Chapter 40: Progress, People

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Progress, People

The rest of the class went on as usual. Nicole somehow managed to finish the lesson with gifts taking up most of the space around her lectern. By the time class ended, a few of the guys were already volunteering to help carry everything to her office.

By a few, I mean almost all of them.

Nicole looked around at the crowd gathering around her gifts before laughing softly. "Alright, guys. I think I can manage. Just a few of you is enough."

That seemed to be the only thing stopping half the class from following her out of the room.

After Thermodynamics, I had one more class before lunch. By the time that ended, the guys had apparently decided lunch could wait because they were too busy arguing over whose gift was better.

I slipped my book into my bag and reached for the strap. The guy sitting directly in front of me turned around.

He looked at Jackson. "What did you get her? Professor Collins."

"I sent a gift card," Jackson said.

I glanced at Jackson with a look that said, Really? You too?

Jackson only shrugged.

The guy turned to me. "What about you?"

"I didn’t get anything," I said.

He stared at me for a second, eyebrows raised, his mouth pulling into a small, almost disbelieving grimace. Then he gave a small shake of his head and turned back around, apparently deciding I had failed some kind of exam everyone else had remembered to study for.

I shook my head, slung my bag over my shoulder, and looked at Jackson. "Let’s go eat."

Jackson nodded and we headed toward our usual spot.

I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through nothing in particular while we waited for the girls. After a minute, I looked up and caught Jackson staring at me.

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing." He paused, then added, "You good?"

I looked at him. He had that grin he got whenever he knew something I hadn’t said out loud yet.

"I’m not jealous."

His grin finally broke through. "Didn’t say anything."

I looked back at my phone.

"It’s actually a good thing, if you look at it the right way," Jackson said.

I glanced over. "What do you mean, the right way? They were almost simping for her and didn’t even bother hiding it."

Jackson laughed softly. "Yeah. But it also means she’s hot. Like, really hot."

I gave him a look.

He smirked. "I’m basically saying your girl’s a catch."

I paused, then exhaled through my nose. "Yeah, she is."

Jackson went quiet for a moment. Then his smirk slowly widened. "You didn’t correct me when I said your girl."

I blinked.

"Progress, people," he said, settling back in his seat. "So tell me. You guys... done it yet?"

"Done what?" Evelyn asked.

She had apparently arrived without either of us noticing. She leaned over, kissed Jackson on the lips, then pulled back with a small smile.

She took the seat beside him, while Sasha sat down beside me in her usual spot.

Jackson looked at Evelyn, then back at me. His grin was already back.

"Our Thermodynamics assignment," he said.

I smirked. "Haven’t done it yet."

Evelyn gave him a look. "We came here to eat, not talk about assignments."

Sasha laughed softly. "Let’s order before you two start talking about school again."

We pulled up the menu, and the conversation moved on to more important things, like what we were actually going to eat. I kept thinking about what Jackson had said, though, and he wasn’t wrong. Nicole was the kind of woman who turned heads without even trying. It would’ve been weird if guys didn’t notice her or try their luck.

Besides, I wasn’t feeling jealous anymore.

Not that I was in the first place.

—

The rest of the day went by without anything worth mentioning. By the time school finally ended, Jackson and I were heading out of the building toward the parking lot when my phone buzzed.

I pulled it out and checked the screen.

Nicole: Sorry I couldn’t meet up for lunch. I was soooo busy 🥹

I smiled and typed back: All’s good. Jackson didn’t starve me.

A second later, her reply came through.

Nicole: 😂

Nicole: Sooooo... are you coming over to my place or...? ☺️👉👈

I shook my head, still smiling.

Beside me, Jackson spoke up. "Bro. Did you understand a word Professor Thompson was talking about?"

I lowered my phone and looked at him. "Yeah. Why?"

His eyes lit up.

I frowned, already knowing where this was going. "You want me to explain it to you."

"I want you to explain it to me."

I looked back at my phone, then at Jackson. He was wearing the kind of hopeful expression that made saying no feel unnecessarily cruel.

I sighed and typed a quick reply to Nicole: I’ll be heading to my place to take care of something. I might come back if I finish on time.

I slipped my phone into my pocket. "What about your car?"

"Evelyn will take it home for me."

"Right."

I started toward the parking lot, and Jackson immediately fell into step beside me.

"Love you, bud," he said with a grin.

I glanced at him. "Don’t make it weird."

—

The drive back to my place was mostly quiet, with Jackson occasionally checking his phone while I kept my attention on the road.

By the time we pulled into my apartment, I had already decided I was going to give him enough of an explanation to get him off my back, then send him home with something he could actually use.

I unlocked the door and Jackson walked in behind me, looking around before kicking his shoes off.

"Chloe’s not home?" he asked.

I was already heading toward the kitchen. "She’s at Nicole’s."

The words were out before I thought about them.

I stopped for half a second.

Jackson didn’t. A grin slowly spread across his face. "Even your sister’s rooting for you two now."

I opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and closed it again without looking at him.

Jackson chuckled behind me.

I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a drink.

Ignoring him seemed like the safest option.

"Alright, let’s do this," he said, finally letting it go.

He walked over to the table, dropped his bag beside one of the chairs, and pulled it open. A moment later, he had his textbook, a jotter, and a pen spread out in front of him.

I took the seat across from him and dropped my own bag beside my chair, pulling out the same things and opening the textbook to the section Professor Thompson had covered earlier.

Jackson looked at the page, then at me. "So?"

I pointed to a section. "We’ll start here."

He leaned closer, and I started going through it with him.

It took less time than I expected. Once Jackson stopped trying to jump ahead and actually followed what I was explaining, the whole thing became pretty straightforward. I walked him through the parts he had missed, answered his questions, then made him work through a couple of examples himself.

A little over thirty minutes later, the doorbell rang.

Jackson glanced at me.

I shrugged.

He stared at me for another second before a smirk slowly appeared on his face. "Chloe."

I gave him a look.

He got up anyway.

A few seconds later, I heard the door open.

There was a pause.

Then Jackson stumbled over his words. "P-Professor Collins."

That made me look up from what I was writing.

I couldn’t see the door from where I was sitting, but I could hear Nicole’s voice clearly.

"Is Nathan in?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

Then Nicole spoke again, clearly amused by the silence. "Uhm..."

"Oh. Right."

I looked over just as Jackson stepped aside, and Nicole walked in.

The first thing I noticed was the pink hoodie she had on, paired with a black thigh-high skirt, black thigh-high boots, and a small black crossbody bag hanging at her side. She was also carrying a grocery bag in each hand.

She spotted me almost immediately and smiled. "Hi."

I pushed my chair back and stood. My eyes dropped to the bags in her hands before coming back to her face.

"I thought I’d cook dinner," she said.

My brain took a second to catch up with that sentence. "...Yeah. Okay."

I reached for one of the grocery bags.

Nicole shook her head with a small smile. "You two can keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll be in the kitchen."

Before I could say anything, she walked past me toward the kitchen.

I watched her go for a second before looking at Jackson. For once, he wasn’t saying anything. He was just standing there with a completely blank expression on his face.

He closed the door behind him and slowly walked back to the table, and I did the same. He sat across from me, still looking like he was trying to process what had just happened.

I opened the textbook and flipped through a page. Then I flipped another.

I wasn’t actually reading anything. I was simply doing my best to act like Professor Collins walking into my apartment with groceries so she could cook me dinner was a perfectly normal thing that happened every day.

Jackson finally broke the silence. "Professor Collins is cooking you dinner."

I looked at him. He was still staring at me.

I felt a slow grin spreading across my face. "Yeah."

Jackson shook his head slowly. "Bruh."

He tapped a fist against his chest, the universal sign of respect.

I couldn’t help smiling.

Jackson looked at the textbook, then back at me.

"How do you even talk to her like that?" he asked. "I’ve never been this close to her before. She’s just so..." He paused for a second, like his brain had decided to stop helping. "And her eyes. Her eyes are so..."

"Magnetic?"

"I was gonna say hypnotic," he added. "But let’s go with magnetic."

I shrugged and picked my pen back up. "I get stunned from time to time myself."

Jackson stared at me for a second, still looking like his brain hadn’t quite recovered from meeting her at the door.

I looked down at the textbook, still smiling. "Let’s get back to studying."