Page 12 of The Professor's Possession (Crystal River Billionaire Brothers)

“Thank you, and sorry again,” I squeak out before I turn and run back to the dorms, cursing myself under my breath for that entire cringe interaction with the strange tall man with the sky-blue eyes in the pouring rain.

5

OLIVIA

I’m awake evenbefore my alarm goes off. To say I’ve had a restless night would be the understatement of the century. I have been tossing and turning all throughout the early hours due to my nerves for my first actual day of college.

Today’s the day I’ve been waiting for.

I look over at Ava opposite me in her own bed. She’s sleeping like a princess. No nerves for her, I presume. She came in at some point late in the night, staggering around drunk, and collapsed into bed. I pretended to be asleep during her entrance. I could hear her coming down the hallway singing hits from the early 2000s.

Despite how different we are – and the fact that we would never have mingled in the tight social confines of high school – I already really,reallylike her.

I silence my alarm before it has a chance to explode and I get ready. Itryto do so quietly so as to not disturb sleeping beauty Ava, but it doesn’t work; she wakes up with an enormous yawn.

“Morning,” she beams at me from across the room as I struggle with my makeup.

“Sorry to wake you,” I say. “I wastryingto be a little mouse.”

“No problem,” Ava replies. She launches into a long stretch. “I bet I woke you up when I got home. I don’t really remember much of last night.”

“You didn’t wake me up,” I lie.

“Oh God, I stayed up way later than I should have last night,” she says, sighing. “I’m so freaking tired. I was only meant to get a little drunk, but things sorta got out of hand and now my head is so freaking sore. I’m going to pay for it today.Ugh.”

“Did you have a good time, though?” I ask as I slip on my trusty sneakers.

She smiles. “Yeah, so good. I really shouldn’t have partaken in as much liquor as I did, though. I amreallygoing to pay for it today. Oh, God. I always do this, though. I always drink too much. It’s my nature. I’m so impulsive. I submit to peer pressure, and Luke was practicallybeggingfor me to stay.”

“You’ve got class today?” I ask her.

“Not for another hour or two, though. Are you going to your first class now?”

“Yep, English Lit,” I reply.

“Good luck,” Ava says.

I smile. “You too.”

* * *

I takea seat right in the center of the middle row of the lecture hall. To say I’ve been excited for this class would be a massive understatement, and so I want a good view of the professor and the room. This class is the reason I’ve come to college.

Okay, shoot up that classic literature in my veins right now.

I wonder what my English Lit professor’s going to be like. Probably dressed in tweed and older than the university itself, I imagine. That’s the stereotype anyway about these kinds of teachers, isn’t it? I read somewhere that this is the professor’s first class at CRU. I guess he’s been transferred over from another university or something.

The room fills up quickly. Seems like a lot of students want to take this class. Maybe the professor’s well-known or something. I did search him up quickly on the college website as I made my way here.

Professor Spencer Penmayne.

There wasn’t much info on him on the site. No photo unlike the other professors. No age. Not much of a bio at all, in fact. Just a passing mention that he went to Harvard, and that’s it. That university is a pretty good credential for a professor teaching at a small town university like CRU.

Why are so many students keen to see him? Maybe he’s super popular here. Maybe he’s famous...

As I ready myself to take some notes, opening up my laptop, I listen to a few other students talking to each other down the row. Three girls my age, clearly friends for a long time. They’re whispering, but I can’t help but overhear them.

“He’s the hottest professor on campus by far,” one of the three girls says. “By far.”

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