MY PROFESSOR MY CRUSH

Jessie Rivera had rehearsed the first day of college in her head at least two hundred times.

She would arrive early, unpack with quiet efficiency, introduce herself to a polite roommate who also loved silence and library hours, and then spend the evening reviewing the syllabus for History 101. Simple. Controlled. Safe.

Reality had other plans.

The email from Housing Services arrived while she was still sitting on her suitcase in the hallway of Willow Hall, apartment 4B.

We regret to inform you that a clerical error has assigned you to a staff residential unit. Your temporary roommate will be Professor Alexander Kane until a student room becomes available. Please report any issues to the housing office.

Jessie read it three times.

Professor.

Staff unit.

Temporary.

She was still staring at the screen when the door opened.

He was tall. Dark hair still damp from a shower, white T-shirt clinging to a chest that looked like it belonged in a different zip code from “history professor.” Grey sweatpants sat low on his hips. He held a cardboard box labelled Kane – Office and looked just as surprised as she felt.

“You’re the student,” he said. His voice was low, a little rough, like he hadn’t used it much that morning.

“Jessie. Rivera. Freshman.” She hated how small her voice sounded.

He set the box down and ran a hand through his hair. “Alex Kane. I teach History 101. Among other things.” A pause. “This is… unexpected.”

They stood in the narrow entryway of the two-bedroom apartment that suddenly felt the size of a closet. The living room was sparse: one couch, a coffee table, a kitchen that opened directly onto it. Two doors on the left — bedrooms. One door on the right — the single bathroom they would apparently share.

Jessie’s best friends, Sophia and Emily, were supposed to help her move in. They were currently stuck in traffic and texting increasingly unhelpful advice.

Sophia: Is he hot?

Emily: If he’s hot, this is destiny. Or a lawsuit. Either way, document everything.

Jessie shoved her phone into her pocket.

Alex cleared his throat. “I’ll take the smaller room. You can have the one with the desk.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“It is. You’re the student. I’m the one who shouldn’t even be here.” He gave a short, humourless laugh. “Housing said a week, maybe two. We’ll survive.”

He moved past her to open the window. The scent of his soap — clean, something woodsy — brushed over her. Jessie felt heat climb her neck for no reason she could justify.

Unpacking was quiet and awkward. Every time she passed him in the hallway their shoulders almost touched. Every time he spoke, her stomach did something traitorous. She told herself it was nerves. First day. New city. Shared living space with a man who looked like he had stepped out of the exact daydream she used to have in high school about the older guy who never noticed her.

She was wrong.

Two hours later she sat in the third row of History 101, notebook open, pen ready, determined to be the model student. The lecture hall filled. Sophia and Emily slid into the seats on her left, still whispering about the “professor roommate situation.”

“I’m going to die,” Jessie muttered.

“You’re going to live,” Sophia corrected. “And possibly get railed. There’s a difference.”

Emily kicked her under the desk. “Boundaries, Soph.”

The side door opened and Alexander Kane walked in carrying a laptop and a stack of syllabi. Same man from the apartment, now in a dark button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and black jeans. The room quieted the way it only does when someone interesting enters.

He looked up, scanned the seats, and his gaze landed on Jessie for half a second longer than necessary. Something flickered across his face — recognition, tension, something hotter — before he schooled it into professional neutrality.

“Good morning. I’m Professor Kane. This is History 101: Foundations of the Modern World. If you’re in the wrong room, now is the time to leave.”

No one left.

He began the seating chart. Alphabetical. When he reached Rivera, he paused.

“Jessie Rivera. You’re… here.” His eyes met hers again. “Front-adjacent is fine. Move one seat to the right, please. The chart has you next to…” He checked the paper. “Me. I’ll be circulating today.”

The class chuckled. Jessie’s face burned. She moved. Alex set his materials on the desk beside hers and sat down as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

It was not.

For the next fifty minutes he taught from that seat, occasionally standing to write on the board, occasionally leaning back so his arm brushed the edge of her notebook. Every time he spoke she felt the vibration of his voice in her chest. Every time he looked at the class his peripheral vision caught her. She could smell the same soap from the apartment. She could see the faint scar on his knuckle when he gestured. She could feel the heat of his thigh a careful six inches from hers.

Her body, traitorous and inexperienced, reacted as if it had been waiting years for exactly this proximity. Her pulse sat in her throat. Her skin felt too tight. She wrote nothing useful in her notebook.

When class ended he stood, gathered his things, and said quietly, so only she could hear, “We should talk about the apartment situation tonight. Properly.”

Jessie nodded, unable to form words.

Sophia and Emily pounced the second he left the room.

“Holy sh*t,” Sophia breathed. “He’s the roommate?”

“He’s the professor,” Emily said. “And he looked at you like he wanted to skip the syllabus and go straight to the oral exam.”

Jessie pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. “Stop. This is a disaster.”

“This,” Sophia corrected, linking arms with her, “is the plot of every dirty book we’ve ever read. And we’re going to make sure you survive it with the best stories and the best orgasms of your life.”

“Sophia!”

“What? Educative. I’m being educative. Communication, consent, knowing what you want. We’ll workshop it.”

Jessie wanted to sink into the floor. Instead she let her friends drag her to the dining hall while her mind stayed fixed on two facts:

She now lived with the man who had just taught her first college class.

For the first time in her life, the quiet, careful version of herself was losing the argument against the part that simply wanted.

That night the apartment was quiet except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional sound of Alex moving in the other room. Jessie sat on her bed with her laptop open, syllabus unread, replaying every second of the lecture. The way his voice dropped when he said her name. The careful distance he kept. The way her body had reacted anyway.

A soft knock on her open doorframe.

Alex stood there in the same T-shirt from the morning, hair slightly messier. He looked tired and something else — restrained.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

He leaned against the frame, arms crossed. The movement pulled the shirt tight across his chest. Jessie’s eyes betrayed her for half a second. He noticed. The air between them thickened.

“This is complicated,” he said. “I need you to know I take the power imbalance seriously. You’re my student. You’re also, for the moment, living in the same space. I will not make this harder than it already is.”

Jessie swallowed. “And if I make it harder?”

The question surprised them both. His eyes darkened. For a long moment he said nothing. Then, quietly:

“Then we talk. Clearly. Continuously. No assumptions. No pressure. You set the pace for anything that happens outside that classroom. Inside it, you’re just another student. Outside it…” He exhaled. “Outside it we’re two adults sharing a temporary living arrangement who need to be honest about the fact that the arrangement is already charged.”

The honesty landed in her stomach like heat.

“Okay,” she whispered.

He nodded once. “Good night, Jessie.”

“Good night, Professor.”

The title slipped out by accident. Something flickered in his expression — heat, warning, want — before he turned and walked to his own room. The door clicked shut.

Jessie lay back on the bed, heart pounding, body restless in a way she had no experience managing. She pressed her thighs together and stared at the ceiling, already knowing sleep would not come easily.

Somewhere on the other side of the thin wall, Alexander Kane was having the exact same problem.

Jessie woke to the sound of running water.

For a few seconds she stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, heart already racing, before the events of yesterday crashed back into her. The housing error. The apartment. The man on the other side of the wall who was both her professor and her roommate.

The water stopped. A drawer opened and closed. Soft footsteps moved past her door toward the kitchen.

She sat up slowly, pressing her palms against her eyes. Her body still felt restless from the night before — the way his voice had dropped when he said her name, the careful honesty in his words, the heat that had lived under her skin long after he closed his door.

She needed to act normal. She could do normal.

Jessie pulled on a soft oversized sweater and leggings, ran a brush through her hair, and opened her door as quietly as possible.

Alex stood at the kitchen counter in dark jeans and a charcoal button-down, sleeves already rolled to his elbows. His hair w