Kelly straightened her shirt, swiped on some lip gloss, and ran out the door, book bag in tow. She was running a little late for her meeting with her thesis advisor, and she really hated to be late. Still, she knew he would understand. Jake - Professor Aron - had been her mentor, really more her friend, for eight years now. When they'd met, she was a lowly freshman and he'd been a teacher's assistant, halfway through getting his PhD. She'd hit on him, believing all TAs were in it only for the T and A, thinking of letting loose now that she was in college. He'd stayed aloof for a long time, finally warming up to her, but eventually she found out he was dating someone seriously.
She'd played the field for a few years, slept with plenty of other young men, and when Jake had finally broken up with his girlfriend, Kelly was in a relationship with Mark, her current boyfriend of four years. She and Jake had lost touch after her graduation, exchanging only the occasional e-mail. She told herself she was way over her silly little crush, but deep down she knew it wasn't true. When she'd decided to return to school for her MA, she was surprised to find that Jake had taken a position with her alma mater. Although she was no longer studying in his field, she'd automatically asked him to be one of her thesis advisors, and he had agreed.
Mark hadn't really liked the amount of time she'd been spending with Jake, but she chalked it up to being serious about her thesis work. Jake, for his part, had been amazingly generous with his time, going over each step of the process with her, and occasionally letting her buy him dinner.
Tonight was one such night. She expected to be home late, and had endured Mark's grumbling in the morning about it. She'd probably hear it from him again that night. Oh well, he could get over it.
She stepped into the cafe and saw Jake, already set up at a table with a stack of papers in front of him. As she crossed the floor, she studied him. He'd grown a short light-brown beard since she'd known him, and she really thought it suited him. His blue eyes were much lighter than you'd think, and right now they were scanning a paper from behind a pair of glasses. He was wearing his usual outfit: slim jeans, loafers, corduroy jacket and tie. Hip professor chic, she guessed. He was pretty young for a professor - just barely 30, only six years older than she was.
She slid into the booth across from him, bumping his ankle with her foot.
"Hey, Jake. Sorry I'm late," Kelly said.
"No problem. Had this whole stack of papers to grade, anyway. How's it going?"
"Good, I guess. Feel like I'm stuck on the statistics again. They don't say what I think they should say, so I'm trying to find a way to explain it, and I'm coming up empty."
"Hmmkay, let's take a look at what you've got there."
An hour of chatting, furious note-taking, and french-fry-eating later, Kelly had a better handle on her statistical problem. She leaned back, stretching her arms overhead.
"So, what else is going on with you? Any hot coeds hit on you lately?" she asked cheekily.
"Oh man, you wouldn't believe it!" he said, adding with a wry smile, "But, none of them are as cute as you were."
Kelly shifted as she felt a strange jolt of jealousy. She considered herself pretty cute, but wasn't there something special about nubile barely-legals? She frowned down at the table, prompting Jake to touch the back of her hand lightly.
"Hey, come on. I value my job way too much to boink a couple of silly little girls, even if I wanted to. Plus, I'd have to give them better grades if I did. That's how that works, right?" He grinned, and Kelly had to smile back.
"No, seriously, what else is going on with you? We always talk too much about me," she replied.
"Not much, I'm afraid. I'm moving into a hotel for a while this weekend, that's about it."
"What? Why?"
"Well, my apartment lease is up, but the place I was getting ready to move into, the woman who was renting it out reneged on the deal when her adult son got kicked out of his housing, so... truthfully I've been really wanting to get out of this apartment for a while, so, I'm just going to be laying low at a hotel until I find another place. Hopefully it won't take too long."
"Geez, aren't hotels really expensive?"
He shrugged. "It's no thrill, but I don't really have another option. I don't have any family or friends in the area with a room for rent, and I'd rather not sleep on a couch for any longer than I have to."
Kelly was quiet for a minute. She and Mark had a second room that they kept as a guest room because his mother was, ugh, unfortunately a pretty frequent visitor. Why she couldn't stay in a hotel room, Kelly didn't know, but Mark hated to turn out family. He would be pretty pissed if she offered it up without asking him first. But what the hell, it was her apartment anyway - HE had moved in with HER. Screw it.
"Why don't you come stay with us? We have a guest room."
"No, I don't know, I wouldn't want to put you guys out."
"You won't be! Actually, you'd be really doing me a favor, because my boyfriend's mother couldn't come visit while you're there, and, well, I really... we don't like each other."
"Then why does she stay with you?"
"Don't ask me, I have no idea. If it were just me, I'd tell her to go to a hotel, but Mark is... well, it's family, and I guess there's a thing about it being family. I don't know."
"Uhhh, okay. Well, shouldn't you check with Mark first?"
"No, he'll be fine with it. Come on, think about it. Kitchen privileges, you'd have your own bathroom, access to our big-screen TV, and I would promise not to abuse your proximity too much by talking about my paper constantly," she said with a grin.
"Wellllll... okay. You'd have to let me pay you guys rent, though."
"No way! That room just goes totally empty most of the time anyway."
"At least let me pay you a little bit for utilities and stuff."
"Okay, that seems fair."
