Page 32 of Hollow
“If you’re busy, I understand,” Kat says quickly, her shoulders dropping slightly, and I realize I’ve been sitting here and staring at her, not giving her an answer.
“Let’s go,” I say, and I’m on my feet, grabbing my coat.
We go out the doors and into the autumn afternoon. The gloom of the morning has lifted, and there’s even a bit of blue sky peeking through the high clouds. The fog that hovers around the campus is thinner today, letting enough light in to make you squint. A light breeze blows from the north, smelling of frost.
“Are you not cold?” I ask her, though I notice she’s wearing gloves today.
“I run hot,” she says.
“That much I can tell.”
She looks at me askew.
“You’re hot-tempered,” I explain. “I wouldn’t know what your body feels like.” Her brows furrow even deeper. “What I meant was…I mean, I have held your hand before, but…”
“Tripping over your own words, Crane,” she says with a dainty smile. “How very unlike you. You must have been up late again. Another body in the night?”
Crane. Not Professor Crane, but Crane. I like it. So long as she remembers to call me Professor in front of the other students. I wouldn’t want them to think we have a sort of relationship forming.
“Actually, no,” I tell her. “Well, yes, there were the sounds, but I managed to fall asleep anyway.” We stop in the middle of the courtyard. “To the lake or to the woods?” The gardens are lovely, but they are peppered with students enjoying the day, and with all the things we’re sure to talk about, I don’t want them overhearing. I could use the voice on Kat, but she doesn’t know how to use it in return.
“How about the woods today? But we can stick to the edges, walk around the campus that way,” she suggests. “I don’t feel like being in the dark.”
I’m not about to argue with that. We continue to walk along the main path, then converge onto a smaller stone one that goes between a row of tall orange and peach dahlias, heads like giant pinwheels, buzzing with late-season bees. Being in the city for so long, I’d forgotten how soothing nature can be, even when it’s dark and electric and heading toward the decay of winter.
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” I ask as we step away from the buildings to where the grass meets the thicket of sweet-smelling blackberries and bramble at the base of the trees.
“Me?” she asks. “I’m the one with all the questions for you.”
We walk alongside the woods. “I already answered some. Now it’s my turn to ask you.”
“Fine,” she says with a sigh. “Ask away. I’ll have to warn you, I’m quite boring.”
“You’re anything but boring, Kat,” I tell her. “You seduce me.”
Her brows raise. “I seduce you?” A hint of color appears on her cheeks.
“Yes. You make me want to know everything there is about you.”
She opens her mouth, a peek of her pink tongue coming out to lick her lips, and I feel my cock stiffen in my trousers. Most unwelcome at the moment.
“That’s only because you weren’t able to see anything in my mind,” she says after a moment, her demeanor going from flushed to cool. “You like the challenge. You don’t like being told no.”
She’s not wrong about that, I think.
“I’d like to start by learning more about your family,” I go on as we walk side by side.
“Oh, that figures,” she says, sounding defeated. “It’s never really about me, is it?”
I reach out and grab her gloved hand, pulling her to a stop. “Trust me. It is about you,” I say, staring intently into her eyes.
She relents, and I let go of her hand. “Alright.”
We continue walking. “Tell me, Kat,” I say, keeping my voice down, “how often did you see your aunts while growing up?”
“My aunts? Hardly ever. Aunt Leona and Ana were around when I was a baby, but I think it’s around that time that my mother and them must have had a falling-out.”
“Why do you say that?”