CHAPTER 1

Samantha:

Playing attendance roulette is my new thing lately. I need to get a better handle on my morning routine. I’ve already had three tardies in my 9 a.m. Cultural Anthropology class, and four counts as an absence. We’re barely halfway through the semester, and I’m already just one absence shy of an automatic failure, per Dr. Peterson’s three-strikes-and-you’re-a-failure policy. I just need to make it through the next four weeks with perfect attendance.

I’m doomed.

“Take Anthropology, they said. It will be an easy A, they said,” I mutter to myself as I leave my car parked crooked in the closest space to Archer Hall and race across the quad toward my class. True to form, I step into Dr. Peterson’s class two minutes late. Maybe if I keep my head low, he won’t see me. Hunching my shoulders and trying my best to become as small as possible, I make for the nearest empty desk and slide into the seat.

When no gravelly voice barks the usual, “Tardy, Miss Martel,” I finally dare to look over at Dr. Peterson’s desk. Maybe he didn’t notice me coming in—or just didn’t care.

But Dr. Peterson isn’t behind his desk. Instead, a much younger guy is in the old man’s ratty, brown, rolling chair. And he’s crazy gorgeous. Dark hair, heavy-lidded bedroom eyes, sketch-me bone structure, and soft dimples framing pale pink lips. A flurry of nervous energy sends my stomach spiraling—a combination of attraction to him and embarrassment at being caught with my punctuality pants down. Warmth heats my cheeks—and somewhere decidedly lower—but I don’t look away, can’t look away.

“Good morning, class,” he says in a velvety-smooth voice as he stands to write on the board behind him. Mr. Moore. “I’ll be filling in for a while.” Teacher? He barely looks old enough to not be a student.

Cynda Smith’s dainty hand shoots into the air and flutters, drawing Mr. Moore’s attention to her. He gives her a head tilt and a raised brow.

“Are you our teacher now? What happened to Dr. Peterson?” she asks and flips a long lock of platinum hair over her shoulder.

“Dr. Peterson’s dealing with a family illness. I’m his TA, and I’ll be finishing out the rest of the semester with you guys. With his oversight, of course,” he tells the class more than Cynda even though she asked the question.

I’m going to get to start every Monday and Wednesday morning staring at this gorgeous man? I suddenly foresee myself becoming a much more diligent student. Too bad I can’t have Anthropology every day. I’ll just have to make the most of my class time. Luckily, this is the one environment where it’s expected for me to stare at him.

Maybe he won’t notice the drool.

He sets his hands on his hips all casual like, and his gray polo stretches taut over his biceps and chest, revealing the contours of well-defined muscles. He’s speaking, addressing the whole class, but his words aren’t registering in my brain. I’m pretty sure the language centers of my brain have completely stopped functioning. I hear that deep, raspy voice, and watch his perfect lips moving, but he might as well be speaking an alien language for all I comprehend.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket, snapping me out of this weird, hypnotized state. I sneak the phone out of my pocket and under my desk. I have not one, not two, but three new messages from my friend Abby. I raise my head and scan the room, looking for her since she’s in this class with me. I find her on the far side of the room, near the windows, and she’s looking at me expectantly. I can tell by the look on her face that I better check my messages before she does something to get us both in trouble. Abby isn’t exactly known for her subtlety.

Abby: OMG the new teacher! Beautiful!

Abby: Can I keep him, Mommy?

Abby: Oh, and that voice! Swoon!

Another message comes through almost immediately.

Abby: Girl, I am so all over this. I think I need to earn some extra credit!

I waste no time responding.

Me: Dibs!

She ends the conversation with a sad face. I slide my phone back into my pocket and settle in to watch the Greek god at the front of the room talk about cultural universals. When class ends—way too soon for my liking—I meet Abby in the hall, and we walk together to the sociology building. Her Feminist Perspective class is across the hall from my National Government class. Okay, we might have mapped out our schedules this semester so that, even though we aren’t taking all of the same classes, we can still take classes in the same building at the same time.

“So, the new teacher…” she says suggestively.

“TA,” I correct. I’m not sure why the distinction matters to me, but it does. Somehow, him being a TA and not an actual professor makes him feel more… attainable. Like I might actually have a chance with him. Which is silly because he is still teaching the class.

“TA… as in Total Adonis.” She fluffs her hair like she’s primping to impress, even though none of the other students traveling the hallway are paying us any attention.

“You know he was killed by a boar right?” I ask as I push open the glass door leading out to the quad.

“Who, the TA?”

I snicker. “Adonis. Plus, if I’m remember my mythology right, he was his own uncle.”

“Like incest?” Abby’s tone is both curious and concerned.

“Yep. His dad was his grandpa. His mom totally got it on with her own father,” I answer, only half paying attention to our conversation and our trek across the quad as I pull out my phone to read an incoming text from my roommate, Maggie.

Maggie: Are you coming home after class? There’s something Michael and I want to talk to you about.

Weird. Why would Maggie’s boyfriend want to talk to me?

“So, he’s got a sister-mom,” Abby says, and a moment passes before I realize she’s talking about Adonis and not Maggie’s boyfriend, Michael.

“Yep,” I answer Abby as I type my response to Maggie.

Me: Is this about me supergluing the toilet seat down so he’ll stop leaving it up in the middle of the night?

Even if that is what he wants to talk to me about, I’m not sorry I did it. That was completely justified. A girl can only fall bare assed into the toilet so many times before extreme measures are called for. I will 100 percent die on that hill.

Maggie: No, nothing like that. Will you come home after class, though?

Maggie: Please?

Whatever it is must be serious. She typed out the actual word please instead of the letters P–L–Z.

Me: OK sure.

I don’t have time to muse over what this might be about because Abby and I arrive in the hall outside our respective classes with only a few minutes to spare. “I guess Maggie and I aren’t doing lunch today,” I tell Abby. Most days, the three of us meet for lunch in the cafeteria. It’s a holdover from our freshman year when we all lived on campus and none of us had a car. Maybe one day, we’ll graduate to big girl lunches off campus, but for now, the cafeteria lunch dates are comfortable, like my favorite pair of old pajamas.

“How come?”

I slip my phone into my back pocket and balance my books on my arm, preparing to open the door to my class. “Maggie wants me to come to the apartment so she and Michael can talk to me about something.”

“I bet it’s that they want to install a sex swing in the living room,” Abby responds with a snort.

I laugh. “Yeah, right. And my Nana moonlights as a dominatrix.” I find the idea of Maggie’s boyfriend even knowing what a sex swing is highly amusing. He’s as straightlaced as I’ve ever seen. “I’m pretty sure he was a virgin when they met.”

“Probably has something to do with the fact that he’s been dressing like a middle-aged lawyer since he was five.” Abby mimes putting on a suit coat and straightening an invisible tie.

“Abby!” I admonish. “That’s not nice to say behind his back.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve said it to his face. Makes no difference. I’m pretty sure the guy chafes at the idea of wearing a pair of jeans. I bet his junk is so sensitive he has to wear silk boxers.”

“And on that note…” I reach for the door handle and tug the door to my classroom open. “I’m going to class. But thanks for the weird imagery of my roommate’s boyfriend’s underwear choices.”

Abby winks at me and retreats to her own classroom. Hopefully, I can get the image of Michael in silk boxers out of my head before I have to face him and Maggie later.