Reid would be incorrigible in his pursuit, but goddamn it, I’m hungry. And Ilikethe fact he’s sure of what he wants and is going for it. Even if that means he’s wearing down the boundaries I shouldn’t think about crossing.
It’s not only a quandary of ethics at play here. I’m not one to be concerned with the morality placed on society by outdated traditions. My true concern lies in two problems at the moment. Reidisliving a double life. That much is clear from his bare profile and pseudonym on the app where we met.
The second issue—me being his professor—is what has taken residence at the front of my mind. I understand we are both adults and can make our own choices, but the fact of the matter is that I am in a position of authority over him, and it would be an abuse of my power to date a student.
I’ll admit, my reaction in the lecture hall this morning may have been... too rash. Not necessarily an irrational move—storming out without another word—but there were things I could have handled better. Cradling Reid in my arms was wrong of me, as much as it felt like he belonged in my hold, it was foolish to cross that physical boundary.
In order to keep my sanity, Reid has to be a student and nothing else to me.
While our relationship can’t come to fruition now, there would be no university bylaws preventing us from seeing each other in the future. A semester. Surely, I can keep our relationship on a professional level until the semester is over. Ihaveto. Driving him out of my class was never something that crossed my mind either.
