Teaching Mr. Graham

Chapter Twenty-Eight

    "So he got a little jelly, huh?" Kenya asked, giggling while applying eyeliner to her lower eyelid.

    "It was kind of cute," Tatiana said. She sat at her desk, reviewing what she'd written in class earlier that day.

    Kenya stood in the center of the room, holding up a compact mirror to her face. She wore a cute, knee-length black dress with short sleeves. Tonight, she had another date with Eric. "If he's this crazy over you now, just wait until you finally give it up," she told Tatiana, flipping her compact shut and walking over to her bed.

    Tatiana couldn't even think about 'giving it up' to Aubrey. The thought sent shivers down her spine. "Enough about me. You and Eric seem to be getting serious."

    "It's too early to say things are serious," Kenya said, rummaging through her purse. "But he's doing a good job of keeping me interested."

    "Where are you two going?"

    "I don't know." Kenya slung her purse over her shoulder and smoothed her dress down. "He said it's a surprise. How do I look?"

    "Phenomenal as always."

    Kenya gave her a long look. "You had two guys come close to fighting over you today and you look miserable."

    Tatiana shrugged and sighed. "Aubrey wants to go to the basketball game this Friday. And...he wants me to go so we can bump into each other."

    "Did I miss something?" Kenya asked with her brows furrowed. "Drake wants to spend time with you and that's supposed to be a bad thing?"

    Standing and walking over to the window of their dorm, Tatiana said, "I wanted to throw caution to the wind. The way he does. He seems not to care about what would happen if we got caught, so I tried not to care, too. But then he drops little comments here and there about being willing to throw it all away for me...his career, reputation, everything. Hearing him say that...I don't know. It scared me. As much as I like him and want to get to know him, I don't want him to be willing to throw away his teaching career because of me."

    "Something I've noticed is that we as women don't know what we want," Kenya said. "We say we want a good guy, but we go around chasing bad ones. We say we want a man to be passionate, and then the minute he shows he's passionate and sensitive, we get scared. We say they're too intense and move on to a guy who barely even gives a shit about us, because that's what a lot of us are used to."

    "You're the one who reminded me I haven't known him long," Tatiana pointed out. "Who is willing to throw away their career for someone they just met?"

    Kenya gave her hair a pat. "Someone who believes in love at first sight," she suggested. "And as a poet, a writer, you should know a little bit about that - or you should at least believe in it."

    A knock sounded on the door.

    Kenya's eyes lit up as she glanced towards the door. When she looked back at Tatiana, her smile faltered. She walked over to Tatiana and knelt down to the floor. "I love you and admire you for trying to go about this the right way. I really do. No matter how much I joke around and give you a hard time, know that I respect what you're trying to do. But out of all of the schools in the world, and in this continent alone, he chose ours. And of all of the classes in the world he could've taught, he's teaching one of yours. He, himself, encouraged you to take the class. He was put in your life for a reason. A professor pursuing one of his students isn't the most ethical thing in the world, but you're legal. And... life is too short to waste away the chance at experiencing true love with a man just as passionate as you are."