Page 63 of Toy for the Teachers (Forbidden Fantasies)

WARREN

It had been days since I’d seen her. Once, Millie joined Caleb and me again for dinner, but I was never able to get her alone. Midterms consumed my time, and as department chair, I had to help approve plans for the coming spring semester. Work distracted me. Time got away from me, yet I never forgot her lilting voice and the words I heard across the phone line.

“I won’t forget this.”

Yet, as I crossed her path with Vlad Pechencko, I wondered if she had. She had two men in her life already. Would there even be space for me? Was Millie content as she was?

Based on the kiss I glimpsed in the parking garage, Millie was more than taken by Vladimir. Her back pressed against his black German sedan, and her palms pressed into his suit-clad chest. I told myself to look away, not invade their moment of privacy, but in some strange way… it was exciting.

My competitive nature flared up inside me. For a brief moment, I felt a swell of determination to show up that man. I longed to kiss Millie for myself, proving that I didn’t need to be left by the wayside. I could be just as good, if not better, than that bodice-ripping Russian.

Did I really want to compete with him, though? Did I want to have to fight for her time with Caleb?

I had to admit it: Caleb was looking better than I’d ever seen him. At our standing dinner hangout at the Korean place, Caleb had been more upbeat and alive than I’d seen him in months. He was smitten with Millie, doing well at work, and he seemed all the better for it. That ghost of a man I’d seen after Jamie’s passing was all but gone.

I enjoyed my competition with Caleb, but we didn’t have to fight over this, over her. With this option, Caleb could hold onto all that happiness. That smile never had to leave my friend’s face, and for one or two nights a week, I could have a taste of that happiness too.

As I mulled it all over, Millie caught me there. I was set in her sights, and while smoothing her crimson pleated skirt, Millie looked both ways before crossing the garage’s passageway.

“Hey, Warren,” she called with a gentle smile. “It’s been a little while.”

“A week or two, yeah,” I replied, pulling my messenger bag higher on my shoulder.

She looked so beautiful, a woman at ease in her own skin, and it killed me that I could have a piece of that beauty as my own. She glanced down at the gold watch on her wrist before looking back up at me.

“So… how would you feel about making up for that over some coffee?”

Didn’t Caleb bring her coffee each morning? Didn’t he make it with that salted caramel creamer she enjoyed so much? Knitting my eyebrows together, I was confused for two heartbeats before it struck me. I schooled my features and nodded.

“Why don’t we head over to my office?” I offered. “I think we’ll have enough privacy there.”

We stopped at the seminary school first, buying a tea for her and a coffee for me from their student-run café. Millie smile as she tasted her mint tea.

“I didn’t even know this was here,” she mused.

“A lot of people go to that coffee hutch in the middle of campus because it’s quick and cheaper than the bookstore,” I remarked as we headed out again. “This is my favorite spot, though.”

“And they donate all the profits to charity?”

I nodded. “That’s right. It’s a hidden gem, and there are a lot more on this campus too.”

“Do you want to be the one who shows them to me?”

Turning my head, I caught a glimmer in Millie’s eyes. We were out on the sidewalk in the broad light of early morning. I couldn’t react the way I wanted. I couldn’t reach for those rosy lips curling into a smile, but I knew my office had a door and a lock. Telling myself that, we headed over to the old brick building, heading up the steps and rising in the old elevator to the top floor.

“You really are showing me new sides of campus,” Millie told me with a smile.

Her eyes ignited as she admired the old wood floors that creaked as we walked and the old paintings hanging along the main hall.

“It’s one of the original buildings on campus. Victorian, I think.”

“I guessed that from the turret on the other end.”

“That’s part of some meeting rooms, but this,” I declared while pulling out my keys, “is my office here.”

I didn’t know what she would make of the square space with its corner windows and wall white walls. There was a cinnamon-red Turkish rug to fight off the cold floors of winter and a large L-shaped desk I bought myself. The wall of bookcases was filled with old texts I’d covered in classes, and for guests, there were two Mission oak armchairs. Millie settled herself down in one of them. I wondered if she could tell they weren’t just mass-market knock offs.

“I always knew you were a man of good taste,” she offered teasingly.

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