Page 3 of Professor Platonic

RIVER

I stared at the message from my mother.

Mom: Therapeutic touch. I’ve decided you need some. Check out this link your father found.

While I contemplated whether or not to entertain another one of her zany ideas, a kid in line behind me at the grocery store bumped into me, and my thumb slipped. The child’s mom apologized, but I waved her off. When I looked back at my phone, the link had loaded.

My sister would say that was fate telling me to look at the link. My brother would say that was nothing but an obnoxious kid fucking with my life.

Since I was an academic who craved information of all kinds, I couldn’t help but read the information on the screen.

I’ve had a very bad day and could really use a hug. Male ISO male for platonic but affectionate sleepover. No sex or commitments. I don’t want to talk about it, just hold me all night and tell me it’s going to be okay.

Something about the listing made my heart squeeze. I had uncomfortably similar feelings. And the guy who’d posted it sounded so melancholy, I wanted to do exactly as he’d said and pull him into my arms to tell him everything would be okay.

But since I was also a realist who’d heard way too many horror stories of dating apps gone awry, I was for sure not going to pursue it.

I also knew better than to engage with my mom about this, so I ignored her message and paid for my groceries before hopping in my Jeep to head home. Even though I had a handful of undergrad exams left to grade, I had a four-day weekend to get them done. After the disappointing workweek I’d had, I was in desperate need of at least one night off from the demands of my job.

My phone rang halfway home, and I sighed. I considered ignoring her call, but then guilt took over.

“Hi, Mom,” I said instead.

“I just feel so awful about what’s happening in your department.” Typical Mom. No segue. She just dove right in and cut to the heart of the matter with a knife.

“It’s not my department anymore,” I corrected. “Today was my last day.”

“No, I know. And you can be sure your father and I will be thrilled to have you closer to home, but I still can’t believe that professor has the nerve to keep working there after the scandal he caused.”

“Thankfully, no one knows about it yet,” I reminded her. I didn’t want to think about the drama in my department at work. I was grateful I’d been recruited away from Barrington before the scandal had come to light, and I especially looked forward to moving back to the Northeast. Texas had never been my favorite place to live, and I missed my family and friends.

Mom’s voice had a dreamy quality. “My son… a Yale professor.” She sighed, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Just imagine the bragging I can do at bridge night.”

I barked out a laugh as I pulled into the driveway of my rental house. “Bridge night” was the name she and her colleagues used when they got together once a month to discuss civil engineering’s intersection with architecture. Telling her fellow Cornell professors that her son was taking a position at Yale was like waving a red flag in front of a particularly snotty—albeit incredibly well-educated—bull.

“Go for it. Now that the semester is over, I give you permission to brag as much as you want. Thanks for keeping it quiet up to now. I didn’t want to jinx anything.”

“I understand. Now all that’s left is to pack up your stuff and start the long drive.”

She made it sound so easy, but she probably also assumed that I didn’t have four years of crap accumulated everywhere, including my lab at work. The idea of having to go through it all in the next two weeks was exhausting.

… just hold me all night and tell me it’s going to be okay.

The guy who’d posted on that app had voiced my own feelings. Part of me wanted nothing more than to curl up with someone tonight and hide from my obligations and the work ahead. But I wasn’t sure I was capable of holding someone all night without wanting to kiss them and touch them sexually.

Could I do it?

“River, honey?”

I snapped back to the conversation with my mom. “Yeah.” I turned off the ignition and grabbed my phone and messenger bag. “Sorry. I just got home.”

“Well then, I’ll let you go. But I just wanted to say congratulations. We’re very proud of you.”

I heard my dad’s voice in the background but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Mom laughed. “Dad says if you’re too close-minded—by which he means boring and repressed—to consider therapeutic touch, you could always get a massage. I’m sure there are plenty of places in Houston. Just don’t go to one of those ‘happily ever after’ ones.”

I snorted. “I think you mean ‘happy ending,’ and don’t worry.” I didn’t tell her that the app she’d sent me also offered plenty of “happy endings” for free. I didn’t need to pay to have someone stroke me off.

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