It was harder for Reagan to put Professor Clark out of her mind after the incident in his office. She felt raw, turned inside out and exposed; she felt like she was branded with his touch for all to see. It was rough in the first few days after their encounter. She considered skipping his class, but she just couldn't give him the satisfaction. She wasn't going to make it easy on him to forget about her. She remained in the back of the room, but she didn't hide herself or stay quiet any longer. If she had a thought about what they were studying, she spoke up. It was what she did in her other classes, and she was tired of being different in his. If he noticed the change, he didn't comment.

Reagan spent Tuesday evening studying with Luna. Davis wasn't around so they went to Luna’s place and spread out their homework on her coffee table.

“You seem . . . off,” Luna commented after they’d been at it for a few hours.

Reagan flushed but kept her head down and focused on her math. “In what way?”

“I don't know.” Luna tapped her pencil on the table a few times as she tried to put it into words. “Not quiet, necessarily, since you’re always quiet and we’re doing homework, anyway.”

“I feel like my usual self,” Reagan lied. She didn't want to confide in Luna what she’d done. She was sorely tempted to get the professor in trouble, but at the same time, she knew she would be judged for getting involved with him in the first place.

“Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m so used to Davis chattering that I don't know what to do with the relative silence.”

Reagan closed her textbook and moved on to the next assignment. “What is Davis doing, anyway? I thought the two of you were joined at the hip.”

Luna groaned and leaned back against the couch. “Why can’t guys be less complicated?”

Reagan didn't know what to say to that. She was pretty sure her complication was much worse than Luna’s, but she didn't want to reduce her friend’s struggle down to nothing, either. “I don't know. I wish they came with instructions. My brother always told me that men are easy creatures to understand, but he was wrong.”

“What did he have to say about it?” Luna looked up at Reagan with her long blonde ponytail and light makeup.

“He said the key to understanding them is remembering that they’re constantly hungry, horny, and not in the mood to talk. If only all of those traits applied to all men all the time. As far as I’ve noticed, it only applies to Grant.”

“That sucks. None of those things will help me with Davis, Reagan. He's not hungry, and if he is I'm not going to feed him. He’s horny, I’m sure, but I can't let go and go to that place with him. He’s too good a friend to cross that line. As for talking, well, Davis does enough of that for the both of us.”

“I’ve noticed that.”

“But I want him. I do. I just can’t reconcile his wasteful spending, or his disregard for the struggle to make ends meet because he’s never been in that position.”

“Luna, you make him sound like a horrible guy. How can he be your best friend if he's like that?”

“Okay, honestly, it’s me. It's not him. He’s willing to help, and he donates his stupid trust fund to charity. I just can’t do it. I’d feel like a kept woman. Like some high society bitch. I wouldn't fit into his social circle, much less his parents’ freaking circle. It's too exclusive. It's like, I convince myself I don't want him, but then . . .” She made a strangled noise with long, drawn-out syllables that somehow summed up everything Reagan was feeling.

“I get it. The way you explained it, it makes perfect sense. I wouldn't know what to do in a world like Davis’s. I’d be so out of place. We had nothing at all growing up. When my parents died, it was hard sometimes, not knowing if we were going to get to eat dinner. Luckily, I always had the chance to eat lunch at school, but sometimes Grant skipped lunch so we’d have food for dinner. I’ll never forget those days when we struggled so hard. The alternative was for me to go into foster care, and I refused to leave him. They would have taken him, but he was too old to be adopted, and he didn't want to be separated from me either. He only could have stayed in for a few months, honestly, and it wasn't worth it. He does okay at his job now, but he didn't at first.”

“That’s so much to have to deal with. I'm an only child, and my parents are consummate hippies. They worked, but it was at teaching pottery, selling handcrafted items; my mom taught looming occasionally. They refused to get jobs at actual companies, even the local college when my mom was offered a spot teaching something like home ec, I think. They didn't want to be indebted to anyone else. They wanted to be free spirits, I guess. I never wondered where my next meal was coming from, mostly because we had a huge garden, but sometimes I was worried the electricity would be cut off. That was back before my parents were able to afford a solar panel. Then they got a permit to dig a well. They honestly are off the grid now. They make what they can instead of buying it, unless they’re buying from their fellow hippy friends. I love them so much, and I do feel that I was taught so many valuable lessons, but just once I wanted to eat peanut butter and jelly on white bread instead of hummus on sprouted grain bread.”

Reagan giggled at that. “It actually sounds great.”

“Partly. It wasn't horrible. I thought they were going to keel over when I said I wanted to go to college and get a real job, as I called it. We got into a fight about what a real job is”—she rolled her eyes—“and I had to work hard to get the soccer scholarship.”

“You and me both. If not for my scholarship, I wouldn't be here. I guess I'd be bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly or something.”

“Where are you from?”

Reagan braced herself for the jokes. “Tuckahoe, Virginia.”

Luna was silent for a good long minute before she burst out laughing. “That’s really what it's called?”

“It’s named after the Tuckahoe Plantation. It’s real, you can Google it.”

“You poor thing.” Luna scraped her hair back away from her face. “Did any boys catch your eye in Tuckahoe?”

Reagan shook her head. “No, not really. I was friends with a few of them, but it was really slim pickings. Most of my friends hooked up with each other at one time or another. It made it awkward for me because I couldn't picture being with the same guy my classmate had been with.”

“There's a veritable sea of men here. Have you been asked out, yet? You’re cute.”

Reagan sighed this time. “I’m fat. I'm pretty sure that's what keeps them from asking me out.”

Luna frowned. “You're really pretty. You shouldn't put yourself down like that.”

“You're right, and Grant hates it when I talk negatively about myself. I take after our mom. She was always curvy and thick. I don't think she ever had a thin phase. I was a stick in elementary school, but there was no stopping the change once I hit puberty.”

“I’d kill for tits like yours. I’m a stick.” Luna stuck her tongue out, and Reagan did the same. “I wish I could gain weight. All the athletics I do, and I'm muscular, but I have a flat chest and no hips. I hate it.”

“See, you shouldn't put yourself down, either.”

“You've got a good point.” Luna flipped her book closed. “You wanna grab some pizza? I’m sick of homework.”

“I really do.”

It was Reagan’s good luck that had them going to the same place where Hudson happened to be. He was with another professor that Reagan thought she’d seen in the language arts hall before. She tried her best to be invisible, but she couldn't exactly hide behind her tall, thin friend.

“Ugh, my lit comp prof is here.” She tried to sound like a teenager sick of seeing her teachers everywhere she went, but she didn't think she pulled that off at all.

“I know what you mean. I run into my soccer coach all the time, and sometimes I just want to leave this town and not run into the same fifty people nonstop. It's the perils of college town living, I guess.”

“I’ll live, as long as we sit on the opposite side of the restaurant from him.”

Reagan could already feel his stare burning holes through the back of her tank top. She kept her gaze forward as they moved through the line and placed their orders. She refused to look in the direction of his table until they'd made it safely around the corner to sit in a booth on the far side of the restaurant.

Luna pulled her phone out of her purse as it chirped. “Oh, that’s Davis.” She sighed. “Do you mind if I invite him?”

“No, it's fine.” The more people with her, the less likely she was to do something stupid like go over to Hudson and dump her drink on his head. She was so tempted to fake a trip and drop her hot pizza in his lap. Then he couldn't just go around fucking girls and kicking them out.

“Is he really that bad of a professor?”

“Huh?” Reagan's head came around to face Luna.

“You're staring daggers at that wall. What the hell?”

“Oh, I didn't realize I was. No, I was just thinking of this professor I ran into in the hallway the other day. He was really kind of a jerk about it.”

“I hate the ones that act all superior.”

“Yeah.”

When their food was ready Luna insisted on getting it. Reagan saw Hudson rounding the corner to pass her table on the way to the bathrooms, and she completely panicked. Was he going to pull her in there with him? Would he yell at her for being a wanton slut? Would he fuck her again? She had to shift her legs as that thought flooded her mind, and she scoffed at herself for being such an idiot.

He was coming closer. She was going to be trapped. Luna wasn't coming, and Reagan was relatively alone. They'd picked the less busy side of the place since it was away from Hudson, and now she was regretting it. She didn't know what to do, but suddenly he was in the same aisle as her booth and she stood abruptly, thinking she would run to the ladies room and lock herself in.

At the same time as Hudson drew nearer to her, less than five feet away from her table, the side door whooshed open and Davis breezed in. He grabbed Reagan up in a bear hug and kissed the side of her head.

“Hey, Reagan. How’s it going?”

“Davis!” She was relieved and disappointed at the same instant. All of the air left her body and she sagged back into her seat in the booth. Davis sat next to her, scooting so that their thighs were touching. Reagan knew it meant nothing to Davis, but she also knew that it didn't look that innocent to any bystanders, including Hudson.

“I’m great. Got most of my homework done. Missed you since you were busy.”

He slung his arm casually over her shoulder and ruffled her hair before settling close and resting his arm along the back of the booth. Reagan knew that it looked like he was holding her close from the side of the table Hudson was standing on. He’d frozen in his spot, staring with a nasty look on his face. His brows were drawn together and his mouth turned down in disgust. He moved on toward the bathroom after a few seconds, and Reagan breathed a sigh of relief.

“I was doing an art project for class.”

Reagan's brows went up. “You, doing work?”

“Hardy-har. I don't want to flunk out, then I wouldn't be here every day to see you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it would kill you to not see the girl you've known for several hours,” Reagan said sarcastically.

Davis was laughing at her when she saw Hudson come back out of the bathroom. He locked eyes with her as he walked back in her direction, and she purposely leaned into Davis, turning her head to speak in his ear. She was merely telling him that Luna had missed him so much that she insisted on inviting him for dinner, but of course, Hudson didn't know that.

A minute later Luna came back to the table and Davis and Reagan looked up at her expectantly. “Hey, Luna, love.”

“Hey, Davis.” She set the food down and he helped her pass it out. “I had to order for Davis, and I decided to wait for it. There was a long line and I didn't want to get out of it.”

“This looks yummy. Thanks for getting my favorite.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Well, I considered getting you anchovies, but I didn't think that would be very fair.”

“No, not at all. How much do I owe you?”

“It’s fine, don't bother. It wasn't that much.”

They fell silent, and Reagan felt like it was a conversation they’d had plenty of times before.

“Is your project done?” Luna asked after she’d had a bite and washed it down with her drink.

Reagan tuned them out and tried her best not to stare over Davis’s shoulder at Hudson and the other professor.

Hudson was ready to vault over the tables and strangle the guy that kept playing with Reagan's hair. He wanted to wrap his hands around the child's neck and tell him not to touch what didn't belong to him. He was having a hard time concentrating on what José was saying to him, but he knew he had to be careful and not get caught staring. Or acting like a fool.

“Hey, are you even listening to me?” José looked over in the direction that Hudson had been staring half the night. “Hey, that redhead is hot. She’s not in your classes, is she?”

“No,” Hudson said, realizing that he was safe for now.

“It's still frowned upon, but she doesn't look like a freshman. If she’s not in any of your classes, it probably wouldn't hurt to give it a try.”

“No. My career is too important to get mixed up in any of that. I want to make tenure, and I need to maintain a spotless record for that to happen.”

“You've got a point there.” José glanced over at the women for a second but ultimately decided that Hudson was right about it not being worth it.

“No woman is worth screwing up my chances at a successful career. It’s what I've worked toward since I graduated high school. I won't let a tart get in between me and my dreams.”