But Ely doesn’t seem to mind. She has a plate of those stuffed mushrooms and keeps fiddling with them—she’s as nervous as I am. Only where I choose avoidance, she’s clearly decided overt confrontation is the best solution.
“Hope you’ve been settling in okay,” I say, attempting an olive branch. Normally I can’t stand small talk, but right now I’m incredibly grateful for whoever invented meaningless, space-filling platitudes. “Getting along with your roommates, and so on.”
“Oh yeah. They’re great. If they’re hiding dead bodies anywhere in the apartment, I haven’t found them yet.”
“I’m sure there are still plenty of nooks and crannies you haven’t investigated.”
“Surely the smell would give it away,” she says, and the corner of her mouth quirks up. She’s wearing red lipstick. The contrast of that shade and her near-black hair with the creamy white dress she’s wearing makes her look like a figure in a painting. Not that I’m supposed to be paying attention to students’ lipstick choices.
“A dedicated serial killer would find a way to disguise the stench. Maybe some discreet potpourri.”
She makes a face. “Oh god. That reminds me of the time my roommate in LA adopted this tiny little kitten. Then she kept going on, quote, mission trips and leaving the cat with me. That thing puked in my room and I didn’t find the source for like two weeks. I just kept spraying apple cinnamon Febreze and hoping for the best. Trust me, the only thing worse than the smell of rotting biomatter is that plus synthetic fragrance.”
“Dead bodies might be an improvement, then.”
The comment earns me an arched brow and another one of those crooked smiles. God, those smiles are gonna be what gets me. The first time she looked at me like that, at Revel, it sent a jolt of adrenaline rocketing through my gut, and not much has changed on that front. Ely Cohen still has an impressive talent for turning my veins electric.
I need to get out of here. But of course Ely won’t let it be that easy.
“You know, it’s kind of weird seeing you in this environment,” she says. “You’re wearing actual clothes, for one.”
My face goes bright red. I can feel it, blood flaring hot beneath my skin. “That does go with the professional territory.” Be professional, be professional, be professional.
“Don’t get me wrong. The clothes look great on you.”
I feel like she’s pushing me, trying to press every button she can reach just to see what happens. It’s the kind of thing I should be immune to, as a thirtysomething grown-up. But being around her clearly turns me into a flushing teenager. It’s my first crush all over again, the shiver that uncurls down my spine when she lifts her drink to cheers me. The way I keep looking at her lips, lacquered in burgundy lipstick, and wishing she would leave bloody trails of that lipstick down my throat, my chest.
When I do manage to drag my attention away from her mouth, I discover that she’s every bit as distracted as I am. Her gaze has caught on something lower down—my chest, maybe, or my hips. I’m abruptly hyperaware of the fact that this girl—woman—has seen every part of me. She doesn’t need to imagine what’s under my clothes, because she knows.
She glances up again and I barely, barely, manage to look over toward the refreshments table before she realizes I’ve been staring.
If I harbored any hopes that Ely might change the subject…well, she doesn’t. “The whole outfit is very redneck chic. The flannel is a nice touch.”
“Flannel is cozy.”
“Wyatt, it’s almost June.”
I roll my eyes as dramatically as possible. “You Northerners have no sense of weather. It’s May and it’s seventy degrees out; I’ll wear flannel if I want to.”
She looks me up and down once more. Am I imagining the way her gaze lingers on my thighs? Stop it, Wyatt. Stop it. Either way, she’s smirking by the time she looks at my face again.
“I’d like to see you in a suit, even so,” she says. “Maybe next time they make us come to these. Or better yet, do the whole professor thing—elbow patches and a worn gray sweater.”
“Why do I feel like you’re trying to role-play right now?”
Aaaand now I’m just leaning into the whole thing because I can’t shut my mouth to save my life. The question earns me a grin, Ely sticking her tongue out at me like a five-year-old. “So what if I am? What are you gonna do, Wyatt—give me an F?”
“Oh, I’d figure something out.”
Which, of course, is just amping up the flirtatiousness. I need to take this down several notches if I don’t want to ruin my reputation by dragging Ely off into a janitor’s closet somewhere.
“Well.” I truly could not sound less awkward if I tried. “If you need help with bodies, you know where to find me.” What the fuck? Stop talking, Cole.
I press my lips shut to keep from making things worse and settle for a wave instead of a verbal goodbye. Verbal is not working well with my constitution at the moment.
I find Ava as quickly as I can and then stick close to her side for the rest of the welcome reception. It’s the safest place for me, because Ava is talkative, and when she’s part of a conversation, I essentially don’t have to speak at all.
* * *
■
The first thing I do when I get back to my apartment is shut myself in the shower and press my brow against the cold tile wall. I should have done something the second I found out Ely was my student. I should have alerted the administration. That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? If I opened up the faculty handbook, it would probably say something about disclosing such things.
I could tell Ava. She was my mentor before she became my friend. I probably need some outside person to check my bullshit before this spirals out of control any further. But as much as I love Ava, she might have her hands tied by university rules. She might have to report this, and I can imagine all too well how that might go. I’m a trans guy; there’s a long tradition of assuming perversion of queer and trans people, and the last thing I need is this black mark on my record from day one. Besides, it’s not going to happen again, and Ely is no longer in my class. That means the conflict of interest is officially dealt with. Right?
I stick my head under the spray so that the water falls directly onto my face.
The problem is the power imbalance isn’t dealt with. Ely pointed that out well enough herself.
I keep managing to be an asshole despite my best attempts otherwise. I can basically hear my dad’s voice in my head, murmuring, You’ll always be a failure. It’s the same voice I heard in my head the first day of class, I realize now. He lives eternal in my brain, no matter what I do.