Caught Between My Boyfriend and His Cousin novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Office Hours

Geoffrey keeps Miranda after class, doesn't report her, and sets one rule when her hand lands on his wrist; Brandon posts her leaving his office and threatens to out her to Grandma unless she comes to Sunday dinner.

"In touch?" Brandon said. "About what?"

Geoffrey turned the index card over in his fingers.

"The reading list," he said. "She emailed me with a question in September."

It was a smooth answer, and it was a lie, because I had never emailed him in my life.

Brandon narrowed his eyes at me, then at his cousin, then back at me.

"Huh," he said. "Weird that she'd never mention it."

"We don't tell each other everything," I said.

"We used to."

Maddie coughed into her sleeve with great effort.

Geoffrey looked at me over Brandon's shoulder, calm as a lake.

"Ms. Linden," he said. "My office, tomorrow at ten. Bring the question."

Then he walked up the aisle and out through the double doors, and Brandon stared after him.

The next morning I knocked on a door that said A. GEOFFREY, VISITING, in tape-and-marker letters.

"Come in."

His office was a borrowed one, with bare shelves and a window full of grey sky.

He sat behind the desk with his sleeves pushed up and a mug of black coffee.

His phone was lying on the desk in front of him, and my text was open on the screen.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

"I read this about forty times last night," he said.

"I'm so sorry."

"Are you?"

"A little," I said. "The first part, mostly."

"Which part is the first part?"

"The part where I sent it."

He almost smiled, and then he put it away.

"I'm not reporting you, Ms. Linden. You didn't threaten anyone, and I'm not your grader."

"Then why am I here?"

"Because Brandon told me last week that you two are on a break."

I leaned forward.

"We are not on a break. I ended it three weeks ago. He's the one who won't hear it."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I found out he was messaging another girl, and I said goodbye by text, and he sent back a thumbs up."

"A thumbs up."

"I'm not making that up."

Geoffrey didn't say anything for a moment.

His thumb moved on the edge of the desk, one slow pass over the wood.

"He's telling the family you're coming to dinner Sunday," he said. "My grandmother has set a place."

"Your grandmother?"

"She's his too. Our mothers are sisters."

I put my hands over my face.

"I texted a flirty joke to my ex's cousin. In front of two hundred people."

"Yes."

"I'm going to transfer schools."

"Don't," Geoffrey said. "You'd lose your credits."

I laughed in spite of myself, and the sound surprised both of us.

He held out my notebook, which I'd left under my chair.

I reached for it, and my fingers closed over his wrist by mistake.

Neither of us moved.

His skin was warm and his pulse was going hard under my thumb.

It did not match his face at all.

His face was bored.

"Ms. Linden," he said quietly.

"Sorry."

I didn't let go.

He didn't take his hand back either.

"One rule," he said.

"Okay."

"Nothing between us while I'm teaching you. Not a message, not a joke, not this."

He looked down at my thumb on his pulse.

"It's an easy rule," I said. "I'm not trying to start anything."

"No," he said. "Neither am I."

I let go.

My hand was shaking when I picked up my notebook, and I put it in my lap so he wouldn't see.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You may."

"The text. It didn't bother you."

"I'm a professor," he said. "I've been sent worse."

"That's not an answer."

"No," Geoffrey agreed, and drank his coffee.

I stood up.

At the door I turned around, and he was still sitting there with the cup halfway to his mouth, looking at the place where my hand had been.

I walked out into the hallway and into a sound I knew.

Phone cameras make a particular little click, and I turned toward it.

A girl from my econ section was holding hers up at me, grinning.

"Sorry!" she said. "It's just so funny."

By the time I got to the stairwell, my phone was buzzing in my pocket.

It was Maddie, in all caps.

BRANDON POSTED YOU LEAVING THE PROFESSOR'S OFFICE.

Then a screenshot.

My own face, leaving that door, in the group chat that held half my class.

Underneath it, Brandon had typed: "Chasing the new guy, huh? Aw, Mira. Do I need to be jealous?"

A new text slid in under it.

It was from Brandon, only to me.

"Grandma wants you at dinner Sunday. 6:00. If you're not there I'll tell her myself that you've been seeing my cousin."

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