Professor's Pet (mxb)

Chapter Nine

Aidan's POV

I tried to avoid texting Finn all of Sunday and it mostly worked. There was one point when he sent the longest thank you I'd ever received, so I read and responded. I tried to keep communicating to a minimal besides that. He was oddly addicting to me and that was definitely a bad sign.

My feelings for Finn weren't confusing to me. In fact, they were familiar. Well over a decade ago, I'd began developing the same exact feelings for my husband, Adam.

We'd met at a coffee shop by the campus. He'd been working there to pay off student loans and I'd been buying from there to get me through graduate school alive. Or at least it started that way. Once I'd met the sweet little undergrad, I began visiting less for the coffee and more for the flirting.

His coworker gave me his number on a coffee cup and I took him on a date. We fell in love and I proposed and then we were married, him at 21 and me at 25.

And a year after I found out he'd cheated on me, so I cheated on him. We fought, we fell out of love, and divorced with no civility whatsoever. I promised myself I would never do anything like it ever again. Love was fake and boys were evil.

Finn didn't seem evil, but Adam hadn't either at first.

...Oh and he was my student. Yeah. That too.

I groaned and flopped onto my couch. Finn was taking over my brain. I'd been trying to put final touches on the quizzes that I was giving out in class today, but my mind kept wandering to him. I found myself switching some of the questions out for ones that covered material that Finn and I had worked on together.

"I can't give him a free ride through my class, Jack," I told him. "That's just not right."

Jack kept chewing his bone, so clearly he didn't care either way. I probably shouldn't bog him down with my problems anyway.

"Alright, boy. The quizzes are pretty much done, so I have to head on over to campus now. I told students they could seem me before class if they had questions. I'm gonna miss you, okay?"

I stood up to get my shoes on and Jack hopped up, wagging his tail. He followed me to the door and stared up at me with those big brown eyes and my heart melted.

"Okay, you can come."

Jack and I drove the forty minutes to campus and some of my fellow professors chuckled when they saw me with Jack. They always shook their head and called me a rebel, saying it was a miracle I wasn't fired already. It was probably teasing, but it still irritated me. Jack was definitely not a reason for me to get fired.

It wasn't really surprising when Finn Evans was the only student waiting at the bench outside my office. I rolled my eyes and stared at him.

His hair was pulled back into a messy bun with a couple of flowers sticking out of it. They were pink and definitely real. He'd gone out of his way to find flowers to match the light pink shirt he had on. That was so...gay?

"Hi Jack!"

I facepalmed as Jack and Finn greeted each other like long-lost lovers. Finn plopped on the ground and Jack licked his face, making the boy shake with laughter. I huffed and walked past them to get into my office.

Finn poked his head inside and smiled. "I have a couple questions."

I waved at the chair next to me. "Mm. Sit."

He plopped down and I assessed his weird accessory choices. He also had a couple of golden necklaces hanging around his neck and a pink earring. His jeans were ripped all over and his hands were adorned with bracelets and rings.