Hard To Love (Professor / Student)

Laura Fields

Monday Morning

I walk into my early Psychology final and Professor Loughton is sitting on the edge of his desk.

"Good morning Miss Montgomery." He says, smiling.

"Morning" I mutter and continue to my seat towards the back of the room. Professor Loughton follows me to the back and straddles the seat in front of my desk.

"Look, I'm sorry for my behavior the other night." He admits and I sit back in my chair with my arms crossed.

"Sorry because you got rejected? Or sorry because you were an asshole?"

"I was hardly an asshole, but I'll admit, I wasn't a complete gentleman." He says now leaning on my desk. "I didn't know you were dating Mark." He whispers.

"And if I wasn't, you wouldn't be apologizing." I say, looking up at him.

"Yeah, maybe. I guess I wasn't expecting you to turn me down so quick." He admits and I roll my eyes.

"Sorry I couldn't stick around to stroke your ego." And that makes him let out a loud laugh.

"Ya know, Mark and Daniel warned me about your snarky mouth when I told them I was going to apologize today."

"Oh yeah? And you still tried to do it anyway?" I ask as a few more people walk in the room.

"Yeah. I really am sorry Ness. Good luck on the exam" He says and makes his way to the front of the room. The exam is pretty easy and I finish within the first hour. I hand in my exam.

"Have a nice summer, Miss Montgomery." Frank says

"Yeah, yeah." I say with a sight smile as I walk out the door.

Frank isn't a bad guy I guess. And he did kind of apologize, so I guess that's good. Maybe it will be fun to have him around to mess with.

I head to the gym to wait for Evan to finish his last final of the day. I take off my hoodie, leaving me in a sports bra and a pair of running shorts. I play some music on my phone speakers and start shooting around. The light turns on in Belton's office and I hear his door slam. He starts throwing stuff off of his desk and turns around to look out of the glass window behind him. He immediately freezes when he sees me. He quickly gathers himself and heads back out of his office. Well, that was weird..... I think to myself. Seconds later, Evan barges into the gym and starts horribly dancing to the song that's playing.

"How was your exam?" I ask as I take a jump shot from inside the key.

"Easy peasy." He says and steals the ball

"Told you, you had nothing to worry about." Evan shoots the ball and I grab the rebound as 2 of his teammates walk in.

"Yo! Two vs Two?" One of the guys asks and I look at Evan and shrug.

"Sure." Evan says. "Me and Ness vs you."

The four of us start playing and Evan and I are easily up by 2 baskets. Evan passes me the ball and I have an open lane for a layup. As I release the ball, the guy defending me, body slams me, unnecessarily and I hit the floor hard.

"Dude, what the hell?" Evan asks and gets in the kid's face.

"Relax bro. It's part of the game." He says "She wanted to play with the guys."

I regain my bearings and sit on the floor, rubbing my knee. "Are you like 4 years old?" I ask and Evan laughs.

"What did you say, bitch?" The kid asks. Just as the words leave his mouth Belton and Mark walk into the gym.