I cringed when she referred to him as Dr. Michaels, when he was Jax to me. It just made it all that much worse. A tear pushed out of my eye underneath my glasses and I reached up a finger to brush it away. My head dropped and I stared at my lap while both hands clutched at the old comforter on my bed. “Yeah.”
“What about?” Her voice was comforting but held a hint of curiosity.
“You know Luke, right?” I finally pulled the glasses off and looked at her, certain that my face shone of the misery I was feeling.
“That cute T.A.?” Her eyes widened.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Oh, my God! Did he ask you out and the professor was jealous?” She seemed almost giddy at the prospect.
I huffed, pissed off at her assumption. As if that would ever happen. “Yeah, I’ve been screwing him on the side, sure,” I mocked. “Get real, Michelle! I’m seeing Jaxon Michaels, remember? Sex God, and talented as hell… how could I even look at anyone else?” I pushed off the bed and started digging around in one of the old milk crates we used as storage for canned and boxed goods positioned on one side of the refrigerator. I was intent on making some tea, but more, I just wanted to stop talking about it.
“Good point, but then, what’s the matter? And what does Luke have to do with it?” she asked perplexed.
“It’s nothing, really. He wants me to critique a manuscript he’s writing, but he doesn’t want Jax to find out, and wanted me to ask I replace the other assistant so we could work together.”
“So, what’s the big deal? Why doesn’t he just ask the professor to look at his book?”
I found the tea and ran some water into an old copper kettle, put it on the hot plate, and turned it on. I’d never complained about living here with Michelle; in fact, I’d loved living here for my college years, but the opulence of Jaxon’s penthouse screamed how above me he was. I felt defeated and sad. I sighed heavily, getting a mug from another milk crate Michelle’s brother had mounted on the wall above the refrigerator for us when we moved in three years earlier. “Luke thinks Jax would blow a gasket because he wasn’t devoting all of his spare time to his teaching assistant duties.” Luke was a graduate student, and his class load already makes assisting difficult.
“And what do you think, Addy? Would Dr. Michaels be upset about the time, or about you working together?”
I rolled the ceramic mug around between my hands, waiting for the water to boil. “I think he’d be upset that I lied about it more than anything else.”
“Ah,” she said knowingly. “Well, it will make it look like you are screwing Luke if you don’t explain the real reason. My opinion.”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting down on one of the two chairs that sat near the small table in our studio apartment. “But Luke doesn’t want Jax knowing he asked for help from a student, or that he’s even working on a book.”
“Why?” Michelle asked thoughtfully. “Why doesn’t he want it known he’s working on something of his own, I mean?”
“I don’t know.” The kettle began to whistle, and I got up to retrieve it and pour it over the Earl Grey tea bag now sitting inside my mug. “I want to help Luke; I feel guilty if I don’t, but it feels wrong to keep a secret from Jax. I was trying to figure it out, but it all got confused when Luke texted me this morning when we were still in bed, and Jax saw it.”
“Oh shit,” Michelle said incredulously. Her mouth curved into a smile. “Why were you texting some other dude when you were in bed with him? Are you nuts?”
“It was nothing! It only said; ‘have you spoken with Dr. Michaels?’”
“Was he jealous?”
I shook my head, reliving his livid expression in my mind. “No, he was pissed. I mean, yeah, maybe a little jealous.” I bobbed the tea bag in the hot water impatient for it to steep.
“Girl, you are so lucky! The Jaxon Michaels is jealous over you. What did he do?” she asked anxiously.
My head popped up and I paused, the gravity of her statement sinking in. Maybe Jax was jealous. Warm happiness filled my heart and started to radiate out to the rest of my body. I smiled gently. “Well, he lost his shit, I guess.” A laugh pushed its way up my chest and out of my surprised mouth. “He said Luke wants to get into my pants.”
“Doesn’t he?” she asked with a short laugh, her head cocked to one side and one brow arched skeptically.
I sipped at my tea and shook my head. “He genuinely wants my help.”
“Does Luke know about your book?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He just said he admired my work and asked if I’d help him.”
My best friend looked at me, her expression sympathetic. “Well, if it were me, there would be no choice at all. I think you know where your loyalties lie. You don’t think Luke will tank your grade, do you?”
It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I don’t think so, no. Where are you headed?” I asked, noticing again she was dressed to go out.
“Mark is picking me up, and we’re going shopping. Do you want me to stay in with you, instead?” she asked, concerned.
I frowned at her wryly, surprised she’d even consider it. “Of course not. I’ll be fine. I’ll just take a shower and then clean up a little around here. Maybe do some laundry and do some homework.” It wasn’t the way I’d hoped to spend the weekend and my heart hurt a little. “Do you have anything you’d like me to throw in with mine?” Lugging baskets of dirty clothes down four flights of stairs into the basement of the building and back up again filled me with dread. It had to be done, and hopefully, it would keep my mind off of Jax.
Michelle’s face lit up. “Really?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”
“You’re the best, Addy!” She went to the closet and pulled out a white plastic basket overflowing with the weeks’ worth of laundry and tugged it into the center of the room.
I dumped out the remaining tea from my cup in the sink and started to rinse it out when there was a knock on the door.
I glanced at my roommate as I finished the task. “Did you give Mark the combination to the building?”
“Yeah, he has it, but I don’t expect him for fifteen minutes.” She walked to the door and looked through the peep hole. “Um…” Michelle turned to me her expression incredulous. She pointed twice at the closed door. “It’s Dr. Michaels.”
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed in a desperate whisper. My heart started to race, and I was overly conscious of how my makeup was smudged by sleep and tears, my hair was a mess, and the meager studio cluttered, and bleak compared to his lush penthouse. I launched into action, shoving Michelle’s laundry back into her closet and pulling at the curtain that served as a closet door to cover it. I turned almost a complete circle, unsure of what to clean up next.
“Shit?” Michelle asked. “I’d say it’s more like incredible!”
I used my hands to silently ask her to lower her voice, and she complied.
“He is here, Addy! That means something! Open the door!” she whispered furiously, exuberance filling her expression.