Chapter Ten
Iris
My mood only worsened as the day continued. I had no idea why Noah seemed hell bent on making my life more stressful than it already was, but now I had a failing grade and tutoring sessions to go to. Which meant I had to be alone with him.
The butterflies started in my stomach again at the thought. I stomped down on the feeling as I reached the dining hall to meet Bailey. Those thoughts were treading into dangerous territory I didn’t want to be in.
I found Bailey on the bottom floor of the dining hall ordering a large coffee from the little coffee stand everyone frequented first thing in the morning and in between classes.
“There you are,” she said, pouring a packet of sugar into her steaming coffee. “I was wondering if you got my text earlier.”
“One hot coffee,” I told the barista and slid over a few dollars. “Sorry. I had tons of work to do today in between classes.”
“Always the studious one.” She sighed dramatically. “Anyway, are you ready to go to the movies? It starts at 6:30, and I want to get there early to get good seats and tons of junk food.”
“I can’t,” I said bitterly.
She sipped at her coffee. “If its homework, just do it when we get back. I’m not in the mood to stay put tonight.”
“You’re never in the mood to stay put,” I replied, taking a hold of my coffee when the barista slid it across the counter. The heat from the cup warmed the chill out of my fingers. “I can’t go because Professor Webber is making me do tutoring for that freshman class.”
“So, bail on the freshman.”
“I wish I could.” Ditching to go eat a bucket of buttered popcorn did sound tempting compared to being berated about my grade for a class that I shouldn’t have to be in the first place. “I meant, he told me I need to take the tutoring to pass this class. He’s requiring it.”
“Seriously?” Annoyance glittered in Bailey’s eyes. “I think you’re just saying that because you have the hots for him,” she stated calmly. “I saw the way you two were eyeing each other up in the library. It’s so obvious that you find him attractive.”
“I do not,” I shot back, giving her a warning glare. “Don’t talk like that in public. People can hear you.”
“Fine,” she said, coolly. She tilted her chin up. “I guess I’ll just see you at the apartment then. I’ll go to the movies by myself.”
“I don’t have a choice, Bailey,” I said, exasperated by her bitchy mood. “We can go tomorrow night if you want to go that bad.”
“I’m going tonight. See you later.”
She turned on the heel of her boot to stalk up the stairs to the main dining hall. I watched her curls swing gracefully against her shoulders until she disappeared. Some days it was utterly exhausting trying to figure out if Bailey wanted to be my friend, or if she wanted to make me feel like shit.
I munched on an apple on my way back to the English Department with a twisting stomach. This was the last thing I wanted to do after classes were done for the day, but if I had any hopes of graduating, I had to do what Noah wanted me to do – even if I thought it was pointless.
Snorting, I tossed the apple core into the trashcan before heading to the large seating area on the first floor used for tutoring and studying. Only one student sat at a table, flipping through a book with bored indifference. I scanned the floral, stuffed chairs for Noah before letting out a relieved breath.
“Actually here before him,” I said, taking a seat at a table, as well. “He can’t harass me about being late now.”
The other freshman student turned to give me a weird look. I clicked my mouth shut and pulled out the binder I used for class while I waited impatiently for Noah to arrive. He had to be late to make a statement.
“Is this seat taken?”
I looked up to find a girl, a freshman student no doubt from how young she appeared, staring down at me with a warm smile. She tucked a short, black tendril of hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture.
“No,” I replied, shrugging. “Take a seat if you want.”
She smiled broadly. “Thanks. I feel like a loser sitting here by myself.”
“Right. Are you here for tutoring?”
“Yes,” she said, taking a seat across from me. “Professor Webber wanted to discuss my exam with me.”
That only made me feel marginally better. I had no doubts that like the rest of the female population on campus, she was here for other reasons besides tutoring. I heard what the girls whispered about whenever Noah walked by. I thought about those things, too, sometimes.
I sighed inwardly as I did a quick scan of the girl seated across from me. Not that Noah would ever consider someone like me. I kept it simple as I always did by wearing leggings and a sweater. The girl across from me actually had makeup on, styled black hair that came to the middle of her neck, and nice clothes that complimented her petite frame. She screamed temptation.
“I’m Jen, by the way,” she said, still smiling at me. “I’m a freshman here.”
The warmth of her tone softened me a bit. “I’m Iris Paige,” I said. “I graduate this May.”
I half-expected Jen to question why I was still in freshman level English, but she didn’t appear too curious about it.
“Cool,” she said. “I bet you’re ready to get out of here by now. I’m just a freshman, and I’m already wishing that the next four years will fly by.”
“It will,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about that.”
I had walked onto the PHU campus four years ago, nervous and excited about where my life would go. It seemed surreal to think that those four years were already almost up, and that next year, I’d be wherever the wind told me to go.
“So,” Jen said. “What do you plan on doing with your degree once you graduate?”
“I’ll probably just find some sort of writing job on the East Coast,” I said. “I haven’t given too much thought or commitment to it yet. I want to keep my options open, you know?”
“Totally. I don’t even know if I want to be an English major. All I know is that I have to take this class first and foremost to get it out of the way.”
“Yeah, don’t fail it,” I said, sarcastically. “You don’t want to be stuck with a whole bunch of freshman your senior year.”
Jen laughed. “I bet it sucks.”
“It does,” I said, and flushed when she looked at me. “I meant, some of you suck. Not you, though.”
“Thanks,” she said, grinning. “I’m in the afternoon classes, but I think Professor Webber will let me transfer to the morning one you are in.”
A smooth voice interrupted us before the conversation could go any further.
“Nice to see you here on time, Ms. Paige.”
My lifted mood dampened the second I heard the sarcastic comment. I turned in my chair to look up at Noah with a scowl. “Nice to see that you’re the late one for once.”
Noah’s lips twitched. “I’ll be right with you both,” he said. “I’ll talk to you last, Ms. Paige.”
“Great,” I mumbled under my breath, turning back in my chair with an irritated sigh. “I can’t wait to hear about how horrible I’m doing in your class.”
“I’m sure that you are. I would be, too.”
I dug my fingers into my palms to keep myself from responding. Jen watched our exchange with wide eyes and waited until Noah was occupied with the other student before whispering, “Girl, you got some major balls to talk to a professor like that.”
I sucked in a deep breath to calm the nerves in my stomach. Our exchanges lately left me feeling breathless and flushed, and I had no idea why. I fanned myself with my hand despite how chilly it felt in the building. They never turned the heaters on after classes were done.
“I normally don’t ever talk to professors besides in class,” I said.
“What’s different about Professor Webber, then?”
“He-” I started, but there was nothing I could say to explain the torrent of emotions I felt whenever Noah looked my way. I rarely looked at him as a professor, and that was a very alarming thought. I looked down under Jen’s curious stare. “Nothing. There’s nothing different about him.”
I chewed on the pad of my thumb while Noah ventured over to our table to speak with Jen first. Once he finished talking with her, he turned to look at me with a smile that showed off his straight white teeth.
“Ready for our tutoring session?” he asked.
His calm expression made it hard to tell if he was teasing. I pulled out my exam to slide it across the table, but Noah took a seat next to me instead. My heart galloped to a frantic pace again. I scooted to the edge of the other chair to put some distance between us.
“I’ll see you around, Iris,” Jen said, gathering her papers and books. “Maybe we could meet up to work on homework together?”
“Sounds great,” I said, thickly.
She wrote something down quickly on a piece of notebook paper before handing it over to me. “My number,” she said, smiling at me. “Text me. I’ll meet you at the library anytime.”
“Yeah. I’ll send you a text sometime.”
Jen bid us both goodbye before leaving through the front door. A thick silence fell between us as Noah grabbed my test to look at it again. I strained to hear the sound of the other English professors’ voices, but the only thing I could hear was the sound of my own heart and the old pipes clanging upstairs as the furnace turned on miraculously for once after five o’clock.
“I think you’re right.”
I blinked in confusion as Noah looked up from my exam and pushed it back across the table to me. He reached up to run a hand through his hair with a sigh. I caught the first glimpse of exhaustion in his eyes.
“About what?” I asked warily. I had no idea what he had in store for our tutoring sessions.
“That you have a lot on your plate,” he said. “I asked around the department. Everyone I asked mentioned to me you are an excellent student and writer.”
A small part of me swelled with pride to hear that.
“However, they’ve all said the same thing that I’m seeing,” he continued, gravely.
“What?”
“That you’re distracted by something.”
“Oh.” I deflated instantly at those words. “Yeah, well, who isn’t distracted the end of their senior year? You have to figure out a job, a place to go, and everything else.”
“It’s not that scary,” Noah said reassuringly. “You don’t strike me as the type of woman who just lets the breeze blow her around.”
I stared at him in disbelief. I mentally added perceptive to the list of things Noah was in my head. Clearing my throat, I looked down at my test in vain hope that we could change the subject.
“What can I do to make this up?” I asked. “I don’t want a bad mark in this class.”
“Iris.”
The sound of my name slipping through Noah’s lips instantly put the hair on my arms on edge in the most pleasant ways. A shiver inched its way up my spine before I squashed all those heated feelings away with horror. What was wrong with me? I never had a reaction to a man like that – let alone a professor.
I sucked in a deep breath before gathering the courage to meet Noah’s gaze. He stared at me in genuine concern.
“I’m not talking to you as a professor,” he said. “I’m expressing concern that you are having a hard time with something. I want to help you get through these next couple of months if I can.”
It was tempting to tell him to stop riding me over the littlest things, but there was something different about the way he was talking this time. He appeared to be genuinely concerned about what went in his students’ lives, but I couldn’t tell him the truth about mine.
I couldn’t tell him that I wanted to get away from my alcoholic mother who was trying to drown herself in bottles. I couldn’t tell him that I wanted to get far away as possible from Bailey because I was tired of being fake. I couldn’t tell him that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life after college. I just wanted to leave and figure it out all at a later date.
“I’m just ready to leave Utah,” I said, giving him the very short version of it. “I have a lot of things going on in my life that aren’t fun to deal with. I just need a new change of scenery.”
“I get that,” Noah said, nodding. “I went through the same thing too when I was in New Zealand. I wanted to do something different.”
“Like teach a whole of bunch of freshman?” I snorted. “You were famous back there. Why did you give it up?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Fame is hard, and I didn’t like my personal life spread out along the tabloids. That’s all really.”
“And you stumbled into teaching?” I asked in disbelief. “No offense, but it’s hard to consider you a professor. You look way too young.”
He chuckled deeply, and the sound warmed me from the inside out.
“I’m thirty years old. An athlete has a shelf life while your brain never does.” He tapped the side of his temple. “I loved to write as a kid, but I went down a pretty typical jock path and did well there. I just figured I better go back to English before all the hits to my head took a permanent toll.”
It made sense, a little bit, at least. I had gotten that type of feeling while reading through several articles of Noah’s departure from rugby and New Zealand after repeated ACL injuries.
The faint ding of church bells broke the silence. Noah glanced down at his wristwatch before looking up at me with regret. “I’m afraid that I have somewhere to be in the next thirty minutes. Is there anything I can help you with, besides maybe lend an ear? I can’t help you with your class work. You’ve gotta stay committed to that on your own.”
“I know.” I gathered my test and placed it in my binder. “I appreciate it, though. I will be fine.”
We both stood from the table at the same time. Noah’s eyes hooded slightly when I looked up at him, taking in the sharp features covered in a shadow of a beard. The back of my legs bumped into the chair when I took a step back to put space between us.
“See you Wednesday,” I said. “Thanks, again.”
“Be on time,” he replied, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “You’re welcome, though. And, I’m serious, Iris. My office is always open if you need something.”
I gave a nod before hurrying out of the building into the frigid evening. My breath puffed out in front of me in clouds while I hurried across campus to the student parking lot. No matter what I tried to think, I felt an array of confused emotions. There was no doubt in my mind I found Noah attractive, but his brash attitude in class had completely soured it – until this evening.
Now, I didn’t know what to think. We hadn’t even talked about my test, but I had a feeling this tutoring session had nothing to do with my tardiness. He wanted to understand my situation – a first in a long time.
I was treading dangerous water again with those thoughts, but I couldn’t help it. It was a huge relief to know an actual person lived behind that stoic face during class. Even if I had no idea how to process our conversation.
I reached my car a minute later and hopped in behind the steering wheel. While I waited for the heater to warm up the windshield, I used the cold to keep myself awake and to banish those thoughts of Noah. I had other things to do, like the essay he wanted us to turn in on Wednesday.