I Won't Give Up (Teacher/Student)

Chapter 23

Twenty Three

"Man, oh man! I must be getting older!" Caden exclaimed as he ran his thumb across his right eyebrow, pretending to wipe away any sweat. I rolled my eyes and sank deeper into the couch. My bag of potato chips sat at my side, protected inside the crook of my elbow.

Today was Caden's birthday, and he thought that I had forgotten. Well, I guess I can't blame him because I went the entire day pretending that I did. Now Caden was throwing hints wherever he could, and his most recent comment was probably hint #100.

He had mentioned his birthday to me a month ago, and I had agreed that we should celebrate it since he was turning twenty-five, and that seemed like a milestone to me. The man was a quarter-of-a-century old. What a fucking dinosaur.

When I woke up this morning, though, I had decided that it would be so much funner to pretend that today was just another day, but I didn't realize how hard it would be to do so. I caved almost immediately when Caden turned toward me in the morning, a wide smile on his face. I could just feel the excitement oozing out of him for his birthday.

Instead of going back on my plans, I had asked him what he could possibly be so happy for this early in the morning. Almost immediately, his smile fell, and I knew then that he thought I had forgotten his birthday, but he wasn't going to tell me that.

In the elevator, as we were getting ready to head to the school, he asked me for the date, and I gave a bored response. Caden was decked out in a full suit today, something that he didn't normally do. Usually, he'd wear a button-down and some dress pants, or maybe he'd dress down a little by wearing polos and chinos. I guess birthdays meant he went all out, and I had to fight away some of my jealousy knowing that my classmates would be ogling him all day.

During class, he continued asking for the date, and students answered, especially Faith and Ashley who were happy to talk to Caden whenever they had the chance. I honestly couldn't blame them. It took everything in me to ignore him today, especially when he took off his jacket in the middle of his lecture and began rolling up his sleeves, completely unaware that these small acts to make himself more comfortable caused so many of us to hold our breaths as we watched. I just wanted to chuck my pencil at the idiot for being so hot and not knowing it.

At lunch, I went with Jackson to the restaurant where I was planning to take Caden for his birthday. According to his brother, it was easily Caden's favorite place to eat, and Jackson luckily knew the owner after responding to a small kitchen fire that could have turned into something worse. With that connection, Jackson was able to convince the owner to close the restaurant an hour early but leave the kitchen open for Caden and me.

I had been going down there for the past two weeks to watch how the chefs made Caden's favorite meal. After observing several times, they walked me through the process and allowed me to make it by myself. It wasn't anything close to their version, but the pasta covered in pesto and layered with chicken still made my mouth water, and I'm sure Caden would enjoy it.

Now that the owner was confident that I could make the meal without burning his restaurant to the ground, and that Jackson would be on-call in the horrible case that something did go wrong, he was okay with leaving the place in our hands for the night.

Now, here we were, back in Caden's apartment and sitting on his couch. I had already finished my final practice meal with the chefs and came back to the apartment to find Caden laying down on the couch and throwing a stress ball into the air. A small frown was on his face and stayed there as I scrolled through the TV channels.

Then he threw in Hint #101.

"What's the date again?" Caden asked, and I tried my best not to smile. I focused on the screen because I couldn't bring myself to look at Caden, who was still in his work clothes and had the top buttons of his dress shirt undone. I guess he still had hope for a fun night and wanted to stay in nicer clothes in case we went out, but I needed him to change his outfit because it was getting really difficult to keep my hands to myself.