The Professor's Midnight Penalty

Two weeks into a marriage I'd rushed into headfirst, I already wanted out.

My husband was rich, gorgeous, and about as warm as the inside of a refrigerator.

So I did the mature thing and asked for a divorce.

I just don't think we're a good fit, I said.

He set down his pen. Crossed the room. And the man who'd barely strung ten words together for me all week had me pinned beneath him, his voice dropping low and rough.

"You haven't even tried," he said. "How would you know we don't fit?"

Chapter 1

The plan was simple. Walk into my husband's office. Ask for a divorce.

Two weeks married, and I'd already run out of road.

I'd just reached his door when a student slipped in ahead of me, a thesis hugged to her chest.

"Why is the door shut?" His voice, low and clipped. "Open it."

The girl nudged it back open, cheeks pink. I hovered in the hallway, suddenly unsure of myself.

Another student passing by took one look at my face and sighed.

"If it's nothing urgent," she whispered, "come back another day. Trust me."

I should've listened. I didn't. I was curious.

Inside, Everett sat behind his desk in a black shirt, sleeves shoved to the elbows, one forearm braced on the wood. Gold-rimmed glasses. A jaw that looked commissioned.

He turned a page. Then another. His brow dropped lower with each one.

"There isn't a name in academia reckless enough to sign this," he said, not looking up.

The student made a tiny, wounded sound.

"You want to know my mental state right now? Blank. Completely blank.

"I asked for a first draft. This is a ransom note."

"The title's in English. Everything after it, I genuinely could not tell you."

"What is this formatting? Did you invent it?"

I stood frozen in the doorway.

Two weeks of marriage, and I'd gotten maybe a dozen sentences out of this man. He was a vault. A gorgeous, tight-lipped vault.

And here he was, filleting a grad student without once raising his voice.

Turns out the quiet ones have range.

He set the thesis down like it had insulted him personally.

"Take my name out of your acknowledgments. Don't drag me down with you." A beat. "Do you actually want to graduate?"

The poor girl was one syllable from tears.

I knew that specific terror. Death by thesis. Genuinely hard not to feel for her.

Then he tossed the paper onto the desk, and his eyes came up and landed straight on mine.

Something crossed his face. Surprise.

"Delaney." Every sharp edge in his voice just dissolved. "What are you doing here?"

He was across the room before I could answer, taking my hand.

"Why are you standing out there? Come in."

The student's eyes went wide, bouncing between us like she'd walked into the season finale of something.

I lifted a hand in a limp little wave.

Everett glanced at her. "This is my wife."

The girl blue-screened.

"Oh my God, you're married?"

"She's so young!"

"When did this even happen?"

"If you put half this energy into your research," Everett said, "instead of writing your thesis like a bad slow-burn fanfic, you might actually pass."

"Right. Sorry. Going now," she squeaked, and bolted.

And then it was just the two of us, eye to eye, the awkwardness settling back over the room.

"So what brings you by?" His voice had gone soft at the edges. He was looking at me like I was the only thing in the room worth looking at.

My nerve evaporated.

"Just... passing through," I said.

For the record, I am a liar.

Chapter 2

He smiled and reached over to ruffle my hair like I was a golden retriever.

"Perfect timing. I'm done for the day. Let's go home."

For the record, my husband is tall, with the kind of sharp-featured face they model video game leads on, and the gold-rimmed glasses drag the whole effect straight into untouchable territory.

One smile and one hair-ruffle, and my resolve wobbled.

Divorcing a face like that did seem a little wasteful.

He held my hand the whole way out. We passed a few colleagues heading home.

He nodded, polite. "My wife," he said, easy as breathing. "Yeah, just made it official. You'll all get invitations."

I turned red and got in the car.

The drive was silent.

I am constitutionally incapable of silence, so I broke first.

"So. Why are you so vicious to your students?"

"They're slow," he said, like it genuinely pained him.

"You weren't this scary when you tutored me."

Everett had been my father's student. We'd barely crossed paths over the years, but the name was a legend in our house. Skipped two grades. Blew through a combined master's and PhD. The youngest lecturer they'd ever put on the tenure track.

My father spent his whole life turning out brilliant students and somehow ended up with me.

I was the family disaster. No-name college, a master's I coasted through overseas, the whole rsum.

Back when my own thesis nearly gave my dad a stroke, he handed me off to Everett to fix.

That version of Everett had gone through it with me line by line, patient to a fault.

This version filleted grad students for sport.

He glanced over, and his voice dropped low.

"You're different."

He pulled into a lot outside a pharmacy.

"Give me a second. I need to grab something."

"Are you sick?" I asked.

Maybe the students had finally driven him to blood-pressure pills.

He didn't answer. Just looked at me for a beat, something unreadable in his face, and got out.

He was back fast. I didn't see a bag.

The rest of the drive was quiet. Back home, he went straight to the kitchen and started cooking.

Say what you want about the man, the habit was a gift. I slept till noon most days, and the fridge was always full of something he'd just made.

He could actually cook, too. Dinner was on the table in no time.

Garlic butter shrimp. Steak and mushrooms. Mac and cheese. A pot of soup.

Every single thing I liked.

I put my head down and ate. He kept nudging more onto my plate.

"Okay... okay, I'm full," I managed, when I physically could not fit another bite.

"Good."

Silence, again.

I sighed on the inside. We really didn't speak the same language.

This was never going to work.

After dinner he cleared the plates without a word, and I ducked into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Under the shower, I rehearsed it. How to actually say the word. Divorce.

Steam everywhere. Not enough air in the room. My head went light.

I reached for the towel, lost my footing, and went down hard.

The scream ripped out before I could stop it. Tears came hot and instant.

I was fairly sure I had broken my entire body.

"Delaney?" A sharp knock on the door. "What happened?"

Chapter 3

The pain had me barely able to get words out.

"Delaney? Are you okay? I'm coming in."

"I..." Somewhere in the haze I registered that I was very naked. "I slipped. Don't"

He opened the door anyway.

For one frozen second we just stared at each other. Then the color climbed his neck, all the way to his ears.

Heat flooded my face. I didn't know what to cover first.

"Everett, you... you..."

He caught himself and cleared his throat. Grabbed the towel, wrapped me up in it, and lifted me off the floor and into the bedroom.

He set me down on the bed like I might shatter. "Where does it hurt?"

I clutched the towel to my chest. "My foot."

I looked down at the foot in question and wanted to sink through the mattress.

The fall must have jammed it, because my slipper had somehow wedged itself all the way up onto my ankle.

Everett very obviously wanted to laugh. He very obviously didn't.

"They're too big. I'll get you the right size tomorrow." He laid a hand on the slipper. "Let's get this off first."

And so began the two-person operation known as Removing The Slipper.

I was tense and humiliated, and the thing would not come loose.

"It's really stuck." He sighed and started coaching me. "Relax, Delaney. Point your toes."

I had no words. God, just take me now.

A few attempts later, it finally came free.

Everett crouched in front of me, working my foot between both hands. "Can you move it?"

His hair had fallen over his forehead. The glasses hid whatever was in his lowered eyes.

I flexed my foot, face hot. "It's fine now."

It had hurt like hell at first, but the ache was mostly gone already.

He kept kneading, slow, and then he looked up, and I walked straight into his eyes.

The fluster came rushing back, worse this time.

Especially since he just went quiet, and the silence turned into something I couldn't name.

I cracked first. Took a breath.

Here was the thing. I'd walked into this marriage with my eyes closed. I could walk back out the exact same way. My call. Nobody else's.

"Everett. Maybe we should... get a divorce."

His hands stopped. His eyes cooled by several degrees.

"What did you say?"

I looked everywhere but at him. "I said... divorce."

He stood. His shadow dropped over me. He shut his eyes, and it still didn't hide the anger under them.

"Delaney. Do you think marriage is a game?"

I wrung my fingers together, guilty in spite of myself.

"But we're... we're clearly not a fit."

"Where are we not a fit?"

"Everywhere. We're nothing like an actual married couple."

He didn't say a word. His face closed. He turned and walked out.

I sat there, blindsided.

I hadn't even caught up to it when he came back.

And dropped a box on the bed.

My brain: ???

"Everett." My voice cracked. "What are you doing?"

His shirt was already gone. He looked up, one time.

My whole face went up in flames.

Chapter 4

His voice came out rough.

"You haven't even tried. How would you know we don't fit?"

"I..."

The cold rim of his glasses grazed my nose, a shock against my burning skin.

He pulled them off fast. And without them, something in his face eased, went warmer, almost unrecognizable.

Fine. We'd try. A man who looked like that was hardly a loss.

Three minutes later, I was flat on my back, reconsidering my entire life.

He had one hand thrown over his eyes, thoroughly mortified.

"Laney. It was my first time."

Oh.

Oh.

So the man who ran ice-cold, who could barely scrape together small talk with his own wife, had apparently been saving every last bit of himself. For me.

I swallowed a grin and patted his arm, preserving what dignity he had left.

Inside, my head was doing cartwheels. He saved himself. All this time.

"We can try again," he said, ears red. "If that's okay."

"...Sure," I said.

Purely in the interest of research.

And the second time around, the man turned out to be a disturbingly fast learner.

The phone on the nightstand buzzed at the worst possible moment. My mom.

"Laney, your dad passed out!"

Straight panic. Awkwardness forgotten, we scrambled into our clothes and flew down to the car.

The streets were empty. Everett drove fast.

I couldn't sit still. I'd never done this before. My hands wouldn't hold still, and then I was crying.

He kept one hand on the wheel and closed the other around mine.

"Laney, don't be scared. He's going to be okay."

Steady, even. "His checkups are always clean. Don't scare yourself worse."

We got to the hospital fast.

Dad was already awake by the time we arrived. Every bit of air went out of me at once.

"Dad, you scared the life out of me." I hugged him, still trembling.

"It's just the blood pressure. You know your mother, she makes a crisis out of everything. Dragging you two kids out here at this hour."

He patted my shoulder.

"How did it spike like that?" I asked.

"Oh, he worked himself into a state over some news story," Mom said. "Sent his pressure right through the roof."

"Anyway, he's fine, Laney. The doctor says he can stay overnight for observation, but your father won't hear of it, so we'll all be heading home soon."

She turned to Everett. "You've got class in the morning, don't you? Take Laney home, get some sleep. Don't let us wreck your whole night."

Before he could answer, I cut in. "Mom, I'm coming home with you."

"At this hour? What for?"

"I just am."

The truth was two things. One, I was scared for my dad. And two, I had absolutely no idea how to look Everett in the eye right now.

"Honestly, this kid," Mom sighed.

In the end, it was Everett who smoothed it over.

"She got a real scare on the way here. Let her stay with you tonight. I'll pick her up after work tomorrow."

"Fine, fine. Laney, walk him out first. I'll stay with your father."

"No need," Everett said, easy and polite. He reached over and ruffled my hair. "Call me if anything comes up."

Chapter 5

My dad turned out fine. We went home and he went straight to bed.

The next morning, I slept till the sun was high, same as always.

My mom was the one who woke me up.

"Delaney. Is this really when you get up every day?"

I yawned and checked my phone.

"Mom, it's ten. I usually sleep till noon."

"And what exactly do you do with your days?"

"Lunch," I explained. "Then some gaming, some shows in the afternoon. Then I go out with Piper at night."

Piper's my best friend. She opened a bar after graduation, a little place called Foxglove.

I'd just moved back after two lonely years overseas, and any returning student will tell you: you come home owing yourself some serious revenge fun.

Piper is gorgeous and a little feral, so I basically live at her place.

"So you're just out running wild every night," my mom said, unable to help herself. "You know any other married woman who's at a bar every single night?"

"Mom, I go to unwind. It's not like I'm out doing anything scandalous." I picked my words carefully. "It's a nice, wholesome bar."

"And your husband has no problem with you partying nonstop?"

"He's... fine with it."

Mostly because he clocks out at four or five, and I head out at four or five, so we barely cross paths.

"How are things between you two?"

I got a little shifty. "They're... fine."

"Listen to me, Delaney. A marriage takes work. You can't just coast on the fact that he's easygoing and do whatever you want."

I could see the lecture loading, so I threw my arms around her and squirmed like a giant grub.

"Mom. Mom. Mom mom mom mom. My beautiful mother, what are we having for lunch?"

She swatted me, exasperated.

"Ask your father. I don't cook."

My mom is a certified princess. My dad spoiled her so thoroughly that at fifty-something she still has never lifted a finger in a kitchen.

I dragged myself out of bed. My dad was already busy at the stove.

I grabbed a cooked shrimp off the counter, and my dad frowned.

"Wash your hands first, you little goblin."

"Dad, why are you cooking this early?"

He worked away, methodical. "It'll be ready soon. You're taking it to Everett's campus."

"Their campus has a dining hall," I said, baffled.

"Does a dining hall cook like home? That boy lost his parents young. He wants a family more than anything. You need to look after him a little more."

"Okay, okay. Why are you and Mom both team-Everett today? You really landed on a son-in-law you love, huh?"

I said it while sneaking another shrimp.

My dad nodded, proud.

"You bet I did. I vetted that boy for years. There's no one I'd trust you with more.

"Gorgeous, brilliant, easygoing. And no parents, which means no in-laws breathing down your neck.

"Which part of that isn't a hundred times better than those clowns you used to date?"

I had nothing.

Chapter 6

He wasn't wrong. I'd had a few short-lived relationships before this.

My exes either cheated on me or turned out to be lying about pretty much everything.

Eventually I gave up on my own taste in men entirely.

I'm a mama's girl and a daddy's girl, so I let my parents do the picking.

A few days after I moved home, they set me up with Everett.

Honestly, I barely knew him before that. Just that he had no parents, and that every year my dad invited him over for the holidays.

He'd tutored me on a paper once, back when I was graduating.

The whole vibe was cold, untouchable, look-but-do-not-touch.

And me, I've always gone for guys who can make me laugh. Plus he was five years older.

But under my parents' relentless campaigning, I agreed to meet him.

The day of the setup, he wore a charcoal suit with a faint pattern and those gold-rimmed glasses.

The build. That quiet air about him. It hit me right in the chest and I was done for.

Meanwhile my parents were running full support.

"This is your father's finest student. Skipped two grades. Combined master's and PhD. Senior lecturer at a top university before thirty, about to make associate professor."

"He's got no family of his own, so marrying him is practically him joining ours. A catch like that? You'd be stealing him."

I'll admit I was a little drunk on it.

And that's how I ended up signing the papers in a happy blur.

I never really stopped to think about whether we actually fit. Or why someone that in-demand was still single.

"Dad. If Everett's so amazing, why was he single all that time?" I couldn't help asking.

"He was broke. Barely earned anything as a student, then threw himself into research. No time for romance."

"Right," I said. "Or, you know. Maybe there's something wrong with him."

"Something wrong? He's your husband. Wouldn't you know?"

My dad paused. Then he looked up at me, slow.

"Is there something wrong with Everett?"

"No. Nope. Just thinking out loud."

There'd been a learning curve, technically. Emphasis on had. He'd sorted it out by round two.

"Dad. Don't you think Everett is really... quiet?"

My dad shook his head and transformed into a wise old sage.

"What good is a man with a silver tongue? That's how they con girls like you."

"Okay, okay. You're right."

"You've been home long enough. Had your fun?

"You're a married woman now. You can't just run around and never come home. Find yourself an easy job. Doesn't have to pay much. I can support you."

"Sure thing, Professor Hale. I'll start studying tomorrow and land myself a nice steady job with benefits. How's that?"

"That's the kind of attitude I like to hear."

Chapter 7

So I ended up hauling my parents' carefully packed food all the way to Everett's campus.

He had a lecture. It hadn't let out yet.

I was curious what this man looked like in front of a room, so I slipped in through the back door of the hall.

There was one empty seat in the last row. I sank into it.

Down at the front, Everett stood before a chalkboard buried in equations, working through a problem in a language I could not read.

He was intent on it. His glasses caught the light. That same cool, unbothered expression, all of it wrapped in that scholarly quiet.

"You're not in our department, are you?" the girl beside me whispered.

I nodded, sheepish.

"Are you here to watch the legend too? Professor Winters is famous. Girls come from all over just to admire him."

I frowned. "Everett's that popular?"

"Are you kidding? He's a campus legend. The dream guy of half the student body."

She pointed, subtle about it.

"See that girl up front? Marissa, from our department. Word is she's known Professor Winters for a while. Always finding some reason to hang around him."

I followed her line of sight. Sure enough, a pale-skinned girl near the front, gazing up at Everett with total focus.

Huh. Didn't take him for someone who drew a crowd.

"The rest of us just admire him. She's the only one who's obvious about it. Nobody really likes her for it."

The girl kept going, happy to spill.

"Plenty of girls have thrown themselves at him. He never bites. All he cares about is the work. That's half of why we worship the guy.

"Heard he got married recently, though. No clue which lucky girl finally locked down our legend."

Somewhere in the whispering, a voice cut across the room, cold.

"The student talking in the back row. You. Answer the question."

Every head in the room turned.

I dropped down fast, flat against the desk.

The girl beside me rose on shaky legs. "Using the advancement of f-of-x to prove the practical application of linear fluid dynamics..."

Wow. Elite school, all right. These kids could gossip and take notes at the same time.

"Good. Sit. Let's have your neighbor break it down."

My brain: play dead.

The girl poked me. "Hey. He means you."

I stayed down.

"The student lying on the desk."

I gritted my teeth and stood up, face flaming.

"I don't know!"

The room dissolved into laughter.

I glared at Everett, wondering if he'd done that on purpose.

He caught sight of me and blinked. Then the corner of his mouth curled.

"Come see me in my office after class."

The girl beside me looked at me and sighed.

"A moment of silence for you, friend."

Un. Believable.

I pulled out my phone and texted him.

Me: [You did that on purpose?]

Me: [Just walk out by yourself after class. I'm sneaking off.]

No way was I letting his students find out their legend's wife was the disaster in the back row.

He glanced at his phone, and his mouth curved again.

Chapter 8