The TA.

Obvious

I forget, as I walk into class, a couple of minutes early, that he'll be there too, that it's his day to teach part of the session.
I feel his eyes sweeping over me as I step into the room, feel myself burning up inside my clothes. I gather my hair back off my forehead and the hem of my sweater rises away from my jeans. My jeans pinch around my thighs, feel tighter on my waist, and the inside seam rubs uncomfortably on my clit. I drop into my chair and take a long breath.
And finally, I meet his eyes. Mirror smiles spread on our lips. He looks away first.
When I glance over at Prof Smith, he's already looking at me.
"Did you have a good weekend, Lannie?"
"Yes thank you," I say, still blushing.
"Eventful?" He prods.
I glance at Nathan, see the smirk on his lowered face.
"You could say that."
Prof Smith nods to himself, turns his attention to his notebook as the rest of the class starts to trickle in.
My phone buzzes under the desk.
Nathan: You're so obvious.
Me: You made me like this.
Nathan: It wasn't my fingers in your cunt last night.
I bite my lip and lower my head.
Me: I wish it had been.
Nathan: I know.
Nathan: But if we're going to do this, you're going to have to stifle those cute little blushes.
Right, this is against the rules.
Me: This being?
Nathan: A conversation for another time.
And as the words leave me stinging, I'm nudged by Cal.
I drop my phone into my bag, pull out my notebook, a pen, and everyone's poems.
I smile to Cal and ask, "Hey, did you have a good weekend?"
Cal nods, "My roommate and I hit up a party."
"Oh which one?"
She reels off the name of a house I haven't been to yet and tells me a little about it. I notice a small red hickey on her collarbone and nudge her, waggling my eyebrows. She laughs and tells me she doesn't think she'll see him again.
"Why not?"
She shakes her head.
"I don't know, he was just good and I wasn't expecting to meet anyone like that."
I laugh.
"Girl, text him! Don't let the good ones go by."
She texts him as Prof Smith straightens in his chair, clears his throat.
"Nathan, take it away."
I watch him as he squeezes his way to the front of the room and stands, as usual, by the board. He takes one of the markers and writes up: how to demonstrate character. He turns to us.
"Anyone have a suggestion?"
I raise my hand.
"Body language."
Up it goes on the board in his neat handwriting.
Cal adds physical features to the board.
One of the boys adds dialogue.
After a quiet couple of minutes, Nathan writes up backstory.
A few members of the class make some 'of course' noises. Cal stifles a giggle.
Nathan puts the cap back on the pen, traps it between his palms and tilts his palms forward and back, up and down -  it's cute for a nervous tic.
"So how do we handle backstory?" He asks.
One of the boys answers, "We should avoid info-dumps."
Nathan has to play devil's advocate, a little, so he says, "Why? It worked for Tolkien."
"It did, but if it's done wrong, it slows the plot. I would say stops your plot dead in its tracks. If you put it right up front, you might lose the reader before you've hooked them."
Nathan writes up the short version of his point.
I say, "It’s easier to handle with a third person omniscient narrator."
Nathan holds a finger up.
"Does everyone know what all that is?"
Someone on the other side of the room shakes their head.
"Which part don't you know?"
"The omni-shunt part."
Nathan looks to me, "Lannie, explain what an omniscient narrator is."
"It’s a narrator who is outside the plot, who is all-knowing, knows the name of every character, all their backstories and knows all there is to know about the world too."
Nathan nods.
"And if you were using an omniscient narrator, how would you have them dispense backstory?"
"Bit by bit, going specifically by what was relevant to the scene's action and emotion."
He nods again and writes up the bullet of the conversation.
We go through the other headings written on the board like this, easily passing the two hours of the class.
And I start out of the room before I have fully packed up my things, trying not to toss a glance back at him. He catches up with me anyway, stays at my side by keeping up a light jog.
"Look, Lannie," he starts.
"No, you don't get to be that brisk with me."
I glance across at him and his cheerful face.
"You had fun, right? Last night."
"Yeah."
"Then why complicate it?" He says. "You said it to me, you wanted sex."
I shush him and dodge down a cut-through, so he has to slow down, and is more than a few paces behind me by the time I reach my dorm.
I turn to face him.
"I do want sex. Sex is fun, it feels good. But I like it to include some emotion, I want to be wanted same as everyone else."
"And I do want you," he rushes out. "But it can be tricky dating as a freshman, overwhelming, a lot of people spiral like that."
"You don't get to say how I'll react, what I can juggle. That's my call."
He nods.
"Let’s just do what feels natural and go from there."
I give him a long hard look, run my tongue over my teeth. And despite the nagging feeling in my stomach that I can't trust him, I'm nodding.
"Okay," I breathe.
I keep the words on my tongue - come upstairs - unsure about letting them out.
Instead, I ask, "Do you have a class now?"
"No. Do you?"
"No."
We let a few moments pass. He steps closer, reaches out to take one of my hands.
"We should both probably study," he murmurs.
"Yeah..."
I sound like I couldn't care less.
He leans in and kisses my forehead.
"Let’s go study in one of the common rooms then," he says quietly, lips brushing over my skin, the words sounding more seductive than they ought to.
I lead us through the dorm and up to the common room on my floor. We take up seats at the small, round wooden table in the bay window and before long the table is covered in our laptops and books.
I sit with one leg up on my chair and point my other leg towards him, nudge my toes against his ankle. He smiles, but stays focused, flicking through the stack of poems and stories from our class. I resist the urge to ask him what he's planning for next lesson, when he's going to tell me what he makes of my writing. I stare down at my history textbook and will something to go in.
When he clears his throat and closes his books, it startles me a little.
I lift my phone and check the time. It's nearly seven.
"I'm going to go grab some food from Scoot, do you want anything?"
I look into his eyes, swallow a worry that he's making an excuse to leave and not come back.
"A cheeseburger and fries, soda. Please."
"What kind of soda?"
"Coke please."
He nods and steps away from the table. I hold my breath but he leaves his bag and books in place, takes just his phone and ID card with him.
I turn my attention to the syllabus for our class, the instructions for this week: write a story that includes two characters who can't communicate.
I scoff and push the syllabus aside, focus on reading for my literature class, scribbling down impressions of the short stories, copying out quotes and then marking up the punctuation and word choice.
He comes back after twenty minutes, two boxes in one hand, two sodas in the other.
We both hear the sigh I let out as he walks back in.
Neither of us chooses to acknowledge it.