A few seconds later, I hear the click of heeled footfalls behind me.
“Sorry about that.”
I pivot and take in her glum expression and the reddish hue on her cheeks. I bite my lower lip. Hard. “No problem. You can go catch up to him if you need to.” I gesture in the direction of where I left them. “You know, if you need to finish a conversation or something. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.”
“No.” She looks down at her shoes, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.” She looks up at me from under the thickest set of eyelashes I’ve ever seen, her dark eyes meeting mine, her gaze steady. “You’re my priority right now, not anything going on in my personal life. I should have told him it could wait. Again, I’m sorry.”
“No need for an apology at all.” I clear my throat roughly, our whole exchange feeling decidedly awkward. Probably best to just move past it. “Would you mind telling me what the timeline is for my training, just briefly, before I go? Oh, and I was still hoping to see your classroom, too.”
Her breath comes out in a puff and her nose crinkles. “Yes, of course. I got distracted.” She waves for me to follow her out of the room and we walk side by side just up the hallway. We enter a classroom that’s very similar to the one we were just in, only instead of Shakespeare on the walls, there are assorted world maps and posters of important people throughout history. She crosses the room to her desk and sits on the edge of it, facing me.
I can’t help myself. My eyes drink her in from head to toe. Goddamn, those heels she’s wearing are hot. The pencil skirt molded to her curves? Also hot. The top with ruffles at the hem that had ridden up when she’d reached for the textbooks earlier? Totally hot. And the woman wearing the outfit? So incredibly fucking hot. She’s too tempting. I struggle to pay attention to what she’s saying as blood rushes from one head directly down to the one below my belt.
“So, you’ll just observe the first week. Then we’ll slowly add a class per week until you are teaching a full schedule and can see what that’s like. We’ll discuss best grading practices, and you’ll be responsible for reviewing student work.” As she speaks and her mind focuses on what she needs to tell me, she relaxes, very much in her element. “We’ll collaborate, too. Sometimes I’ll be in the room, sometimes not. It depends on how well you’re handling both the course material itself and the kids. To be honest, handling the students is what I always worried most about. These kids are like wild monkeys with extra hormones. They’re tricky sometimes ...”
“Dealing with students is probably my biggest worry, but I remember what it was like to be a teenage boy.” Boy, do I ever. I chuckle, hoping she’s unaware of my discomfort.
“It wasn’t that long ago for you, I guess.”
I raise a brow at her. “It’s been long enough. I can’t be too much younger than you.” Oh, man. Please tell me she’s not thinking of me more like a student than a peer. My damn dimpled cheek strikes again. I’ve always been told I look young for my age, and here I am, doing my student teaching several years after most people do.
“Right, of course. College senior.” Her teeth clamp down on her lip, as if she shouldn’t have brought it up.
She obviously didn’t look at my file too closely. I’m twenty-four—she can’t be much more than twenty-five, if that.
I understand her hesitation, if that’s the case. We had an intriguing moment when we first saw each other at the bar—assuming she does remember that it was me—and now we’re thrown together like this and she thinks I’m a lot younger. I wonder if she’s freaking the hell out. It’s an awkward position for her to be in, for sure.
She clears her throat and shifts the conversation, and I try to follow along, even though all sorts of thoughts fly around in my head. “You might also want to think about an extracurricular event of some sort that you’d like to observe.”
“Like a sport, you mean?”
“Yeah. Or even a club, attending the musical production, anything like that.” She shrugs. “It’s just a suggestion. When I student taught, my college advisor liked it a lot when it came in on reports that I’d gone the extra mile and really immersed myself in the experience.”
“You didn’t student teach all that long ago, I take it?” I can’t help but swing the conversation back to our ages. I want to know if I’m crazy to be thinking about her the way I have been. “I mean, I never want to assume a woman’s age, but you seem pretty young.” I give her a sheepish grin.
The corners of her mouth tip cautiously into a smile. “No, that’s okay. I’m twenty-five, soon to be twenty-six. This is my fifth year teaching. We aren’t technically supposed to get student teachers until we’ve taught five years, but I guess they were desperate.” She gives me a slightly uncomfortable smile.
I know damn well I’m about to surprise her. “I’ll be twenty-five this fall.”
Her eyes bug out and her mouth drops open, pink lips creating the perfect O of surprise. It seems as if she’s trying to decide whether or not to say something for a few seconds, and then she finally blurts out, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought—I mean, you look younger than that. I just assumed you were a typical college senior.”
Chuckling, I shrug my shoulders. “I didn’t figure out what I wanted to do for quite a while after I graduated, so I’ve been working on
