He placed a kiss on the tip of my nose and got up. I loved seeing him standing naked in my dorm room. After bumping into him in the coffee shop, I never would have thought I’d ever see him again, let alone date him. He pulled on his boxers and pants. When he put on his shirt, I got up and slowly buttoned it for him. He smiled as he watched me. After buttoning one of the last buttons, I pulled his collar and brought his lips to mine.
“You’re making it hard for me to leave,” he said after a soft kiss.
I laughed and let go of his collar. I quickly dressed as Professor Hunter laced his shoes. Once his tie was tied, he looked around my room again. He eyed the roses in the trash.
“Not a fan of roses?”
“Oh I am. It was just that a domineering professor gave them to me. Or else I would have loved them.”
Professor Hunter laughed. “Before I leave, let me see your phone.”
My cell phone was still sitting on my desk. I grabbed it and handed it to him. He typed in something and handed it back to me. I looked down and saw that he had changed his contact name to James.
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to call you James in private?”
“Apparently your phone isn’t private.”
I bit my lip. So he was mad. He rubbed his thumb along my lower lip and gave me a small smile.
“My girlfriends usually call me James.”
“That makes it sound like you have more than one girlfriend right now. Am I one of several?”
“Dozens.”
I nudged his shoulder with my hand.
“No, just you, Penny.” He grabbed his suit jacket and draped it over his shoulder. “Let me know how your conversation with Melissa goes.”
“I will.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again. “I’ll text you later, James.”
Monday
Melissa came in the door with two bags. She kicked the door closed with her foot and put her backpack on the ground.
“Hey, Melissa.”
“Hey! Wow, you look a lot better, Penny. Did you take a nap or something?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “And I do feel a lot better.”
“Okay, this one is yours.” She tossed me one of the bags as she sat down beside me on my bed.
“Thanks for picking up dinner.” I opened up the container and snapped my chopsticks apart.
“So how did your conversation with Tyler go?”
Tyler. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about him. I had treated him so horribly. I twirled a noodle around my chopsticks. “Not great.”
“Did you tell him about James?”
“He found out on his own. James tried to call me while Tyler had my phone.”
“Oh. Well, he’s dating someone else too. He couldn’t have been that upset.”
“But it wasn’t just that I was dating someone else. It was that I had lied about it to him. I kept using getting over Austin as an excuse to not date Tyler, when really I was seeing James the whole time. I should have told him right away.” Just like I should have told you. Maybe I should have let Professor Hunter stay to explain things.
“What did Tyler say to you?”
“I hurt him, Melissa. He hates me.”
“I’m sorry, Penny.”
Things with Professor Hunter were great, but I had lost one of my closest friends in the process. Even though I had told Tyler I only wanted to be friends, I had lied to him about the reason why. And then I almost jumped into bed with Tyler as soon as there was a glitch in my relationship with Professor Hunter. What is wrong with me?
As if hearing my question to myself, Melissa said, “Okay I have to ask. What is going on with you? Dating two guys at once is really not like you.”
“No, it’s not at all. I guess I was going back and forth in my head just because I was mad at James. I’ve never had such an instant connection with anyone before. It’s really hard to explain.”
“When we went through the pro con list between James and Tyler, Tyler clearly won. But I could tell that you wanted to be with James. I get it. Either there’s that connection or there isn’t.”
I nodded.
“There’s one thing I’m still confused about, though. Why didn’t you just tell Tyler you were seeing someone else right away? Were you worried you were going to hurt his feelings?”
On paper, Tyler had won. Why hadn’t I just told him I was seeing someone, without saying it was Professor Hunter? Because I told Melissa that I was dating someone else. It was because I knew I could see myself with Tyler too. I really could. I had been keeping him as a backup plan. I was an awful person.
“I never really believed James could possibly like someone like me. I thought our relationship was doomed from the start. I think I wanted Tyler to like me. Because I knew he would be great to date too. Please don’t think less of me. Tyler was my backup plan.”
Melissa laughed. “Everyone has a backup, Penny. I don’t think anyone has ever made Tyler a backup before though, because he is damn sexy.” She paused. “Sorry.”
I looked down at my food. “Do you think he’ll ever want to be my friend again?”
“Penny, I don’t really think men and women can be friends. I already told the two of you this when you were both pretending to be friends. Someone always wants more, and in this case you both wanted more. Unless Tyler is gay. If he’s gay, you guys can be friends.”
“He’s definitely not gay.”
“Then you were never just friends and never can be just friends. Besides, if you ever wanted to get serious with James, he would probably get jealous if you were friends with another guy.”
Professor Hunter was jealous. He had asked me on our first date not to see Tyler anymore. Melissa was so good at stuff like this. I should have been talking to her about everything from the start.
“Okay, so what happened with your speech today then? You said you were mad?”
It was time to tell her now. I swallowed hard. “Remember when I slept over James’ apartment last week?”
Melissa nodded.
“When I woke up I wanted to change into clean clothes.” I tried not to blush. I had actually been naked and needed something to wear. “So I borrowed a shirt from one of his drawers and I found his wedding ring.”
Melissa stared at me. I thought she was waiting for me to say just kidding or something. When I didn’t, she said, “What an asshole. Oh my God! And I convinced you to try and work things out with him? Why didn’t you tell me, Penny?!”
“I was embarrassed. I was so mortified. I felt like it was partially my fault and I felt so guilty. But your advice was actually good. Because when I talked to him on Saturday I found out that he had left his wife. He filed for divorce last year.”
“So they’re divorced? Well that’s a relief, you little home-wrecker.” Melissa smiled.
My stomach knotted. “The divorce isn’t official yet. Apparently she won’t sign the papers.”
Melissa scrunched her mouth to the side. I could tell that she still thought Professor Hunter was sleazy. She definitely didn’t approve. But she didn’t know how sincere he was when he talked to me. He didn’t love his soon to be ex-wife.