I raise an eyebrow at her and shake my head.
"You need to go to Dreamy's office hours. This is the perfect excuse. 'Oh, Professor Dreamy, I just can't work with that awful jock. I need a real man. A nerdy man like you to guide me, with your calculator--"
"Shut up," I say, throwing a napkin at her. But she's right--I should go to office hours and at least get today's homework, if I can't plead my case for a partner reassignment.
Alissa teases me mercilessly as I recheck my hair and walk back up to campus toward the stats building. I knock lightly on Professor Jacobs's door and hear him say, "Come on in!"
I open the door and he smiles. "Serena…right? I'm not good with names."
"That's right." I sit in the chair opposite his desk. He leans forward, his hands clasped on top of the papers on his desk.
I take a deep breath. "I just have to tell you, I'm such a huge fan of yours. I mean you're an ASA fellow! And you're here at SCU."
He laughs. "You know about the ASA, do you?"
My eyes widen. "Of course. I mean…don't your students usually know your bio?"
He keeps laughing. "Serena," he says, slapping the desk, "my students usually don't give a shit about school."
I feel my face contort as I absorb this statement. Of course I knew I was on the fringe of studious students here at SCU, but I assumed at Dartmouth things would be different. "Really? I just thought…you'd be used to students who were more driven."
He leans back in his chair. "Nah. So what's up?"
I open my mouth to begin, but he interrupts. "Wait! Let me guess." I close my mouth and raise an eyebrow at him. "You don’t want to work with that football guy, right?"
I exhale. He continues. "Serena, you know your professors know that you do all the work on these sorts of team projects, right? Like it's not going to surprise me?"
"It's not that so much as…he's just so conceited. He's a cocky jerk."
Professor Jacobs--Matt--nods and sits forward again. "You want to work in statistics? You're going to be rubbing shoulders with a lot of cocky jerks who try to get in your pants."
I flush, feeling the heat spread from my chest to the tips of my ears. And then I don't know what comes over me. I feel like I'm possessed by some crazed spirit. I tilt my head to one side, lean forward, and touch Matt Jacob's hand. I say, my voice sounding much calmer than I feel, "But it's not his pants I want to get in, Professor…"
The air rushes out of the room. I feel the atmosphere shift. Professor Jacobs stands and walks around the desk. He opens the door to his office, then stands stiffly in the doorway. "Serena, look, you're going to have to work something out with Mr. Kelly. I'm sorry but the project has been assigned. Now, did you have anything further to discuss?"
I feel the shame of what I've done rise in my chest. I fear I'm going to be sick, my heart pounding. I just made a pass at a professor, a professor I want to study with throughout graduate school. What the hell was I thinking? My breath comes in ragged gasps, but the studious collegiate inside me manages to say, "Can you tell me what chapters we discussed in class and let me know the homework?"
I write robotically in my notebook and practically run from his office. I burst into the cold, January air and suck in great gasps of air outside before walking home as quickly as I can. My hands shake so badly I can't unlock the door to my apartment, and when Alissa pulls it open, I fall inside, sobbing against her shirt. "I made a pass at Professor Jacobs!" I shriek. "What am I going to do??"
Alissa pulls me tightly into her chest and rubs my hair. She looks up at the clock and says, "It's 4pm on a Thursday, Serena. We're going to go and drink tequila until you forget this ever happened."
CHAPTER FOUR
It's morning. I can tell that it's morning, but I'm definitely not in my room. My senses feel dull as I try to make sense of my surroundings. I realize I'm not wearing any pants. I shift around a bit and discover I'm lying on a giant bed, covered with a bright white duvet. I open both eyes and I see I'm in someone's bedroom…but whose?
The room smells masculine. Like spicy deodorant, but not body odor. The gray walls have SCU football posters. There's a tidy desk and a dresser. I can see the door to the closet is ajar and there's a coat rack with--
"Shit." I groan. The coat rack has a letter jacket with KELLY embroidered in giant letters. I am in Talon Kelly's bedroom and I'm not wearing pants. I look down. I'm not wearing the t-shirt I started out in, either.
"Oh, are you awake, Sanders?" A deep voice comes from the doorway. Talon walks into the room and I instinctively pull the covers up to my chin. He looks completely normal, apart from the knee brace. Meanwhile, I feel like I got hit by a truck. "Hey, easy. I'm not going to jump your bones. But I do have to go soon. I've got PT in a little while." He hands me a bottle of water from the pocket of his sweatpants and crutches over to the bed.
I ask him, "What happened last night? I…got carried away."
He laughs at this. "You sure did! I never saw anything like it. Usually, drunk girls are desperate to get into my bed. You fought me pretty hard."
I drink the water, waiting
