Miranda tried to judge how much she could say to this man without completely betraying her daughter's confidence. Then she decided that her daughter hadn't been limited by any concerns like that when she'd taken those pictures, and so why did it matter? At this point, all that mattered was her own propriety. “My daughter started here at the beginning of the new year,” she said. “I went here when I was younger. It seemed like a good fit for her. I'd thought we were the same kind of woman. Generational differences, yes, but with similar needs. Then what happens when I show up for a visit? One that she knew was coming, by the by, but still this is how I found her. Barely awake. It doesn't seem like she's opened a single book in ages. And her room…” She scrunched up her nose. It came readily to mind, and now what she hadn't been able to put a name to before seemed terribly obvious. “It stinks of sex. I mean, there's letting loose, and then there's jut – just – God, I don't even know what to say.”
The second she shut her mouth her suburban sense of decorum returned. Miranda glanced up at the handsome middle aged man sitting beside her, one whose name she had just learned, and tried to understand why she had just gone on and on about her daughter's sex life. At least she hadn't given him the gory details. Those were still only for her to **** herself with. “I'm sorry,” she muttered before he could answer, and moved to go.
“Stay, stay,” he laughed, grabbing her lightly by the wrist. “You think I haven't heard worse, living around here? Bad decisions are a dime a dozen. Hell, I've made a few, I'm divorced for a reason.”
Miranda allowed him to guide her back to her chair and sat down. Her smile erupted, and she giggled like a schoolgirl. He really was charming. “Thanks,” she said. “You always think your kids are going to listen to you, and for some reason you're always surprised when they don't.”
“Don't I know it,” Jack chuckled. “Mine talk to me once, maybe twice a month since they went off to school. But I'm pretty happy I don't have to put out their fires anymore. High school was the real disaster in our household.”
“So you know what I'm talking about?” Miranda blushed. How could he not know what she was talking about? A handsome professor like him probably had the girls throwing themselves at him on a daily basis. If he didn't know from his experience as a parent, he certainly knew that way. Not that she thought he was involved in anything untoward like that.
He nodded. “It's a mess. But eventually the mess gets too big and they either ask for help, or sort it out themselves. That's a win-win if you ask me.”
Miranda knitted her fingers together in front of her. “Unless something awful happens first,” she said.
The professor shrugged. “It's sex. It's always awful at first, and then you get better at it. More responsible, but more fun too. Nobody cares these days anyways. It's a brave new world.” He glanced at his watch and Miranda felt her blood pressure climbing again. Was she boring him so much that he wanted to leave already? And just when she was getting comfortable.
“I've got this awful habit,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his blazer and coming out with a pack of cigarettes. “It's disgusting, I know, but I need my fix. Do you want to come out with me and keep chatting? I can lend you one, if you like.”
Miranda stared hard at the pack. She'd been partial to a drunk cigarette now and again when she was younger. After the kids, that had gone out the window. This campus was working its magic. Her lips were tingling, begging to taste it again. “I'll just come out to chat,” she said in an abundance of caution.
