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forgotten just about everything.
    Like her name.
    She hadn’t been expecting Seth’s kiss any more than she had expected Ryan’s. Seth seemed to have had a fine time with her university colleagues. They had certainly enjoyed having him around —especially the women— but it had all felt so clinical to Rachel. Like Seth was studying them all. But maybe that’s just how he behaved in social situations. It wasn’t like Rachel was an expert on social graces.
    So she’d been ready to just shake his hand and tell him she’d see him around. It was obvious that the two of them were too many worlds apart to really ever be a couple. She could see that everyone around them agreed — they’d all been watching to see how the evening would end.
    Was someone as masculine, as handsome, a s sexy , as Seth really on a date with someone as plain as Rachel?
    She wouldn’t have been surprised if her colleagues were taking bets on how the evening would end. Handshake? Hug? Either of those were what would Rachel would’ve bet on.
    So yeah, that kiss had surprised her. Had curled her toes and scorched through her, but had also surprised her.
    And if she wasn’t mistaken, it had surprised him too. Maybe the heat between them? Seth had looked just as shaken as she’d felt.
    She brought her fingers up to her lips. She wasn’t sure where thi s situatio n —because she certainly couldn’t call it a relationship— with Seth was going. There was so much about him she didn’t know. Not that she judged career choices, after all she’d never actually had one, she’d been in one school or another since kindergarten. After graduating high school she’d gone straight on to college, then the Masters program, then the doctoral program. She was twenty-six years old and had been in school since she was five.
    But there had to be a reason a man of Seth’s caliber chose to be a custodian. She was pretty certain if he put his mind to it he could be anything he wanted.
    But as much as she couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss with Seth, couldn’t get him out of her mind at all, it was Ryan’s kiss that had her worried this morning.
    The situation with Seth, wild and crazy as it was, would work itself out. If things went bad with him and she had to avoid him every time she saw him on campus with his cart, she would do that.
    Ryan was a different story. She was not interested in him at all and whatever she had done to give him that impression needed to be fixed. She needed to let him down gently. Even though he’d been a jerk.
    Rachel was currently ABD —all but dissertation— in the literature Ph.D. program. Once she had completed her dissertation, she hoped to apply for a job at Virginia State, to stay here in D.C.
    But rumors flying around that she had affairs with colleagues? That would not help her in her job hunting. Not to mention the thought of kissing Ryan on a regular basis did nothing to her libido whatsoever. Rachel was not interested and would let him know next time she saw him.
    She took the metro to campus, making it just in time for the nine o’clock class she taught. Normally she would’ve stopped by her office, had another cup a coffee, been more prepared for her day. But she was late. Last night had thrown her for a loop and she was still feeling its effects this morning. Most college instructors didn’t come in on Fridays unless they had to. Rachel had to since she was low man on the totem pole and had a class.
    The class wasn’t bad as far as freshman lit went; the only difficulty was that it only met once a week, so it was nearly three hours in length. By the time the class was over, Rachel was feeling the effect of her unpreparedness even more. She didn’t think the students had noticed, but she didn’t plan to let it happen again.
    She needed to focus on school and not on Seth. Or on Ryan. She needed to just focus on her work and let everything else go. Rachel was quite good at avoiding reality when she wanted to