“Understandable,” he says, turning the pen in his hands end over end. “Do you want to start with any questions you’ve had about the lectures or the homework? I trust you got the notes from a classmate.”
“I did,” I say, and I look down at the problem sets I brought with me, and I make myself focus on them and only them.
Together, we go over the homework that I’ve managed to get done so far. He stands from his chair and walks to a whiteboard against one wall of his office, erases a set of symbols that I don’t even pretend to understand, and answers my questions simply, thoroughly, and completely.
He’s a very good teacher. He’s probably the best math teacher I’ve ever had, and I’m not just saying that because he’s hotter than an August heat wave. Unlike every other math teacher I’ve ever had, he can understand why something doesn’t make sense to me. If I’m not getting one approach to a problem, he can approach it from another angle, explain it a different way.
Admittedly, I’m not bad at math. I’m perfectly fine at math; it’s not my favorite subject, but I’m not terrified of it like so many people seem to be.
But Caleb is very good at math, and he’s very good at teaching math, so good that in a purely professional, non-sexual way, it’s a pleasure to watch him do it because it’s so rare that you see someone doing exactly what they should be in their life.
I don’t know how long we’ve been talking about integrals and limits when his phone goes off several times in a row.
“Right, so that will be the asymptote as the limit of that particular function approaches zero,” he says, pointing with one hand and pulling the phone from his pocket with the other. “Which, actually, is what we’re covering Monday, so you’re officially all caught up. Is it really seven-fifteen?”
“That’s gotta be wrong,” I tell him, reaching for my own phone, since he doesn’t seem to have a clock in his office.
My phone says it’s 7:16.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “I swear, I thought it was maybe six.”
He’s still got a dry-erase marker in one hand, both sleeves rolled up, and he runs that hand through his hair, ruffling it slightly.
“Well, everyone knows how easy it is to get lost in a discussion of calculus,” he deadpans, his voice teasing as he looks at the whiteboard again. “If you’re not careful, poof, there goes your whole weekend.”
“It should come with a warning label,” I agree.
“Do you have any questions? I’ll leave this up here for a moment, but I actually need to leave,” he says, capping the marker and putting it back into the tray.
“Where are you going?” I ask, casually, copying the last equation from the board into my notebook.
“Home,” he says, moving behind his desk and grabbing a pile of papers. “Well, not home. My mom’s house, for the weekend.”
Then he pauses, the stack of papers held in one hand, and considers me for a beat.
“Charlie had the baby,” he says, and a smile takes over his face slowly, from the inside out.
It’s the first time either of us has alluded to the four hours we spent together in a car, and it’s a relief, pure and simple. Pretending that the kiss didn’t happen is hard enough; pretending that I don’t know him as well as I do would be impossible.
“I thought she wasn’t due for another week?” I say, keeping my voice down.
“She was about ten days early,” he says, maneuvering the stack into a manila folder. “Though I’ve since learned that anything between thirty-eight and forty-two weeks is considered a perfectly normal length for a human pregnancy.”
“Have you met him yet?” I ask, putting my notebook away, slinging my bag onto my shoulder. “You said it was a boy, right?”
It’s oddly heavy, and after a moment, I remember why.
“I went up last weekend,” he says, then glances at the door. There’s silence in the hall, and after a moment, Caleb smiles. “I’ve got pictures. Want to see?”
I just laugh.
“Of course I want to see, I’m human,” I tell him. “We’re genetically programmed to be attracted to babies. Not like that! I just mean attracted in a regular way. Humans like looking at human babies. In studies people always look at pictures of babies for much longer than anything else, even sexual pictures of other adults.”
I am not making this better. I am not making this better at all.
I think Caleb is laughing at me, scrolling through something on his phone.
“It activates the reward center in our brain,” I go on, for some reason. “Some scientists actually think that it’s the reason that we’ve selectively bred domestic animals to be cuter —”
He holds his phone out to me. On the screen is a picture of him, wearing a plaid shirt, holding a brand-new infant swaddled in a blanket.