Page 4 of Professor Platonic

After finishing the call and unlocking the back door, I went about my usual routine of watering my houseplants, checking the mail, and spending way too long reading over a flier for commemorative gold coins.

Which was when I realized that, holy shit, I actuallywasboring and repressed.

And Istillcouldn’t get that Heart2Heart post out of my mind.

I didn’t want someone to stroke me off. What I wanted was for someone to give a shit about me. Reassure me that I wasn’t making a big mistake by leaving my current research project and my students to move across the country to a university where tenure wouldn’t be guaranteed.

I pulled up the post again and stared at it.

I’ve had a very bad day and could really use a hug.

This nameless, faceless stranger had managed to put my feelings into words. And he had the balls to ask for help which was something my father, as a psychologist, had worked very hard to instill in me.

My thumb hovered over the Reply button.

And then I clicked it.

THREE

JACK

My hands were shaking. I wondered idly if I was more nervous about the expense of a hotel room than about meeting up with a stranger, but I had to admit it was most likely the hotel room thing.

I’d hooked up with strangers from an app before, so that wasn’t quite as nerve-racking. But then again, it was always a little worrisome when I hadn’t seen a photo of the guy to make sure he wasn’t a fellow student. Or worse, a professor.

My stomach flipped over. What were the chances it would be one of my professors? Zero. Completely zero chance. First of all, two of my professors were women. Second, one of them was pushing retirement age and seemed happily married to his wife of a million years.

Thirdly, the only other professor remaining in the list of possibilities was Professor Henry. And he was definitely not the kind of guy who would respond to a post on an app. He was sure as hell not someone who would respond to a request forcomfort.

I felt myself relax. The thought of Professor Henry offering a student a hug was laughable. I wasn’t sure his body even relaxed enough for a hug, and I sure as hell knew his demeanor was about as friendly and comforting as a crocodile having a very bad day.

I bit back a laugh imagining how Professor Henry would react to seeing me on the other side of the door. When the stranger had responded to my post, he’d written, “I’ve had a bad day, too, and didn’t know how much I needed a hug until I saw your post.”

That was definitely not written by any of my science professors. But if it had been, Professor Henry would take one look at me, sniff judgmentally, and turn on his heel without a word.

Asshole.

Just thinking of him made my blood boil. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that he’d had it out for me all semester. I had to remind myself there were kind people out there in the world who supported students. People like Dr. Malley, who’d contacted me from Royce University to inquire about whether or not I’d consider a transfer to help work on her research on the evolution of infectious diseases in the local black-capped chickadee population. Or Professor Jin from Dalhousie, who’d emailed me about an expedition in Nova Scotia the following semester that still had room for another research student.

After getting the rejection from Raintree, I realized I needed to take some time to consider where I wanted to go next. Maybe I didn’t want to stay here at Barrington if Professor Henry was going to be such an obstacle to my academic success.

The firm knock on the door made me jump. At least I didn’t need to think about my academic career right now. Right now, I only needed to accept a hug and physical affection from a random stranger.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

When my brain inadvertently put Professor Henry’s face on the poor stranger from Heart2Heart, I blinked rapidly to try and clear it away.

It didn’t work.

“Mr. Wilde,” he said in his familiar deep voice. The voice that reached down into my belly and made me want tocrawl.

I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. I blinked several times more, silently begging my brain to fix this horrifying malfunction.

When I tried sucking in a breath, I made a wheezing sound and knew without a shadow of a doubt I was suffocating.

“Sorry,” I gasped, letting go of the door to move back into the room.Air.I needed air. I wasn’t getting any air. Maybe the window…

“What’s…? Fuck… Jack? Jack!” His firm grip around my elbow startled me and caused my toe to catch on the carpet. I pitched sideways, but Professor Henry’s arms came around me to keep me from falling face-first onto the bed.

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