“Did you say Cooper? Jackson Cooper?”
“Yeah, do you know him?”
She blinked, opening and closing her mouth as if I’d caught her off guard.
“Sure. A lot of people do. He’s one of the leading researchers in his field.” She grabbed a broom and busied herself sweeping the spotless floor. “Interesting that a renowned biochemist would teach a freshman chemistry class. So, he was cranky?”
“That’s the understatement of the decade.”
“I’m sure things will settle down once everyone is over the first week of the semester crazies. How about your other classes?”
She was trying to change the subject. That just made me even more curious. She didn’t seem like the type of person to avoid things. That was more my parents’ MO.
After we set the table and placed the Tofurky dogs on a platter, I sat down, ready to dig into the salad. At least that looked reasonably normal. That’s when I heard a yelp and saw Greg’s head dash across the kitchen window.
“Greg?”
There was a loud squawking followed by a high-pitch screech and he zoomed past the window again.
The front door slammed, and he rushed into the kitchen, yelling, “Make it go away! It’s attacking me!”
“What’s after you?” I asked as I watched Greg run around the table, his arms flailing.
He quickly hopped on one of the kitchen chairs and snatched a knife. “That . . . that thing.”
He jabbed the knife at something beneath his feet.
“Look at its beady eyes. It wants to kill me.”
I looked around the floor and saw a flash of feathers as something scurried past my feet. Yelping, I jumped up onto my seat. “What the hell is that?”
“Penny, what did I say about you coming into the house?” Rainbow scolded as she bent down and scooped up the creature. She ran a palm across its tiny head. “You naughty girl.”
“Is that a . . .?” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “What is that?”
“Pass me the barbecue sauce and that’s dinner,” Greg said.
The chicken squawked.
Whoa! A pet chicken. Was that a Texas thing or Rainbow thing?
“Now, now, Penny, he didn’t mean that. He was just joking,” Rainbow crooned.
“No, I’m not,” he mouthed.
Penny’s beady eyes glared at him, keeping an eye on the knife.
“I didn’t know you had any pets,” I said.
“Penny belongs to my life partner, Meadow. She’s backpacking through Tibet. You’ll meet her in a few weeks when she gets back. Greg, you can put the knife down. Penny won’t peck at you. Right, Penny?”
Greg narrowed his eyes watching Penny as Rainbow carried her back outside. “I’ll be watching you.”
“You do realize you were threatening a chicken with a butter knife, don’t you?”
Reaching over the table, he grabbed a faux-hot dog and slapped it into a bun. “And I’ll do it again if I have too. You didn’t see her, Nicole. I was minding my own business and this brown bullet darted right at me. It was like she smelled the chicken teriyaki I had for lunch. And that beak hurts. Now, I have little red dots all over my ankles. I was planning to lay out by the river tomorrow after class.”
“You big baby. And don’t you know too much tanning is bad for you?”
“For you maybe, Ms. Red Lobster.” He tapped my cheek and grinned. It wasn’t fair that he had that nice golden tan that made him look even more handsome. All I had to look forward to was peeling. Eww.
“Hey, this actually looks good.” He heaped a scoop of sweet relish onto his hot dog. “So I need to tell you about what happened with Travis. I was getting some intel, for you of course, because it’s been a while since you’ve been on a real date and—”
He stopped abruptly, his face turning almost as green as my salad. He spat out the hot dog onto his plate.
“Gross! Greg!”
“What the hell did I just eat?”
“Oh, you’ve tried the Tofurky,” Rainbow said, walking back into the kitchen. “It takes a little getting used to—”
“A little?” He made a face as he searched the table, his tongue hanging out. Spotting a napkin, he swiped it repeatedly over his tongue, gagging.
“It tastes much better with tofu chili. Want me to whip you both up some?”
“No!” we cried.
Rainbow took out a pitcher and poured yellow liquid into his glass. “Drink this, you’ll like it.”
He looked down at the glass skeptically. “What is it?”
“Lemonade.”
“Oh.” He took a swig. “Ah, much better.”
She ruffled his hair. “I’ll make a vegetarian out of you yet. Oh that reminds me.”
She reached into the pocket of her dress and handed me a slip of paper.
“My friend, Lou, owns the coffee shop across from campus, Jitters. He said he could use some help. He’s in Tucson taking care of family business, but will be back in a couple of weeks. You can talk to him then.”
I looked down at paper. “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”
“Not a problem. Now Lou can be a little off, and he tends to forget things sometimes. But he’s a sweet man. You’ll like him.”
Like him or not, I was desperate for a job. I stabbed my fork into the salad, feeling much better now that the job situation was settled. Now all I had to do was survive Cooper’s class.
Chapter Seven
“Ms. Ashford!”
I blinked, shocked that Professor Cooper was calling on me. It’d been weeks and not once had he even looked at me.
“Wake up, Nicole,” Greg hissed.
“Uh, aluminum fluoride.”
Several students chuckled.
“Sweet,” Travis muttered under his breath, laughing. Even when he was laughing, he looked like the perfect golden boy and was annoyingly handsome. Even more annoying was the way Greg looked up to him. His face all enamored with Travis. He laughed even harder, elbowing Travis, joining him.
I scowled, and he choked back a laugh.
Yeah, he knew better than to get on my bad side.
“I’m sorry, you were saying?” I turned back to face Cooper and took a really good look at him for the first time since the beginning of the semester.
Big mistake.
He stood in front of the lectern, thick arms folded across his massive chest. My eyes slowly crawled up, taking in every inch of his muscular body, the square jawline thick with scruff until they reached fiery gemstone blue eyes.
Good God. Why couldn’t he look like a normal guy? And why did he have to be so annoyingly sexy? I twisted in my seat uncomfortably.
“I, uh, you asked a question?”
Yeah, there was a reason why I’d kept my head down during class. One look and already my brain was in stupid mode. I quickly averted my eyes to the back of Gianna’s head.
“If you can manage to utilize the functions of your frontal lobe, Ms. Ashford, I asked to have a word with you after class.”
I had no idea why he’d want to see me. I hadn’t made a peep since the beginning of the semester. Knowing my luck, he was probably going to give me a bill for his dry cleaning.
Gianna turned, gazing at me briefly. She leaned over to Red and whispered something in her ear and giggled.
I clenched my hand into a fist. I was tired of being used as Cooper’s punching bag. The man needed to get over the little coffee incident. He wanted to see me after class? Fine. I wanted to see him too—to give him a piece of my mind.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ooh, you’re in trouble,” Greg said in a sing-song voice when Cooper released the class.
“Knock it off.” I slowly gathered my things.
After most of the class left, I stood a couple of feet from Cooper, waiting as he talked to a few students who had questions about the class assignment.
“Excuse me.” Gianna sauntered past me as she went to him.
“I just wanted to tell you I’m learning so much. The extra tutoring you’re giving me has been so helpful.” She placed a possessive hand on his muscular arm then threw me a hateful side-glance.