Chapter One
Open windows let in the salt-soaked breezes
of the California evening, and with them the laughter, shrieks, and
good-natured hum of humanity that abounded in the early summer
evening. One of his neighbors was barbecuing, and a delicious spicy
sweet scent drifted in occasionally. He'd turned the television on
for white noise when he arrived home an hour ago, and it continued
to drone on in the background. These weren't the things that kept
Dr. Ashton Duval from accomplishing what needed to be done tonight.
The three unexpected and unanswered text messages from his ex,
Dennis Romgarten, chair of his department at the college, weren't
the cause of his distraction either. Nothing he had to say
interested Ashton outside of working hours.
In the comfort of familiar surroundings with
their incumbent noises, a pile of blue books which contained
handwritten final essays from over one hundred fifty freshmen
surrounded Ashton. His colleagues chided him for the old-fashioned
method of test taking. They preferred their students to email
essays in typed format. Ashton figured having the students in his
composition classes actually write their final essays in class
guaranteed the work he scored was original and not copy-pasted from
elsewhere on the net. Handwritten exams also meant he had to squint
and strain his eyes to read practically illegible handwriting from
students no longer accustomed to working in pen and ink. The
results were frequently disastrous, but often very telling.
He'd carefully sorted the exam books into
piles, those that would be unbearably difficult to score, those
that were sure to be brilliant, and those that would be tedious but
not painful to read. Over the six years that he had been teaching
Comp 101, he'd developed a reward system of sorts to make the task
easier. One painful essay scored, plus three tedious essays, and
then he'd be permitted to read one from the "sure to be brilliant"
stack.
Usually that system worked just fine and
allowed him to plow through the reading and have this portion of
the grading for his class done before the final exam. The method
ensured that he could grade the data assessment portion of the
test, one hundred fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and matching
questions about correct word choice, punctuation usage, and
grammar, quickly and easily. Usually.
This year, there were too many distractions
and he wasn't at all able to focus on scoring the essays, not the
good ones, the bad ones, nor the merely tolerable ones.
Instead, he sat in the early evening,
regretting his insistence that Bailey not come over. He'd known
that if his boyfriend were in the room, he wouldn't get a damn bit
of work done. He'd hoped that the prospect of seeing Bailey when he
finished his grading would give him incentive to finish quickly,
but his masterful plan had backfired.
The television blithered on in the background
about record amounts of summer traffic and potential danger from
sharks or maybe ultraviolet rays at the beaches. He couldn't focus
on any of that. The only thing his mind wanted to dwell on was that
graduation was ten days away.
Ten days, each comprised of twenty-four
hours. Two hundred forty more hours during which he would do his
best to be a gentleman and keep his hands to himself and his lust
in check. “Pomp and Circumstance” had soared to number one on his
personal list of favorite songs ever.
Because after graduation, he and Bailey could
move forward.
So while he should be thinking about whether
the essays that he had to score met state standards, all he could
focus on was that, in ten days, eighteen months of waiting would
come to an end. Blue eyes and plump red lips interfered when he
tried to comprehend a mind-boggling student analogy between
Aristotle and John Lennon.
Strong, lean muscles and a flat, toned
abdomen honed from working construction dragged his concentration
away from a discussion of the merits of uniforms in school. Two
hours of effort
Open windows let in the salt-soaked breezes
of the California evening, and with them the laughter, shrieks, and
good-natured hum of humanity that abounded in the early summer
evening. One of his neighbors was barbecuing, and a delicious spicy
sweet scent drifted in occasionally. He'd turned the television on
for white noise when he arrived home an hour ago, and it continued
to drone on in the background. These weren't the things that kept
Dr. Ashton Duval from accomplishing what needed to be done tonight.
The three unexpected and unanswered text messages from his ex,
Dennis Romgarten, chair of his department at the college, weren't
the cause of his distraction either. Nothing he had to say
interested Ashton outside of working hours.
In the comfort of familiar surroundings with
their incumbent noises, a pile of blue books which contained
handwritten final essays from over one hundred fifty freshmen
surrounded Ashton. His colleagues chided him for the old-fashioned
method of test taking. They preferred their students to email
essays in typed format. Ashton figured having the students in his
composition classes actually write their final essays in class
guaranteed the work he scored was original and not copy-pasted from
elsewhere on the net. Handwritten exams also meant he had to squint
and strain his eyes to read practically illegible handwriting from
students no longer accustomed to working in pen and ink. The
results were frequently disastrous, but often very telling.
He'd carefully sorted the exam books into
piles, those that would be unbearably difficult to score, those
that were sure to be brilliant, and those that would be tedious but
not painful to read. Over the six years that he had been teaching
Comp 101, he'd developed a reward system of sorts to make the task
easier. One painful essay scored, plus three tedious essays, and
then he'd be permitted to read one from the "sure to be brilliant"
stack.
Usually that system worked just fine and
allowed him to plow through the reading and have this portion of
the grading for his class done before the final exam. The method
ensured that he could grade the data assessment portion of the
test, one hundred fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and matching
questions about correct word choice, punctuation usage, and
grammar, quickly and easily. Usually.
This year, there were too many distractions
and he wasn't at all able to focus on scoring the essays, not the
good ones, the bad ones, nor the merely tolerable ones.
Instead, he sat in the early evening,
regretting his insistence that Bailey not come over. He'd known
that if his boyfriend were in the room, he wouldn't get a damn bit
of work done. He'd hoped that the prospect of seeing Bailey when he
finished his grading would give him incentive to finish quickly,
but his masterful plan had backfired.
The television blithered on in the background
about record amounts of summer traffic and potential danger from
sharks or maybe ultraviolet rays at the beaches. He couldn't focus
on any of that. The only thing his mind wanted to dwell on was that
graduation was ten days away.
Ten days, each comprised of twenty-four
hours. Two hundred forty more hours during which he would do his
best to be a gentleman and keep his hands to himself and his lust
in check. “Pomp and Circumstance” had soared to number one on his
personal list of favorite songs ever.
Because after graduation, he and Bailey could
move forward.
So while he should be thinking about whether
the essays that he had to score met state standards, all he could
focus on was that, in ten days, eighteen months of waiting would
come to an end. Blue eyes and plump red lips interfered when he
tried to comprehend a mind-boggling student analogy between
Aristotle and John Lennon.
Strong, lean muscles and a flat, toned
abdomen honed from working construction dragged his concentration
away from a discussion of the merits of uniforms in school. Two
hours of effort
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