Free Absolute Beginners (Absolute #1) by S.J. Hooks Page B

night with me, at least not her girlfriends or her online friends.
    That’s a load off my mind. Now I can forget that it ever happened and things can get back to normal
.

Chapter 6
    But they didn’t. By Friday afternoon, I was a complete nervous wreck, knowing that I would have to see Ms. Wilde in class. I was sitting in my office trying to mentally prepare myself when my colleague and friend Brian came in. He sat across from me, giving me a strange look.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You look…different.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Did you get your hair cut?”
    “No, it just looks like this when I don’t touch it after I’ve towel-dried it,” I said, wondering why we were talking about my hair. We had never discussed my appearance before.
    “Looks good,” he remarked, smiling. “You have plans this weekend? A date?”
    “No. Dinner at my parents’ tonight and I think Matt and I are going to the gym and then lunch afterward on Sunday.”
    The same as always
.
    “What about you?” I asked.
    “Jodie and the kids want to go to the zoo, so we’re going to the zoo,” he said, smiling helplessly. “I do miss being a bachelor sometimes, having all that time to myself.”
    I shrugged. I knew how much Brian loved his wife and their twin girls and most likely didn’t mean it. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” I told him. “Being on your own.”
    He nodded. “We’ll do something soon. Just you and me, OK?”
    “Sure.” I smiled, even though I knew that it probably wouldn’t happen.
    Brian had a family, and he spent his nights at home with them. It was as it should be. I wasn’t jealous of my friend, but I did wish for my own version of his life. I wanted a woman to spend my nights and weekends with, someone who cared about me and who called me on the phone. Someone I could care for and share my life with.
    I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
    Perhaps I should take a chance and finally let Matt set me up on a blind date. The university faculty seemed lacking when it came to eligible women around my age, and I didn’t have the first clue where else I’d meet a potential girlfriend since I didn’t like bars and clubs very much. Plus, I didn’t think the right woman for me frequented those kinds of places. I needed someone nice and—perhaps in Matt’s estimation—boring, but she wouldn’t feel that way to me, since I was apparently boring myself.
    Lost in thought, I nearly forgot my nervousness, but it returned tenfold when Brian got up and announced that it was time for his afternoon class. As I walked to my own class, my hands felt clammy and my heart pounded so fiercely that I worried others around me would notice. I needed to get back in control. I was Professor Worthington here, not the bumbling novice I’d been in Ms. Wilde’s bedroom. This was my domain, where I was respected and didn’t need any guidance. I just needed to hang on to that thought and the class would go by as usual. It was, after all, imperative that none of the other students got even the slightest inkling that I now knew her intimately.
    When I made it to the classroom, there were just a few people in the back and no sign of Ms. Wilde. I started taking out my notes and the book that we were discussing today:
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac.
    Heh heh, Kerou-whacking
.
    More students came in and my eyes were practically glued to the door, waiting for her arrival. Just as I was beginning to think she wasn’t coming, the door opened and she breezed into the room, looking completely different from the last time I’d seen her, fresh-faced and wearing workout clothes. Today, she had on a red short-sleeved T-shirt with a skull logo; a pair of black, ripped jeans that looked like they’d been painted onto her long, slim legs; and truly hideous sneakers. The hair on the sides of her head had been scooped up on top where it was fastened with pins to look like a Mohawk while the rest fell down