212

"Hey Luna, you coming with us to the gym? I've got to get my muscle on," my friend said, pointing to his toothpick arm ad grinning back at me facetiously. "And I hope I get a chance to be assisted by Mr. Muscle himself."

"Harry, shut up, we all know you don't actually work out when you go to the gym," Niall said, shaking his head at his boyfriend. That made me laugh.

"Well, at least I go."

Laughing, I stood up, grabbing my notebook and slinging my backpack over my shoulder. "As much as I want to sit and listen to you divas fight about workout regiments and lack thereof, I've got a class remember?"

Harry looked at me and nodded, a look of sudden disappointment washing onto his face.

"Can't you leave it? I mean Mr. Muscle won't even bother coming over if you're not here!"

"Why don't you go to the gym after I get out of class?"

"What time would that be?"

"4:50."

"Abso-fucking-lutely not. That's eating time for me," Niall said, his Irish accent thick as he shook his head at me, that acid blonde hair not moving once.

"We don't have to go right at that time, I'm just saying I can't go now."

It was now Harry's turn to shake his head, "Why are you trying so hard for that class--we both know you don't care about it."

Okay, so I was less than thrilled when I found out that I was being forced by my academic advisor to get my required art credit out of the way this semester. I was even less than thrilled when I found out that it was a straight up art class that required me to draw and put out an effort that I wasn't really sure I possessed. After all, I'm a Engineering major--I didn't know anything about art. But it wasn't the Luna way to just breeze by in any class. No matter how out of touch it was for me, I wanted to do it the Luna way and that was to do the very best of my ability and to shoot for an A. I was never a half-ass student at anything.

Niall answered before I could, "Because H, she's Luna."

"Exactly; what the leprechaun said. I'm going to try and I will come out with an A in this class and never have to take this drawing class ever again."

"Whatever. You go be the star student I know you to be and I'm going to go to the gym, and afterward as a reward for training so hard, I'll treat myself to a piece of that delicious ice cream cake...while you can have none because you didn't burn calories at all," Harry responded.

Laughing, I started backing away from the table before my gay roommates kept me in the library even longer and I was late to class. "You do that Harry," I said, blindly turning around. I was stopped mid-turn when my whole body collided with a skinny yet hard body. Before I could even begin to apologize, a stream of high-octave baritone apologies spewed from the stranger.

"Honestly, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" he asked, one of his hands gripping my shoulder firmly.

Just as I was going to answer him, being the strangely normal person that I am, I looked up at the stranger and literally felt the words cower from my throat and retreat back into whatever part of my brain they'd originated from. To this day, I can't be sure if my eyes had clearly processed what stood before me, but it was truly scaring me. No one, and I mean, no one is that pretty. There's no possible way. Yet, there he stood, high cheekbones and all with his toffee colored eyes that were large and scanning me worriedly. His long thick lashes that were enough to take my breath away fluttered up and down as he blinked a couple times, his small pink lips left slightly opened as if he was waiting for something.

What was he waiting for?

"Miss? Are you okay?"

My eyes rapidly blinked a couple times before I mutely nodded. Impressive Luna, you should be so proud of both your cognitive and verbal capabilities right now.

"Good. Again, I'm sorry. Just wasn't looking where I was going," he said before giving my shoulder a slight squeeze.

I could hear Harry and Niall giggling like school girls behind me. I could also hear Harry whisper to Niall that the stranger was super hot. It only fueled my embarrassment that seemed to grow moment by moment. The longer I stood there, gaping at the Adonis-like creature (that couldn't possibly be human) in front of me, the stronger the feeling crippled me. So before I added the loss of motor skills to the growing list of physical activities to the list of things going wrong at this particular moment, I gave the nameless stranger a slight nod with a tight-lipped smile and bolted, my feet blindly leading me out of the library, and across the street to the main campus.

I was worried about being late to class because of my crazy roommates. I really should've left earlier. Not because of any fault of their own, but more to do with the fact that I had no idea where the hell the Roger C. Clemmons Fine Arts building was. I mean, I'd never crossed this half of the campus; well, at least not frequently enough to know where the hell it was. After a few flawed directions from flustered students and ten minutes past the class start time, I'd found room 212. Apparently this is where my class is.

I quietly opened the door, hoping beyond hope that I could easily slip into the class unnoticed and pick a seat towards the back so that I didn't have to stare this poor professor in the face. I'm only sure that disinterest in this course was evident on my face.

"Nice of you to join us," came a voice from the front as I slipped inside. I was closing the door when the voice had scared me and I let it go, the door slamming closed behind me, making me jump again. I turned around to see a room of about fifteen people staring back at me, some amused, others annoyed. Giving a nervous grin, I looked for a free seat. Thankfully (and unfortunately) my search was abruptly over as my professor decided to help me out.

"There's one free seat up here," he said, pointing to a seat only just off-center.

Bowing my head, slightly in embarrassment and hopefully to keep him from seeing how much I was dreading the next hour and a half, I weaved my way to the seat, quickly setting my bag on the floor and sitting my seat, not bothering to open my notebook that rested just beneath my arms.

"As I was saying before our straggler came stumbling in: welcome to Drawing 101. I am your prof, and yes, that Ph.D after my name is real. Yes, I'm young, get over it. And no, I don't want you to call me Dr. Malik or Professor Malik."

I looked up. That was a first. I'd never heard a single professor at university say that they didn't want to be called by their official titles. And honestly, I understood that. It took years to obtain such a title and with all the shit you have to put up with in the post-graduate program and the doctorate program, it's only part of the consolation of having the fancy degree to be called Professor or Doctor.

And that's when I noticed him. My professor. My teacher. Adonis that bumped me in the cafe at the library.

You've got to be fucking kidding me dude...

There's nothing worse than a hot teacher teaching the worse possible subject.

”So, now that's out of the way, let’s do some introductions. I mean, this class isn’t all that big so I think we’ll have enough time to get to everyone,” this vagabond of a professor said, flashing a devilish grin at the class.

I think I heard the girl next to me swoon.

“I want you to give me first name only, your major, favorite artist, favorite art form and a fun fact about you. It’s your turn when I throw you the spirit stick,” he said, taking out some haphazard child’s art and craft. It actually just looked like bedazzled Manila paper you got in like kindergarten with feathers on it.

Before I could get the time to fully make fun of it in my head, I watched that ugly thing land on my notebook.

Staring at the whole class before looking back down at it, I was starting to lose my words in my throat. Like, what the fuck was I supposed to say now?

“I think she needs a little help,” he said, his accent smoothly rolling into the light laugh at the end. Oh, how I hated that stupid laugh.

“What’s your name love?”

“Luna Latif.”

“First name only Luna. And what are you majoring in?”

I gulped. I couldn’t be the only science major in here…I really couldn’t.

“Engineering.”

I watched his face scrunch for a second. “Really?”

I only stared on. Was it hard to believe that I was an Engineering major? Like, did I look like I majored in something else?

“Yeah,” I answered.

Slowly peeling his eyes away he addressed the whole class. “Who else is a science major in here?”

Silence…and no hands.

“You seem to be the only one Ms. Luna.”

It seemed like he wanted me to say something there. To add something. But what the hell was I supposed to say to that. Like “no shit”?

“My favorite artist is Neil Degrasse-Tyson and my favorite art form is numbers.”

“I’m not familiar with Neil Degrasse-Tyson.”

“Probably not. He’s an astrophysicist.”

“So, not an artist.”

I shrugged. I didn’t know any artists.

“Since you like to be a rebel Mr. Peabody, would you like to give us a fun fact about yourself.”

“I’ve been a beard once.”

A rumble of laughter buzzed about the class and even the professor had to laugh at that, his lazy tongue peeking between his perfectly white teeth as his light brown eyes scanned me. “Well, Mr. Peabody, I think you’re going to have a blast this semester. Don’t piss yourself trying to get too creative.”

And without a final word, he picked up his spirit stick and threw it to a guy sitting a couple rows behind me.