I Kissed a Stranger to Spite My Cheating Boyfriend, and Monday He Was the Professor With a Rule Against Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Seawall Eight
Caden calls her a liar in the dining hall, Elias takes his hand off her tray, and the dean asks Liv whether she has ever swum off the crab fleet at night.
Caden found me in the dining hall on Thursday, at the long table by the chowder line, with two hundred people watching.
I had a tray in my hands.
Freya was beside me, and she saw him coming before I did.
"Oh, no," she said.
"Not at the soup."
He had the Seawall Eight with him, all eleven of them, in their navy team jackets.
He stopped a pace from me and put on the face he used for the dock, the easy open one.
"Liv," he said.
"Come on.
"It was a joke."
"It was a joke for ten months," I said.
"Say it to my face, then, in front of everyone.
"You kissed a professor for attention."
A few of the boys laughed and then stopped.
I held my tray steady.
"I kissed a stranger," I said.
"Because you were holding a girl in front of your team and telling them I never put out."
"You never did."
"I never wanted to," I said.
"Not with you."
That quieted the nearest tables.
A girl at the end of one bench put her spoon down.
Caden's smile went thin.
"That's not what you said in March," he said.
"In March I said I wasn't ready.
"You told a dozen people."
His hand shot out and took the edge of my tray.
He didn't pull it.
He just held it, and leaned in, and spoke softly enough that only the first row could hear.
"Everybody knows what you are," he said.
"A cold little scholarship girl who wants out of a crab boat, and found a professor to blow."
I felt it go through me like cold water.
I set my jaw and held the tray with both hands.
A hand closed over Caden's wrist.
It was broad and tanned, with a pale scar running across the back, and it didn't squeeze.
It simply lifted Caden's hand off my tray and held it in the air.
"Let go of it," Dr. Reinholt said.
He had come up behind Caden without a sound.
He wore the charcoal shell, with his field bag, and a lunch tray in his other hand with a bowl of chowder on it.
He looked as though he had come for soup.
"Dr. Reinholt," Caden said.
His voice cracked on the second word.
"You're not allowed to touch me.
"It's your own rule."
"It is," Elias said.
"I'm touching your wrist because you were holding a student's tray against her will.
"Now I'm letting go."
He opened his fingers.
Caden pulled his hand back and rubbed his wrist.
"She kissed you in front of the whole team," he said.
"She did.
"And you told her in front of the whole team that she never put out."
Elias's voice stayed even, but it carried across the entire hall.
"Here is what I would like every person in this room to understand.
"Miss Gundersen did nothing wrong on that dock.
"I did, and I will answer for it to the dean.
"Anyone who films her, or posts her name, or repeats that line, will answer to me."
A long silence followed.
Somebody dropped a fork.
He turned to the boy beside Caden.
"Your name?"
The boy told him.
"You will delete the video from your phone, and from the team chat, and bring me the phone on Monday."
"You can't do that," Caden said.
"I can," Elias said.
"It's a conduct matter on the dock, and I'm a witness.
"The dean will agree."
He turned to me.
"Miss Gundersen, your chowder is getting cold."
I looked at him.
He looked back, and the corner of his mouth moved a quarter of an inch, and was still.
I sat down.
Freya sat beside me and picked up her spoon with her mouth hanging open.
"Did he just," she whispered, "say that in a cafeteria?"
"He did."
"I'm going to need a minute."
The Seawall Eight drifted away from the table.
Caden stood where he was for a moment longer, with his jaw set and his eyes on me.
Then he left too.
"Miss Gundersen," a voice said above me.
It was a dry, courteous voice with no hurry in it.
The dean stood at the end of the table in her navy suit, with her hands folded, as though she had been there a while.
"A word, if you would," she said.
"It won't take long."
I followed her to the window.
She looked down at the channel.
The tide was going out, and the seawall stood up black and slick out of the water.
"You grew up on the crab fleet," she said.
"Out of Anacortes."
"Yes, ma'am," I said.
"Your father runs a boat there."
"The Marit Gundersen.
"He's got a bad knee."
"I'm sorry to hear it."
She said it the way a person says it who has already checked.
"Tell me," she said, without turning her head.
"Have you ever swum off the crab fleet at night?"
It was a strange question.
I thought of June, and a long dark warm water, and the stars, and a voice I didn't let myself hear.
My left wrist felt tight under the strap.
I made my face blank.
"I swim off my father's boat every summer," I said.
"Everyone in my family does."
"At night?"
"When the pots are set, ma'am.
"It's the only time we have."
She was silent a moment.
Then she smiled, thin and courteous.
"Thank you," she said.
"That will be all."
I turned to go.
At the other end of the dining hall, by the door, Elias Reinholt had stopped with his untouched tray.
He had been standing there, I realised, for the whole of her question.
His face was perfectly still.
It wasn't the stillness he used for teaching.
It was a man's face when a bone has just been set.
His eyes went to my wrist, and the strap, and came back up to mine.
Then he picked up his tray and walked out without his soup.
← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend