Caine had slipped in halfway through the class.
Suddenly I could understand why he found lateness distracting. For the last twenty minutes, I’d been distracted by the man sitting in the seat I’d sat in during the last class. Next to him, Mr. Ludwig, the beanie-wearing artist of nudes, looked as nervous as I felt. Although his nervousness probably had more to do with the fact that the professor had just quietly slipped the notebook he’d been drawing in again today from his desk, and it was now closed and sitting in Caine’s bag.
I tried not to look up to where they were sitting, yet I could feel Caine’s eyes watching me. How is it that I had two hundred pairs of eyes focused on me, and I only sensed two?
I cleared my throat. “Since we have a few minutes before the end of class, I’m going to hand out the headphones we spoke about earlier.” I went to the supply closet in the corner of the classroom and pulled out a box. Handing it to the first row, I asked the student in the corner to take one and pass the box down as I delivered a full box to each row. Caine got up and quietly grabbed a few boxes to help me distribute to the rows at the back of the lecture hall before taking his seat again. As I distributed, I reminded the class of the exercise that built on Professor’s West first assignment, and then I gave them one of my own.
“Along with the exercise we already discussed, I’d like you all to do a second listening assignment. We all have songs that remind us of good times in our early teens. Pick out the one that has the strongest memory for you. Tonight, when you’re alone at home, I want you to shut the blinds, turn off all of the lights, and get the room as dark as you can. Then lie flat on your back somewhere comfortable, preferably in your bed, and listen to the song that holds those memories for you using the Bose headphones. Listen to it twice. That’s it. Nice and simple. We’ll use what you hear in an upcoming class.”
After the class had emptied, Caine walked to the front. “Nice job.”
“Thank you. I didn’t think you’d be sitting in. It kind of threw me when you walked in late.” I smirked. “I don’t like lateness. I find it disrupts my class.”
Caine raised a brow. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I packed my laptop into my bag. “Mr. Ludwig didn’t look happy to see you.”
“Mr. Ludwig is lucky he’s still sitting in my class at all.”
Caine helped me collect the leftover headphones from each row, and then we consolidated the stragglers to make one box of headphones and nested the empty boxes inside each other.
“So, what’s your song?” he asked.
My brows drew down. “Hmmm?”
“The assignment you gave. What’s the song that reminds you of your childhood?” What immediately came to mind was an old Lynyrd Skynyrd song, “Devil in a Bottle,” but that was a little more honesty than I could handle.
“I don’t know. Probably anything from Maroon 5.” Since I was a crappy liar, I avoided his eyes. But when I glanced up at him, I caught him doing that squinting thing. “What?” I asked.
“You’re full of shit.”
“What are you talking about?” I attempted to play dumb. Unfortunately, I felt my cheeks heat under his stare.
“There’s a song you thought of right away. And it wasn’t a damn Maroon 5 song.” He scratched at his chin. “I bet there’s more than one, too.”
Rather than continue to lie, I decided to turn the table. “What’s your song, Professor Know-It-All?”
He held my eyes. “‘Going, Going, Gone’.”
“Bob Dylan?”
“That’s the one.”
Hmm… Off the top of my head, I couldn’t think of the words, but I knew it was a heavy and heartfelt song. I’d definitely be listening to that later on tonight with my borrowed Bose headphones. No better way to hone my critical-listening skills than trying to figure out the mystery of Caine West. Since he’d shared, I felt compelled to give him something. “‘Hurt’.”
He nodded. “The original Johnny Cash or Nine Inch Nails?”
I smiled. “Johnny. Always. He was my mom’s favorite.”
There was a tension between us as we looked at each other. Every time we were together I’d felt it. Each time it was a little different than the last, but the tension was always there—a crackle in the air. Today’s wasn’t so much sexual in nature as it was a feeling of understanding and acceptance. We’d both have depressing titles in our lives as narrated by song. Which reminded me…
“I heard another rumor about you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Well, actually, it was a rumor, but I know it to be true now. So I’m not sure it’s a rumor anymore.”
“You’ve figured out the rumors about me being an arrogant asshole are true, huh?” Caine teased. “That wasn’t a hard one.”
“Actually, this one was more along the lines of you being a closet rock star signed to a label.”
I knew the second the words came out of my mouth that I’d made a mistake. Caine’s face, which had been warm and playful, morphed into cold and serious. I’d crossed a line and overstepped somewhere he didn’t want me. He was more than a little pissed off.
“Keep out of my personal life, Rachel.”
I opened my mouth to apologize, but he cut me off.
“You should get to your other job. It might be the only one you have soon.” With that, he grabbed his leather bag and was up the stairs and out of the classroom before I could even shut my big mouth, which had been hanging open.
He punctuated his exit with a slam of the classroom door that left the walls shaking in his wake.
“You sure everything is okay?”
It was the third time Charlie had asked. The first time was when I dropped a full tray of drinks on the floor. Two of the glasses shattered, and I was so dazed cleaning it up that I sliced open my finger. The second time, I was lost in my head and over poured a beer from the tap. Now he was getting ready to leave, and his face was etched with concern.
“I’m fine, Charlie. Just a little tired,” I lied. “I stayed up working on my thesis, and I have a bit of a headache. But I’m fine. I’m sorry about earlier.”
“I could give two shits about the glasses as long as you’re okay.” He looked me in the eyes. “You’re sure? I can stay and you could take off.”
I smiled. “I’m good. But thank you.”