First message
She walked into the lecture hall and took a seat in the third row.
Conversations filled the room. Summer trips, vacations, stories everyone was eager to tell.
Second year. Twenty years old. Everyone suddenly felt so grown-up.
The professor walked in.
“Let’s keep it down. I’d rather not waste each other’s time,” he said. “I’m Mr. Brooks. You listen. If something isn’t clear, you ask.”
He sat on the edge of his desk and slowly looked around the room.
She smiled to herself.
She remembered him. It wasn’t exactly easy to forget.
He had been incredibly good. Hard. Relentless. Passionate.
Santa Monica resort, bar. Then his bed for the next two weeks.
Their eyes met. She gave him the faintest playful smile.
His expression didn’t change.
“What exactly is amusing you, Miss…?” he asked evenly.
He remembered her. Of course he did.
It was difficult to forget those two weeks they had spent together. Her cries, her skin, her hips beneath his.
She froze.
That single question had drawn a clear line between them.
He cleared his throat and repeated himself.
“Miss…?”