Do The Dirty With Him

Anna Hours was ordinary. The way she took off her plaid shrug and smiled at him before taking her seat. He remembered the moment they started speaking. It was like he was buzzing with energy.

- - - - -

Finally, the long weekend came. It was Thursday evening and a bunch of her classmates wanted to go out. She entered the local restaurant because that was what everybody liked. It was a good place with just the right amount of coziness to encourage sitting for a longer period of time. They ordered some appetizers and bottles of alcohol for the table.

Anna was finally decided. She was almost done clearing up her tracks. She had stopped dragging her feet and this was the last time she was going to be out with these people.

The craft beer she was drinking settled into her blood, making her calm. She soaked in the conversation and the glee around her. It nestled right under her skin.

Lewis sat on one side of her and tried to ply her with whiskey (which she didn't fall for).

"What are you doing this weekend?" he asked.

She glanced at him and shook her head. "Not much. Just going to hang out at the apartment," she said. She didn't want to talk about it.

Realizing she was not in a mood to talk, he settled for complimenting her once every three sentences.

Every smile he gave her was one she didn't want. Instead, she wanted something else.

'Stop,' she told herself firmly, attempting to pay attention to poor Lewis' attempts. 'You can't stay. You made a decision.'

She wanted to behave. Once again.

Of course, the universe hated her, so as she listened to Marie moan about how difficult it was to complete her assignment, Anna's eyes slid to the entry of the restaurant. She watched as the server led the faculty of Philosophy to the only other large table in the restaurant.

Ladislas was at the end of the crowd, smiling as he listened to an older professor speak. The warm calmness around her receded and she felt herself shudder. Her vision tunneled for a moment as she took him in. His hair was not in a bun. Instead, it hung on his shoulder. Still, he wore a dark turtleneck, looking more like a male model than a professor.

"What are you looking at?" Marie wondered out loud. She followed the direction of Anna's gaze and brightened up. "Oh, look!"

Dutifully, the table looked and there were bright greetings exchanged between both parties. Her other advisor hung around to speak to Anna and a couple of the others. Ladislas only nodded and moved to sit at the table, eyes sweeping disinterestedly over their group.

'Look at me,' she willed silently, unable to stop her tipsy brain. This was the first time she had wished for this.

But he didn't look.

Once all the professors were seated away from them, the topic changed to gossiping about the professors at the other table. There was some suspicion about the relationship between two female professors who were married to different men. Marie, of course, sighed while keeping her eyes trained on Ladislas, now skillfully ordering wine for the table.

"Do you think he is single?" Marie asked dreamily.

"Marie!" Anna hissed, unsure of why she was shocked to see the other openly lust after Ladislas when that was all Marie had done for the whole semester.

"What? He is fourteen or fifteen years older than us. I looked him up online. Who would pass up on that beautiful face? What I would do if I got my hands on his silky hair…" she sighed.

Anna shook her head. "Inappropriate," she sniffed, taking a gulp of her drink to distract herself. Lewis tried to get her attention again but Marie was on the warpath.

"Are you telling me that if Professor Forrester came up to you right now and asked you out on a date, you would say no because it is inappropriate?"

"I would say no to him, period," Anna said firmly.

Marie rolled her eyes. "I still don't think you hate him," she whispered.

Anna didn't want to imagine that. "Shut up," she said in a dignified manner. Finally, she got up to find a restroom. The women's restroom.

On her way back, her eyes fell on the professor's table—which was quickly becoming loud. She was just in time to catch Ladislas' eyes. He looked away quickly and took a swig of the wine in front of him.

She smiled, ecstatic.

She was trying to behave but it felt good to see him react to her.

As she walked back to her table, mood better, she took a look around. She recognized a few additions to their party, freshmen who were definitely going to get blackout drunk by the end of the night.

In a different corner, one man sat alone, hunched over a plate of pasta, looking irritated. Her keen senses told her he was out of place. While it wasn't odd to eat at a restaurant alone when everyone seemed to have somebody else, it was the way he carried himself.

He watched people with a keen eye. But not everyone. He was not a casual watcher. His eyes rested heavily in one direction and only flitted to the other out of practice.

She sat down and smiled at Lewis. He was definitely casting looks around the room, looking at Ladislas with a stink eye.

She didn't understand why they were antagonistic towards one other.

The thing about young people was that they were overconfident about their alcohol capacity. And they had no regard for the condition of their liver in the long run. The group of students decided to head out for another round after they were done at the restaurant. Either way, when the group paid their bill and were in talks to go to a local bar, Anna looked around incredulously.

She linked her arm with Marie—partly to dissuade Lewis from his drunken advances and party to ensure Marie didn't fall over. They walked out, aiming to head to the bar that was a ten-minute walk down the road.