Big Girls Dont Cry (GirlxGirl~TeacherxStudent)

Chapter 8

Giana looked over the group of students crowding the pizzeria, coming up empty in her search for Bianca.

She'd headed home earlier after having been with James still puzzled as to why exactly he'd kissed her. She would have stayed and made him tell her but he'd ruffled her hair with a smile as he always did, pushed her out the door and said if she didn't get it he couldn't help her.

Despite what had happened with him she was still going to spend the night at his place, figuring he was the lesser of two evils. Bianca would most likely be waiting back at her house and she rather take her chances with James. What are the chances of a bi guy kissing you twice in one day?

"Hey, eat something, you're paying so have some of it or we'll feel guilty!" She looked up to see one of the guys that transferred into her class after the first day of the semester sit beside her, pushing a plate with a slice of pizza in front of her.

"I'm sorry, I never got your name," she said embarrassed. He'd always sat at the front of her classes, asked questions and even volunteered to help whenever she asked yet she didn't even know his name. Some professor she was.

"No need to blush Ms. Lace. I'm Ashton Ranger." He chuckled at the look on her face as she searched her mind to try and remember if she'd seen the name on any pieces but came up short. She had definitely heard his name before.

"I'm the Dean's son," he explained and it clicked, Giana feeling stupid for having not made the connection.

"Your dad talks a lot about you. You're on the university cross country team right?"

He beamed at her mention of cross country, stealing a pepperoni off her pizza and she smacked his hand away.

"You weren't eating it!" He protested, popping the stolen meat into his mouth.

"I was getting around to it."

He shook his head folding his arms over his chest as he watched her. "I heard you did track back in your day too."

"You make it sound like it was so long ago! And I only ran the relay and 200 metre one year." She replied, taking a bite out of her pizza.

"Still something. Do you still run? I jog every morning right past your house."

"You what!? Do all my students know where I live!?"

He burst into a fit of laughter, running his fingers through his unruly mass of hair.

"My dad lives two blocks down from you, I just jog that route in the mornings. Seen you once or twice chasing a cat on the front lawn."

Giana blanched as she remembered the times that Nelson had escaped and she'd had to catch him. Each one came up the same as the last, with her in her purple My Little Pony bathrobe and her blue fuzzy bunny-eared bedroom slippers running across the lawn to get her baby back inside before the neighbours started to complain about him.

Ashton's laughter grew even louder when he saw the look on her face.

"Don't worry. I love Fluttershy too," he teased her and she smacked him on the arm playfully, unable to help but smile at his antics.

They talked for quite a while, other students coming and going in the conversation. Giana hadn't spoken with this many people her own age about anything other than her classes in ages. Most of the people she spent time with were the other professors, most of whom were old enough to remember the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"Damn, my father's going to kill me!" Ashton swore as he looked at his watch.

"What's the matter? Past your curfew?" Giana joked.