Page 4 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

The humor on his face softens. “I know, mate. I feel sorry for you . . . well, almost.” He winks. “Care for a pint after work?”

“You know I do.”

“Right.” He gives me a cheeky salute. “I’ll leave you to it for now, prepping to please all those ladies.”

I can’t help it. I laugh. Matthew can always get me to, even when I’m in the most melancholy of moods. “Just doing what I do best. You know how it is.”

He snorts before his towhead disappears. “Don’t I ever, you lucky bastard,” his voice rings out from the corridor.

I turn back to my roster. Scanning the names, I offer up a prayer to any god who might be listening that I get one student with a passion for writing. Just one.

I hope big . . . but I don’t hold my breath as I get to sketching out this fall’s syllabus.

Hollis

Trying — and failing — to convince my heart to stop walloping itself against the inside of my ribs, I follow the most direct path across campus to class, the route that I rehearsed with Amy last weekend.

Yes. I practiced. I am that person.

I fully realize how nerdy that is. But I don’t care. It’s been ages since I did something like this, and I don’t want to screw it up. Not before I set foot in the lecture hall, at least.

I find the liberal arts building, step into its cool interior, and navigate the quietly busy halls to the door of my class.

Hesitating on the threshold, I haul in a deep breath in a last attempt to quiet my nerves. Then, I pull open the door and step inside.

The first thing I notice is the students.

It’s not the mix of undergrad students I expected.

No, this is a roomful of nearly thirty grown women, all beyond college age.

And every last one of them is done up — as in a full face of makeup and Spanx done up. Everywhere I look I see mini skirts and pushed-up bosoms and perfectly applied lipstick.

Suddenly the new outfit Amy helped me pick out at Target feels frumpy. What the hell am I doing here? Clearly, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed up for this course.

College is not what I expected. This isn’t a poetry class, it’s a preening party, and I have no need for that sort of bullshit in my life.

I turn on my heel to get the hell out of there.

And promptly run face-first into something tall, soft, and — I blink furiously as I recover, getting my bearings — handsome.

Like, really handsome.

I’m standing before six foot something of a much younger man with thick dark hair, tortoiseshell glasses, and blue eyes as deep as the damn ocean.

My jaw drops open.

“You here for Intro to Poetry?” he asks in a rich, chestnut voice.

I nod, mouth hanging open, eyes probably bugging out of my head. You know, like the mature woman I am.

“Good.” The man gives me a smile. “I hate to make sweeping judgments, but you seem like a nice, normal person.”

“Um,” I reply with stunning eloquence. “Thank you?”

To my surprise, the tall man blushes. He actually freakingblushes. My heart leaps and twists and my loins perform a similar move. Not quite sure what’s happening, I tell them all to get themselves under control.

“Sorry,” he says. “That’s probably a weird thing to say, isn’t it?”

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