Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

group of them laughed. I checked the clock. "Get out of here, slackers. Have a good summer. Don't let me catch you studying before September."
    The mass exodus was loud and cheerful. A few students approached for final words. I corralled the last of them out of my classroom, waving folders in front of me like I would shoo flies. They went. My office was silent. For the first time in months I could hear the soft tick-tick of the clock on the wall. Down the hall, laughing students escaped their classes and beat a quick retreat out the front doors. I heard footsteps approach my door and turned.
    Matthew, all surf-blond and lazy strength, passed my office with a crude gesture and a nasty smirk. I rolled my eyes and kicked the door closed. He laughed down the hall. The boy had no idea.
    ****
    I expected a quiet summer on campus. There were final essays to grade and more than one research paper I wanted to submit for publication. Teaching was the day job that supported my writing life and the setup had worked for years. I expected a campus largely free of students and faculty alike. I did not expect one Matthew Danvoe to remain and turn my life inside out.
    The campus was mostly abandoned when I made my way from the parking lot to my office. A breeze through hundred-year-old oaks had me enjoying the warm day with lazy pleasure. He lay across the steps of the Office of Letters, directly in my path, turning a basketball in his broad hands. I stopped. "I'm surprised you're not down at the beach today."
    "I was this morning." He shot me a beautiful smile laced with a leer in his eyes. "The surf went flat hours ago. Now I'm looking for someone to play ball with."
    "You're not going to visit your mother during the break?" I stepped over his legs, half expecting to be kicked in the back of the knee. No strike came.
    "She's in the middle of moving. To Iowa."
    I paused above him on the steps. He turned the ball in his hands, looking up at me with sharp green eyes. The water boy wouldn't last two weeks in a landlocked city. "I see." I turned away.
    "See ya 'round, Connie."
    I turned back and kicked the ball up out of his hands. I caught it carefully on top of my folders. "It's Conroy. Or Professor if you're ever overcome with the need to be formal." I left him on the steps of the English building and took my time climbing the three floors of stairs to my office. He was still reclined on the steps when I looked out my window. "Hey, Matthew!" He looked up, shaded his eyes. "I don't have room for this thing in my office." I dropped the basketball in his general direction. He scrambled off the steps to catch it and I admired his athletic response. I didn't stick around for his reply, there were papers to grade.
    ****
    The sun drops fast when you're in the middle of downtown. Multi-story buildings encourage nightfall too quickly for my taste, even at the height of summer. A few more blocks and then I'd turn around for home. I usually timed it well enough to make it before dusk really settled in and visibility dropped too far.
    I turned a well-worn corner under construction scaffolding and there he was. Matthew. Perched on the rail with the most attractive come-hither look in his eyes. He caught me by surprise and I stumbled several steps. I gathered myself, kept running, and his smile took on a cockier tilt, more of an 'I know you like what you see' angle. I ran right past him and tried not to notice the surf-swept scent of him.
    Tried and failed.
    ****
    The campus hosted an occasional tour over the summer. Masses of eager-faced High Schoolers wide-eyed and completely unprepared for the world passively followed alumni or senior students who informed them of the history and significance of architecture or the placement of trees. I trailed behind one such group partly because they were headed toward the Office of Letters but mostly because Matthew was embedded among the prospective students and hadn't noticed me yet.
    He traded sports woes with the fathers, appreciated the campus with the mothers, exchanged high-fives with the sons, offered flowers to the daughters. His every move was socially perfect. He handled conversation among them in the same way I imagined he handled his surfboard on the water. With expert precision.
    The tour turned an oak-shaded corner and he turned with them, glancing back at me as if he'd known the entire time I was there. His sharp green eyes trailed up from my feet with slow, appreciative deliberation. I