Tessa

I’m practically running out the door for the second time today, my own mug in my hand, freshly washed. I’m about to ram my elbow into my front door to knock and wait this time, when it opens unexpectedly and formerly Hot New Neighbor turned Hot New Roommate is standing there, just as surprised by the sight of me as I am by him. I don’t know why I can’t get myself to call him by his name. Other than I don’t like it and Drea started me on this stupid nickname thing I can’t seem to stop now.

“Mug.”

“Wow. That was fast.” He smiles. I wish he was ugly. Alas, he’s not, leaving me to only one defense. Look away.

“Okay, then. Have a nice day.” I readjust my bag, now that I have both hands to work with, and make a dash for the stairs. He’s obviously headed out as well, the last thing I want is some attempt at small talk while we travel down three flights of stairs. We’ve had enough awkward small talk to last us for months to come. And God knows, how much more we’ll accumulate once we’re living together for real. If these are my last moments of freedom from repressed, weird and humiliating conversations, I want to savor them.

With the sound of his thundering footsteps following close behind, I skip the last three steps and lunge for the sidewalk, an easy feat considering I run track in exchange for my education.

I fumble at my car, unable to retrieve my keys fast enough. As luck would have it, the fancy new BMW parked beside me is his. I should have known. I thought it looked out of place last night, but I just assumed someone had company.

“Running late for class?”

I look up involuntarily at the sound of his voice. Damn my efficient reflexes.

“How did you know I was a student?”

He shrugs. “Lucky guess. The laptop bag and books helped, of course.”

He’s wearing glasses now. They completely change his look. I also notice he’s paired his bland khakis from earlier with a blue button up shirt complete with long sleeves which given the hot weather, can only serve to cover up his tattoos. It’s suddenly very apparent that he’s older than me. He’s like, a legit grown up. Somehow, that only makes him sexier.

“Aha!” I yank my keys out at last.

He smiles. I smile. Why? Why am I smiling at the man who hijacked my home?

“I gotta go.” And I do. But I smile the whole damn ride to school. Maybe I really am the crazy one.

I’m so freaking late by the time I pull into the parking lot, I have to run across campus to get to class. I think I hear my name called a time or two while I’m zooming past the blurred faces, but catching up with people will have to wait until after Psychology.

When I almost come flying out of my left sandal, I pause briefly and readjust. I’m still focused on my toes and trying to get them back around the stupid thong of my shoe when I hear his voice. Again.

“We really need to stop meeting like this.”

“Oh my God! Are you following me?” Clean record, my ass.

He grins amused, something I realize he does frequently when interacting with me, and I’m generally not all that funny. “Relax, Tessa. I’m just trying to get to my class on time like everyone else.”

“Alrighty then.” I practically take off at a sprint, mostly to keep my next thoughts from spilling out of my mouth before I can stop them. Like, how is he a student here? And how has this not come up before now. Then, I notice the distance between us isn’t increasing. He’s headed the same place I am. So, I speed up some more. At the very least, I’m not walking in late with him.

At least I don’t plan to. When his hand reaches the handle the same time mine does, I lose all hope of ever being rid of him.

As soon as I’m in the room, I spot the only seat available in the front row. I’m mentally preparing myself to wrestle him for it as I make a mad dash for the last chair – determined not to let him steal another thing from me, only when I get there, my butt claims it without any interference from him. Shockingly. In fact, now that I’m turned around again, there’s no sign of him anywhere. Maybe I missed an open seat in the back somewhere?

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Social Psychology.”

Oh God.

This can’t be happening.

“My name is Dr. Michael McMichael – yes, my parents were those types of assholes – and I’ll be taking over this course for Dr. Cremer while she’s on maternity leave. For those of you wondering, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy just last month.”

Michael McMichael. His parents really were assholes. Not important. He’s my Professor. Hot New Roommate Michael is my professor.

I spend the next fifteen minutes staring at my feet and wishing I could disappear. Considering I’m sitting right up front, he’d likely notice if I made another run for it though. I can’t text Drea either. I can’t do anything. Least of all pay attention to anything he’s saying. It’s not until I notice everyone reaching for pen and paper or whipping out their laptops and tablets, that I start to feel as though participating is a viable option again. Thankfully, we spend the rest of class taking notes while he gives an annoyingly insightful lecture on gender and the ways in which society is affecting how we identify ourselves, as well as members of the opposite sex. He’s smart. And humble in a way that really makes you underestimate him. Made me underestimate him. He’s not crazy. Or unstable. But I am. Of course, Dr. McMichael already knows that because he knows his stuff. It’s clearly why he’s always laughing at me.

I don’t wait even half a second after we’re dismissed to jet from the room. Any and all future humiliation will have to wait until we’re home again. Home. It’ll never feel sacred again.

Rather than sit out in the open where Michael could stumble upon me some more, I head for the library and bury myself in the biographies section. No one’s coming to look for me here and the librarians have come to accept that my face is just part of the furnishings in that section. I have a weird sort of fascination with learning people’s stories. I don’t even care who they are, I just want to know their history. What made them who they became. Which experiences molded their lives in the most significant ways. I think maybe it’s because I know so little of my own history. It’s made me obsessed with people who know enough about theirs to write a whole freaking book about it.

“Back at it already, huh, Tessa?”

It’s Carlo, one of the students who works here. He’s been here seven years. I don’t think he’s ever graduating. I don’t think he wants to.

“You know it.” I flip my hair and give him a cheesy grin. It’s not flirting when it’s with Carlo, therefore it’s easy.

“Who are you getting to know this week?” he asks, a genuine curiosity in his tone.

Holding the cover out for him to see, I answer, “Alexis Lane.”

“Who’s that?”

“This super rad photographer. I saw his work in some other biographies I read. He’s got some sort of magic eye for capturing people’s secret essence or something. I don’t know how to explain it, but once you get to know his work, you recognize it instantly. Anyway, after seeing so many of his portraits, I figured it was time to find out a little more about him.”

Carlo leans in while I start to flip through the pages. “Huh. They’re all pictures.”

Disappointed, I hum in agreement. “Yeah, not what I thought it would be.”

“Well, you know those artist types, a lot of them are super private. Secret identity and all,” Carlo points out.

“I guess.” I let my gaze sweep the images open to me once more. Maybe there’s more in here about him than we realize. “I’m getting it anyway. If his pictures tell so much about the people in them, they’re bound to reveal things about him as well.”

Carlo chuckles. “You’re going to make a damn fine reporter one day.”

“That’s my plan.” I grin, closing the book and pressing it to my chest. This one is definitely going home with me.

From here, the day seems to pick up the pace. After my last class, I grab a quick bite to eat and then head straight to track practice. It’s almost six o’clock by the time I’m pulling up in front of our apartment building and I’m exhausted. For the first day of ‘first week doesn’t count’ classes, I got my ass kicked. I wonder if Drea faired any better. Probably. She didn’t have her first class until eleven and she doesn’t run track, she’s here on a music scholarship and regardless of what she claims, I seriously doubt playing the piano while sitting on your ass can be all that tiring.

I scan the parking lot for a minute before I get out. There’s no sign of the silver BMW. Convinced that it’s safe to proceed, I practically run for the stairwell. Exhausted or not, I find the energy to take all three flights two steps at a time, and I don’t slow down until I’m inside Drea’s place and the door is locked and chained behind me.

Drea and Jules are sprawled out on the couch watching something Channing Tatum on TV. Until I come crashing in providing them with better entertainment, that is.

“What’s wrong with you? Were you being chased?” Drea seems genuinely worried which will make my real reason sound super ridiculous.

“Don’t tell me. The Zombie apocalypse is finally upon us!” Jules is not worried. She’s not even faking it. Mostly, she just seems annoyed I’m taking her attention away from the man candy on the screen.

“Even if it was, you’d be the last person I’d tell. I’d just let them get you and feast on your brains. Although, feast might be a stretch,” I mutter, dropping my bag beside the door and squeezing in between them on the sofa. I avoid looking at the screen. I caught a glimpse when I first walked in and heard my internal dialogue. It was comparing Channing to Michael. Channing was losing. It’s not a place I’m comfortable going again.

“You know you’re all sweaty and gross, right?” Drea gives me a disgusted sideways glance as I lean in for the coffee table to examine the now nearly empty pizza boxes spread out before them.

“I do. But a girl can’t ever hear that enough, so keep it coming.” I settle on a slice of mostly cheese and sink back into the cushions, kicking off my stinky sneakers and socks on spiteful principle.

Drea stares at me a moment longer before she bursts out, “Are you going to talk about what’s happening here, or what? Why do you look like you took a wrong turn on the track and just kept running? And speaking of wrong turns, why are you here at all? I thought you were all set to stay at your place again.”

I swallow hard to get down a way too big bite of pizza crust. It’s cold and dry and not at all worth it.

“Hot New Neighbor Michael, aka Hot New Roommate Michael, actually prefers to go by Dr. Michael McMichael. At least when he’s teaching my Psyche class.”

Drea gapes and even Jules returns her attention to me and away from Channing Tatum, going so far as to mute the TV.

“The hot dude next door is a teacher?”

“Oh, yeah.” I nod, taking another bite of pizza. I don’t know why I’m still eating it other than I’m starving and too lazy to get up and forage for something else.

“Get the fuck outta here!” I think Drea is still contemplating whether or not I’m telling the truth. We have a history of pranking one another, usually for properly motivated reasons, and while I don’t currently have one, I can see why she’s worried.

“I’m serious. And since we’re on the topic of awkward and embarrassing experiences I’ve had today, I also accused him of stalking me seconds before we both entered the classroom.”

Jules starts laughing. Drea, who values our friendship a little more, does her best to suppress the grin I know is desperate to escape. Hell, I’m about to start laughing at the whole disaster myself.

“What are you going to do? Drop the class?”

“No!” Though that clearly had occurred to me. “Truth is, he’s really good. The lecture he gave today was insightful and interesting and even though I hardly took any notes, I remember almost all of it. Like, he taught it in a way that it just clicked, you know? Plus, I need the credit, so...”

Jules is clearly torn between wanting to get back to Channing and feeling the need to add to this conversation. “Um, that’s really cool and all, but don’t you think the school might frown upon a professor and his student rooming together? I’m just guessing they have policies against that.”

Drea shrugs. “Would they have to know?”

Staring at my sad piece of pizza, I start thinking out loud, “I’m sure they already do, they just don’t know they do. But we’re both in their system. And we obviously would have put down the same address, even before we realized we both intended to live in the same place.”

“So, now what?” Drea seems disappointed. Like, she thinks my fucked up living situation has all the makings of a romance novel or something and suddenly this plot twist isn’t giving her the ending she was hoping for.

“I know,” Jules chimes in with an unexpected amount of enthusiasm, (well, unexpected until I peer at the tv out of the corner of my eye. No Channing in sight, just some tire commercial), “You and I can switch! You move into my place for the semester and I can move into yours!”

“Ha!” I can’t even give it a real laugh. “That’s totally not happening. But thanks.”

I toss what’s left of the marinara soaked cardboard back into the box and get up. “I need a shower.”

“Yeah.”

I drop a hard glance on Drea.

“Not because you smell or anything,” she tries to cover, “Because you need to clear your head or whatever.”

“Nice save,” I say dryly as I walk away. I know she’s right. I smell so bad I can freaking smell myself. It’s appalling.

Tiptoeing for no real reason other than it seems safer, I make my way across the landing to my own front door. Unlocking it as quietly as I can, I start by sticking only my head inside and listening.

“Hear anything?” his voice rumbles from behind me.

My body slams into the door, the door slams open until it hits the wall, and to top it all off, I whack the crap out of my pinky toe. “Oh my GOD, man!”

Jumping around on one foot, I bounce around my foyer still holding all of my crap from the day, caught between wanting to escape and not wanting to hop the streets aimlessly with a load of books, a gym bag and a laptop, since I have no real place left to go.

“I don’t suppose you think it’s a coincidence that the harder you try to hide from me, the more dramatic our interactions are becoming?” he asks dryly, setting down his bag along the wall (like he lives here!). “Also, why aren’t you wearing shoes?!”

“I left them at Drea’s,” I whine, in hindsight a bad idea.

Given his expression, I’m inclined to think he agrees, regardless he keeps his mouth shut as he takes my stuff from me, places it on the coffee table and starts moving straight for the kitchen. “Interesting reading material you’ve got there. You studying photography too?”

“No,” I say far snottier than necessary, “I just like learning about different types of people, and I happen to think the photographer who took those is very talented.”

He doesn’t say anything, just nods as he opens the freezer and retrieves a bag of frozen lima beans. Briefly, I berate him mentally for thinking of food while I likely have a broken bone in my foot, and mocking may also be taking place, because, lima beans?! Gross. But, then, that jackass comes back over to where I’m still doing my busted toe dance, takes my elbow to gently guide me backwards toward the sofa where he helps me take a seat, before kneeling down to cradle my foot in one hand and hold the frozen beans on my smashed pinky with the other.

“How’s that?” His voice is quieter than normal. Careful almost, and I notice he’s not looking up to make eye contact the way he usually does. He’s a stickler for eye contact, he is. Makes me all sorts of uncomfortable. Except now. That he’s looking at my feet. Turns out, that’s way worse.

“Good,” I mumble, “thank you.” Heat is surging through the top of my head and I can feel myself break out in a cold sweat. Sweat. Jeez, now I know why he’s not looking at me. I’m disgusting. He’s probably breathing through his mouth right now just to keep from passing out being this close to me.

Embarrassment makes for a convenient adrenaline replacer, and I jolt upward so fast, I nearly forget not to put weight on my right foot.

“Oh, look at that! All better already.” I force a smile. My foot is killing me. Well, maybe it’s a combination of things, but something, everything...is killing me.

“Tessa, your toe is the size of a small cucumber.”

“Uh-huh,” I squeak, doing my best to walk without hobbling.

“You should keep ice on it for a little while longer. And put it up. And, you know, maybe get X-rays,” he calls after me, but I’m far enough down the hall to pretend I can’t hear him. Just a few more feet and I’m in the bathroom, completely out of reach.

As it turns out, showering results in more than eliminating the stink. After mulling everything over until the steaming hot water turned icy cold, I’ve concluded that moving forward as if the previous twenty-four hours never happened, is my best possible plan of action. I’m not entirely sure how I’ll convey my plan to him without acknowledging the lineup of disasters leading up to it, but maybe feigning complete obliviousness will work. He doesn’t know me that well. I could a be total airhead.

I’m even fairly certain pleading ignorance is my best bet on the whole roommate - professor debacle. Seems like that’s more his problem than mine anyway. Unless he decides it is a problem, in which case it becomes my problem because I’m thinking his lease will hold up over my desire to deny he has one. So, he likely won’t move. And I, well, I have nowhere else to go.

Drea’s place is supposed to be a two bedroom just like mine, but the spare room has long been converted to her music room slash recording studio, hence my sleeping over in his dining room. And with Scott spending more time there than at his multi-bachelor bachelor pad, it’s already on the cramped side most of the time. Of course, there’s Jules and her generous yet totally selfish offer to switch condos, and while I do like her super pimped out pad more than my own most days, I tend to think I’ll like it drastically less when her fifty something sugar daddy shows up expecting, well, ya know...rent.

Finally clean and in my most comfy sweatpants, I walk back into the living room feeling like a sparkling new person. Or at the very least, a person instead of a grotesque beast. My toe is another story. It still looks like it belongs to a grotesque beast. But, I’m oblivious, so I don’t care.

“You got a present while you were in the shower.” Michael is standing behind the breakfast bar, making a sandwich. No, two sandwiches.

“I did?” I’m not sure I’m up for presents. Given the way my life is going, it’s probably something like cat puke in a place Drea really doesn’t want cat puke, and I’m really not in the mood to have my new sparkle besmirched with cat puke two seconds in.

He slides one of the sandwiches in my direction and gives a nod toward the living room. “I assume that belongs to you.”

My eyes follow his nod and land on Dick.  I notice they do that a lot around here lately. “Drea bring him by?” I ask, doing a weird skip walk thing, as if that could possibly hide my limping, to get to Dick and give him a proper hello.

“Nope. Just slipped in through the open balcony door and refused to leave this time.” Michael grins, coming around the counter to take a seat at the breakfast bar beside the second sandwich. The one he made for me. I haven’t really had a chance to take that reality in just yet.

“Yeah. That pretty much sums up how he became my cat in the first place.” I sigh and back it up as smoothly as I can until I reach the bar stool beside Hot New Sandwich Making Roommate.

Nope.

Too long.

Won’t stick.

There’s an awkward moment where he’s staring at me while chewing. Finally, he swallows. “What? You don’t like turkey?”

“Turkey’s good.” I nod.

“You’re not hungry?”

“Starving.” That shit pizza at Drea’s hardly curbed my appetite. Mostly, it just made me miss real food.

He places his half-eaten turkey on wheat back onto his plate, brushes the crumbs from his hands and leans sideways into his elbow to get a better angle at me. “Is this one of those moments where I shouldn’t assume that you know I made a sandwich for you?”

“I mean, I sort of figured,” I admit, climbing onto my own stool, “but given my poor conclusion drawing process the past twenty-four hours, I think it’s best if we both just agree to spell everything out for one another until we really have a grasp on this new arrangement. And each other.”

He smirks. He’s amused by me. At me. I don’t know. Whatever

“I present to you, turkey, swiss cheese, avocado, tomato and a little mustard, layered neatly between two slices of fresh whole wheat bread. It’s yours. Because I was hungry. And eating in front of someone is rude.” He picks up his sandwich again. “And also, because eating alone sucks. Which we’ll both be doing if you don’t hurry up and take your first bite before I take my last.”

He doesn’t need to tell me twice. One ginormous bite later and my belly and taste buds are equally impressed with my new roommate. Michael. Mike? Professor McMichael?

I can feel my lip curl up involuntarily. And it’s not even for a good reason, other than I’m entertained by my own silly contemplation of his name and why it’s so clearly not...his name. “What is it that people really call you?”

He doesn’t laugh. Or smirk. But his eyes light up with something new. Intrigue? Surprise? I don’t know, but it’s a new version of the usual steady gaze he keeps on me that makes me feel like I’m a caged animal in his personal lab somewhere. “What do you mean?”

I take another bite, to stall. Now that I’ve opened this can of worms I kind of wish I hadn’t. “I just figured you had a nickname.”

He chews way longer than he needs to before he swallows. “Like Mike?”

I shake my head. “I think we both know you don’t go by Mike.”

He holds the last of his crust within an inch of his mouth, and for a moment I think he’s going to eat it, chew for five minutes and really make me sweat it out. Then he grins and the crust drops back down an inch. “I don’t look like a Mike?”

My nose and mouth scrunch up before I can stop them. It really bothers me that much. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not even sure I’m buying that his last name is McMichael.

“You don’t have the right hair for Mike.”

This time he laughs. Loudly. Delightedly. A pleased laugh. Which, would be odd if this conversation wasn’t already so dumb.

“I don’t have the right hair for Mike? Wow. Well, then. Do I have the right hair for Max? Doug? Or maybe Jason?”

“You’re just throwing names out there now.” Annoyed, I abandon ship and jump face first into the sandwich in front of me, resigning myself to calling him Michael for all eternity.

He’s still staring at the side of my head. I can feel it, but I refuse to acknowledge it.

“Well, if I don’t have the right hair for any of those names, I guess I better stick with Lane then.”

Lane.

Slowly, I turn back to face him. “You totally have Lane hair.”

He grins broadly, all of his shiny white teeth peeking out. “Apparently. Who knew!?”

––––––––

FORMERLY HOT NEW SANDWICH Making Roommate...now simply known as: Lane.

So much for making changes and taking time out from being me. It should have been so easy. Middle name out, real name in. Voila. New me. While I’ve never used my first name around friends or family, no one professionally has ever questioned it. Not once. Not even given the ridiculous combo of Michael and McMichael. But then along comes Tessa. Tessa the crazy girl with the umbrella. The flustered chick in nothing but a towel. The coffee addict with all the grace and strength of a circus performer.

My new roommate.

My student.

“So, weird coincidence this morning, huh?” I point out, sliding my plate out of the way and reaching for my water instead.

“I don’t know. Can anything between us still be categorized as weird? Haven’t we graduated past that yet? Onto something else, like...what’s weirder than weird?” Her left brow arches thoughtfully as she continues to contemplate the answer to her own question. “Kooky? Freaky? Ominous?”

“Ominous? Are we headed for danger? Is one of us still planning to kill the other with an umbrella when they’re naked and unarmed?”

She’s so caught off guard, she nearly spits avocado across the room. Fighting her way through laughing and choking she somehow manages to put words together. “Maybe ominous was a bad choice.”

“Maybe.” I smirk. She’s funny. And, I’m back at the beginning of my original train of thought. “Anyway, if you’re not too busy planning my murder, there is one small hiccup in our current plan to room together.”

She nods. She’s figured it out as well. “The whole student – teacher thing.”

“Exactly.” I spin my seat around to face her full on rather than twist. “How comfortable are you with secrets?”

She frowns. “What kind of secrets?”

I’d thought that part was obvious. Apparently, we’re still doing the spelling things out bit. “The kind where neither of us tells anyone that we’re living together.”

Her confusion only grows from here. “Not telling isn’t exactly going to hide anything. I’m sure someone, somewhere in admin will notice eventually that we share the same address. Provided there isn’t some sort of search engine already in place to pick up on such things.”

She’s a wee bit on the paranoid side, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For me. In this case in particular. “Our addresses aren’t the same.”

“Come again?”

“I got the job before I got the condo. And, I never updated my info.”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “You don’t feel like this may become an issue at some point down the road? You know they only forward your mail for like six months. What are you going to do after that? Just hope they don’t mail you anything important? Like your W2’s for example?”

“I bet you get told to relax a lot.”

Her jaw stiffens. Her mouth all but disappears and I now know what she would look like should she ever decide to grow a unibrow. “You’re right. I don’t know why I even care. Not my job on the line. Not my mail getting lost. Not. My. Problem. AT ALL.”

There’s a zip of her stool spinning and the breeze she leaves in her wake as she makes every effort to stomp off in a huff, but can’t quite pull it off because she’s polite and considerate, and takes the time to clear both our plates, rinse them and load them in the dishwasher before muttering a ‘thanks for the sandwich’ and continuing her dramatic exit.

This is the point at which I stop her. “I’m not going to lose any mail because I still own the house it’s being sent to. And, frankly, this job is...just a job. I have no intention of building a career around it. So, if it doesn’t pan out, oh well.”

Her exit successfully halted, I’ve topped my initial expectations and managed to stump her. “Huh?”

I release a long, worn out breath of air. My intentions were to keep things simple. To create a disconnect. To change course abruptly and not look back until I was so far ahead, looking back didn’t fucking hurt anymore. But those plans clearly only applied to life in a bubble. Blissful solitude which didn’t include people or their prying questions. All of which disappeared the second she came crashing in, swinging her dead aunt’s umbrella at my head.

Relenting to the situation such as it is, I get to my feet and approach her.

“I was supposed to get married end of May. The date was set two years ago. The wedding was paid for. Everything was ready. Except the bride.”

Her eyeballs sweep from one side to the other, presumably in search of an escape. “Oh.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much what I said too when I found out she wasn’t as keen on getting married to me as she was ready to trek through Europe with my best man.”

Her jaw drops and her eyeballs stop scanning the room, freezing instead. Directly on me. “Wow.”

“Uh-huh.” I hate telling this story. Which, I figured I would. This is the first time I’ve had to tell it. Considering it’s September, I guess I held it off for a pretty long time. “With the wedding being canceled, it kind of put a damper on our other plans as well.”

“Your other plans?” Fear. Definite fear in her voice. Hell, I’d be scared to ask as well. Curiosity though, it’s a killer.

“To buy a far greater house than we could possibly need, directly on the beach so we could use it as a home office and combine our practices to run a joint couple’s therapy center.”

The corners of her mouth jerk briefly as she wards off the instinct to laugh. “I can see where having your marriage be a bust could sort of cast a shadow on couple’s therapy.” I have to commend her for keeping a straight face through that one.

“Yep.”

Silence sets in as I give her time to piece the rest together for herself.

Eventually, her expression turns neutral. There’s a softness in her eyes when she nods and says, “I’m pretty comfortable with keeping secrets.”