Out of Her League (21 page)

He really needed to think about what was
really going on here. It hadn’t escaped his notice that today was the first
time he’d kissed Michaela when it wasn’t a prelude to sex. And that it had
seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. Just as pulling her into a hug had
been.

That had to mean something. Something that
didn’t quite fall under the heading of friends with benefits.

Though none of that seemed nearly as
important, right now, as kissing her again.

Michaela slid her tongue along Lachlan’s
and tried to just enjoy being held, being kissed, even if part of her brain was
still trying to make sense of the fact that he was willing to speak with her at
all, let alone kiss her.

Before the debacle this past weekend, she’d
been looking forward to coming here someday, seeing where and how Lachlan lived.
She’d never imagined it would be under these circumstances. Though, when
Lachlan was kissing her like this, she wasn’t sure she cared
how
she got
here, she was just glad she’d arrived.

A loud horn and someone yelling out front
jolted them apart.

She took a deep, steadying breath and let
it out slowly. Right. This was not the time. “Unless you plan on explaining why
we didn’t come back downstairs for a really, really long time, we should
probably stop kissing,” she said, clearing her throat to ease the husky timbre
in her voice.

Lachlan’s cheeks pinked up. “Good point.
I’m pretty sure Callum would be on my doorstep within hours.”

She winced. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Did you?” he asked with an arched brow.

“No,” she said with a reluctant smile. “I
don’t want him on my doorstep either. And god fucking save us both if he thinks
he can take credit or something. He’d be insufferable.”

Lachlan shuddered, making Michaela laugh.
She very carefully didn’t elaborate on what Callum might think he was taking
credit for, in any case.

They went back downstairs, pausing on the stairway,
ostensibly to look at adorable pictures of the Morrison Clan, but mostly so
that Michaela could smooth Lachlan’s hair back into place.

Based on the looks they received upon
returning to the living room, no one was convinced their trip upstairs had been
purely platonic. The grin on Savannah’s face, in particular, was a little
alarming.

Michaela made a mental note to warn Mike and
the other doormen that Callum could show up unexpectedly.

They ordered lunch to be delivered, pooling
their cash to be sure they could offer a tip of epic proportions to the poor
kid who had to muscle his way onto the porch. Hanging out should have been
weird, but everyone was acting like this was just a typical get-together,
ribbing Rhian about his big goal the night before, teasing Lachlan for having
woefully little in the way of beverage options, and fighting over who would get
the last can of Moxie.

Michaela graciously bowed out of that
argument and tried not to gag when Savannah took her first sip. When her phone
rang, she stepped into the kitchen to answer. It wasn’t like she could avoid
her parents forever.

“Hi, Mom,” she said cheerfully, still
chuckling over Rhian calling Garrick an old man for falling asleep on the couch
as soon as his game was over.

“Darling, how could you get caught up in
that mess over the weekend?”

Michaela closed her eyes, whatever joy
she’d felt to just be with friends draining from her in an instant. She sucked
in a fortifying breath, and very quickly and succinctly told her mother, who
then relayed to her father, the real story.

“I’m shocked at Robert’s behavior,” her
mother announced. “Perhaps he isn’t someone you should be hanging around with.”

A dull pain throbbed against Michaela’s
forehead and she rubbed her fingers there, hard. “Robby was just doing what he
thought was right, Mom.”
And I’m grateful.
“I’m sure it won’t happen
again.”

“Well, I should hope not,” said her mother.

Michaela couldn’t get off the phone fast
enough after that. As soon as she hung up, she went back into the living room
and collapsed onto the loveseat next to Lachlan, since Savannah, Rhian, and
Garrick had conveniently taken up the entire couch.

“You okay?” Lachlan asked in a low voice.

Before she could answer, the doorbell rang and
everyone leaped to their feet, as if ready for an attack. Thankfully, it was
just the severely harassed-looking delivery guy.

Michaela ignored the headache still
building behind her eyes as they sat down to eat, telling herself firmly to shake
off the call from her parents. There was nothing she could do about it now, and
it would likely fade into one more on the long list of things she’d done to
embarrass them.

She cringed when Lachlan’s phone rang and he
announced it was his parents. He probably didn’t have a list of
embarrassments—at least, not before he met her. She glanced at the back door
and wondered if she could get clear if she made a break for it. Then she looked
at Savannah and realized she didn’t have a hope in hell.

Lachlan answered his phone by putting his
parents on speaker, explaining of who was in the room with him and putting his
phone down in the middle of the coffee table.

“Michaela, darling, how are you holding
up?” Mary Morrison asked as soon as everyone had said hello.

“Oh. Uh…fine?” Why was Lachlan’s mom
talking to her first? “I mean, I feel so awful about all this. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t do
anything. And Lachlan’s made of sterner stuff than that. I’m sure he’s hardly
been bothered. Don’t let his introverted ways fool you.”

It was probably a good thing Mary Morrison
couldn’t see Lachlan’s put-upon expression, or the grins on everyone else’s
faces.

“Thank you, Mother, for the vote of
confidence,” he said dryly.

“You know I’m right,” Mary said in the
voice only a mother could pull off—warm and totally dismissive at the same
time. “Now, tell me what’s been going on. I hear you were in a brawl? Did he
deserve it?”

Michaela stared at the phone while Lachlan
explained what had happened the night before, just as she had with her parents,
only this time it was with wildly different results. She answered questions
when asked directly, but mostly she sat listening and trying to understand what
was wrong with everyone. They seemed hell-bent in their belief she was in no
way culpable.

She listened to Mary gloss over the whole
thing and for the first time in years thought maybe she should have stuck up
for herself a little more when she’d spoken to her parents. It wasn’t like
she’d had any idea Robby would do that. Hell, she hadn’t even known Robby would
be there, let alone
Blake
.

Otherwise, obviously,
she
wouldn’t
have been there. And she certainly wouldn’t have dragged Lachlan into it. But
she was sort of glad about the way it had turned out. It had been a long, long
time since anyone had defended her publicly. In fact, she couldn’t think of
another example that was quite so dramatic.

Which was just like Robby. She was more
grateful than ever that she had him back in her life.

Her phone buzzed and she looked down to see
a text message from Sadie, addressed to their study group.

Michaela, are you going to make it to
class today? If not, I can type up my notes and email them.

It was a kind offer and a fair question to
ask, if you didn’t know Michaela that well.

I’m going.

Sadie immediately replied with,
Meet us
at the Mass Ave gate @ 2pm. We can all walk together.

Michaela sighed.
You really, really
don’t have to do that.

We know.
From Eric.

Fuck that
. From
Tanner.

Sadie sent the eye-roll emoji.

I thought you didn’t want to go out in
public with me, Tanner?

I was kidding! Mostly.
At least Tanner was honest.
And the press isn’t allowed on
campus, so I’m hardly being all that brave.

Michaela grinned at her phone.

She startled when Lachlan bumped his
shoulder against hers. “Good news?” he asked quietly, so as not to be heard
over Mary and Bruce congratulating Rhian on his season so far.

She smiled at him. “I think maybe you were
right. The study group is a good idea.”

Lachlan stood in front of a packed
classroom and wondered if he’d stumbled into the wrong building. Or possibly
the wrong reality. Because there was no way this was his Thursday morning Introduction
to Philosophy course.

He gaped at the dozens of freshmen staring
at him with rapt attention. More than one of them had their phones out, perhaps
convinced that they were being discreet as they took his picture.

At least half of the kids present weren’t
even registered for his class, which was intensely annoying as well as
disruptive. He couldn’t do shit about it, though, because he hadn’t seen most
of his students often enough to be sure who was legitimately supposed to be
there and who wasn’t, so he wasn’t able to throw
any
of them out.

He glanced at Anna, who looked as confused
and distressed as he felt but shrugged and turned on the projector anyway.

What choice did they have?

The presentation today was about morality,
of all things, and the assigned readings were from Aristotle, Kant, and
Nietzsche. Lachlan would eat his decade-old jock strap if even ten percent of
the kids in front of him had read the assignment, let alone absorbed any of its
meaning, clearly, since they were all here in a blatant attempt to gossip and
gawk, rather than learn.

Lachlan thought about that for a moment,
then smiled.

Perhaps today was the
perfect
day
for a lecture on morality and ethics.

With a loud clap, he brought the room to
order and dove head first into his first ever unplanned, untested lecture. It
was terrifying and a bit disorganized and totally exhilarating. An hour and
fifteen minutes later, he actually had to cut short a lively discussion on the ethical
significance of tabloid reporting with the promise that they would pick it up
again the next time this class met.

He traded grins with Anna, who’d given up
on the projector and the intended slides for the day about ten minutes in and
had just sat back to watch the show. Goddamn, that had been fun. He practically
chuckled with glee as a group of students filed past him, having returned to
the argument about whether there should be an expected standard of behavior for
sports stars, given they’d willingly and knowingly put themselves in the public
eye, and should that standard be any different than regular people’s.

Lachlan sighed happily and turned to gather
his belongings as the last of the students left.

“A bit on the nose, don’t you think, Dr.
Morrison?”

Lachlan froze, his eyes locked with Anna’s
as they bulged with alarm.

Shit
. When
had Dick arrived? And how much had he heard?

Turning to face his boss, who he had
managed to avoid for most of the week thanks to Dick traveling to a conference
in Anaheim. Now Lachlan saw his scowl and almost cringed. Then he heard
Michaela’s voice in his head.

Head up, smile on, don’t blink.

“Good morning, Dick,” Lachlan said
pleasantly, ignoring Dick’s snide remark entirely. “What are you doing in our
neck of the woods?”

Dick turned to Anna. “Would you please
excuse us?”

She nodded quickly and hightailed it for
the door, throwing a sympathetic look over her shoulder from behind Dick’s back.

“Close the door on your way out, please,”
Dick called after her.

Lachlan’s bland smile almost wavered, but
he held firm. If he could get through being groped by horny octogenarians at
charity balls, Dick Chomelsky wasn’t going to break him.

“Lachlan,” Dick began the moment the door
shut behind Anna, “just what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

Now Lachlan let his smile drop. He had
always respected his boss, but it didn’t sound like the feeling was mutual
right then, and Lachlan had done nothing to deserve that. He studied Dick’s
mottled complexion and the sour twist to his mouth, and felt judged. Poorly.

“I’m teaching freshman about ethics, Dick.”

Dick’s scowl grew darker. “You were
pandering to their salacious curiosity.”

“No, I was not. I was faced with a group of
fine young minds who’d been sucked in by the media and had come to my class for
all the wrong reasons. I took that as an opportunity to help them
learn
.
I cannot imagine a group that was more ripe for the picking, as far as lectures
on ethics go. And if you listened to them, heard the discussions, then you know
that my message got across.”

“At the expense of our department’s
reputation!”

“I
hardly
think that’s the case,”
Lachlan said severely, ignoring the thump of his heart against his ribs.
“Unless it somehow tarnishes our reputation to promote critical thinking about right
and wrong as it pertains to which news sources they select as ethical and
reliable, or the impact of the celebrity culture on society.”

“And that seems appropriate to you? For
you, of all people, to be lecturing on that?” Dick spoke to him in a tone
Lachlan had never heard him use with anyone but the most troublesome students.

“Yes, that seems appropriate. And I’m
exactly
who should be lecturing on this,” Lachlan said sharply, his hands curling into
fists at his side. “And I don’t understand why you wouldn’t agree. You’re
always telling us we need to help these young people see how philosophy can
help them in life, and have real meaning to them, and I just did that. More
than any other lecture I’ve given, I’m convinced those kids
heard me
and
learned something they can apply to their day-to-day thinking. I also believe that
more than one of them will come back to hear more, even when the fervor over my
relationship with Michaela dies down.”

“And just what
is
your relationship
with Michaela Price?”

“You know what it is?
None of your damn
business
.”

Dick’s shoulders jerked back, his spine ramrod
straight, absolutely radiating shock at being spoken to that way. To be fair, Lachlan
was pretty damned stunned he’d said it, too, but he didn’t give a fucking inch
as he stared Dick down.

“Dr. Morrison, I don’t know what you—”

“No,
Dick
,”
Lachlan said, ruthlessly cutting him off. “You don’t get to ask me that. My
private affairs are just that—
private
. I’ve thought of you as a friend
for some years now and I’m sorry if this offends you or makes your job harder,
but you don’t get to come into my classroom and dress me down for who I spend
my free time with. If you have an issue with the lecture I just gave, then I
will be glad to discuss that with you. Anything else, you’ll have to take your
concerns to the administration and see what they make of them, because I’ve
done nothing wrong.”

It was
terrifying to say it, to call Dick’s bluff. Lachlan could feel his heartbeat all
the way down in his fingertips now, but he flexed his hands and held firm. He
knew he was right. The administration couldn’t and wouldn’t go near this.

Dick
apparently knew it, too. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I’m
sorry, too, Dick. It was never my intention to cause a stir when I formed a
friendship with Michaela, but my own sense of right and wrong won’t allow me to
abandon a friend simply because it would make your job easier. She’s a good
person. A victim of circumstances outside her control. For this, at least, you
should now have some sympathy.”

Dick
sniffed dismissively. “I hardly think one of my professors being fodder for the
tabloid press is akin to her starring in a pornographic video.”

And that
was just
low
.

“Really,
Dick? Because it seems to me it’s pretty much exactly the same. Neither of you
knew it was going to happen, and you both got fucked.”

Dick’s
jaw dropped open and hung there, apparently speechless.

“What
matters now,” Lachlan said, plowing on, “is what you do with it. You could hide
and hope it all goes away, or you can do what I just did, and try to turn the
unprecedented attention we’re getting into something positive. You have an
opportunity here, Dick, if you can see past what’s been comfortable for years
and embrace what comes next.”

 Lachlan
grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder while his boss stared at him
with something like awe and horror and a whole lot of bewilderment.

“You can
add that to the list of things I would be happy to discuss with you,” Lachlan
said, far more gently. “I’d like to see our department benefit from this
interest, because you’re right. These kids want to know how the world works,
and we can help them figure that out. But no matter how much Kierkegaard we ask
them to read, there will always be the
Weekly Inquisitor
, tempting them
from the newsstand. Finding a way to make those two things relevant to each
other might just be the ticket to drawing more of these bright, promising
students into a discipline that so few have an interest in anymore.”

The
clamp around Lachlan’s chest eased a little when Dick actually gave a slow,
thoughtful nod.

“Think
about it,” Lachlan said at last, patting Dick’s shoulder because he just looked
so overwhelmed. “You know where to find me.”

Michaela
was supposed to be studying, but instead she was reading Lachlan’s text message
discreetly on her phone.

Come
over?

Michaela
smiled.
When?

Want
you now.

Michaela’s
pulse spiked. She had no idea if that was an expression of his desire for her
to visit, or of his desire for
her
. Either way, it was an exceptionally
bad idea for him to put shit like that in writing. And an even worse idea for
her to like it so much.

But she
hadn’t seen him in days, and she wanted him, too.
I’ll be there as soon as I
can.

I’ll
be here.

“Whatcha
got there?” Sadie asked with a sly smile.

Michaela
immediately erased whatever look was on her face and tucked her phone back
under her leg on the couch. “Nothing.”

“Is that
your
boyyyyyfriend
?”

Michaela
was appalled to feel her cheeks heat up. She swore she wouldn’t have blushed if
it had been Sadie who asked. Or Tanner.

But that
was
Eric.

“Don’t
have a boyfriend,” she mumbled so quickly it practically came out as a single
word.

Eric
grinned. “Is that the story you’re going with?”

“What?
No,” Michaela said. “I mean, yes. I mean, it’s not a story.” She cast Eric a
baleful look.

“You
sure about that?” Tanner asked with a smirk—of course.

“
Yes.
We’re just friends.”

Tanner
put his finger on his page to hold his place and closed his book, carefully
setting it aside so as not to disturb Fang, who was sound asleep, belly-up, in
Tanner’s lap.

“I
assume you’re talking about the infamous Dr. Morrison, who has been squiring
you around to all your fancy events?”

Everyone
looked at Tanner.

“
Squiring
?”
Sadie asked with an incredulous giggle.

“What,
like you didn’t read some of those articles after we were attacked out front?”
Tanner defended. Michaela cringed and Tanner had the grace to look apologetic. “Sorry,
but when your mother calls screeching about how she was standing in line at the
grocery store and there you are on the cover of the
Weekly Inquisition
,
I defy any of you not to look. Well,” he said, waving at Michaela, “except
you.”

“As a
matter of fact, my mother calls me screeching about that all the time. And yes,
I also look.” She laughed at their surprised expressions.

“You
do?” Eric asked curiously.

They all
looked genuinely interested, so Michaela admitted the horrible truth.

“This is
actually embarrassing, but I pay a company to keep track of anywhere I show up
in print or on TV. I get a weekly report, unless the shit is hitting the fan,
then I get a call right away.”

“That’s…”
Sadie seemed unable to find the word.

“Awful?”
Michaela suggested.

“No, I
wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say
fucking weird
.”

Michaela
let out a huff of laughter. “Welcome to my world.”

“But why
do that to yourself?” Tanner asked, proving he wasn’t nearly as callous as he
liked to pretend, and that he was perfectly aware of the awful shit people
liked to write about her.

She
didn’t know how to make him understand without telling the unvarnished, brutal
truth. “Imagine one day waking up to that screeching phone call, only it’s your
best friend, and she’s telling you that her bother just watched you have sex on
the internet.”

All
three of them stared at her in silent, unblinking horror.

“Right. Anyway,”
she said, trying to get this conversation back in any direction that didn’t
involve her sex-tape, “I don’t always read it all, but I did check out the
latest stuff, just so I would know what they were saying about Lachlan.” She
was sort of appalled at how affectionate she sounded when she said his name.

Sadie
didn’t miss it, either. “
Lachlan
, huh?”

Michaela
arched one brow. “Well, you don’t think I call him Dr. Morrison while he’s squiring
me, do you?”

“Oh, is
that what we’re calling it now?” Eric asked with a grin.

Michaela
laughed and pointed a finger at Eric. “You’re a troublemaker. You hide it well
with shyness, but underneath, you’re an anchovy-and-olive-pizza-hogging troll.”

His grin
didn’t dim in the slightest, nor did he deny it.

“Can I
ask you something?” Sadie said.

“Sure,”
Michaela agreed, trying to remember the last time someone prefaced a question
like that and she didn’t feel at least a little dread. Now, though, she was
struck by how not-worried she was. It wasn’t that she didn’t think the question
would be personal, it was just that she probably wouldn’t mind answering it.