"What if they're for me?"

"It's dinner time. Not tea and coffee time."

"Well, before I put you in a taxi, I'm going to make sure you eat something. And have some tea. Tea always seems to fix everything."

I laughed. "I'm not sure tea will make me not crazy."

He shrugged. "It's worth a shot. So, want to tell me why you think someone is following you?"

"You're not going to let that go, are you?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Are you afraid of someone?"

Oh, hell no. You are not doing this. I was not going to confess everything to my very good-looking male professor, who probably had many panties dropping all over the country because he was stupidly attractive. I didn't know where to look when I gazed at him. And God, he knew how to melt you with a look, but something told me I didn’t want to get involved with him beyond a professional level.

Sure, I found him attractive, but I wasn’t necessarily attracted to him. There was something that drew me to him, some familiarity. But it was off. Not like when I got saved by the other guy a couple days earlier. That instant spark that had me feeling stupid for hours afterward… It wasn't like that. But that was good because he was my professor.

Yeah, dumbass, don’t forget that.

"I'm not afraid of anyone."

He cocked his head. "You're not telling me the truth."

"I don't have to tell you the truth."

He nodded. "Fair enough. Maybe you should avoid walking the streets without a friend late at night."

"What kind of world is it that I can’t walk around without a chaperone?"

He shrugged. "You can. But I'm just saying you were scared."

"I'm fine. I overreacted."

He shrugged. "If you say so. In the meantime, if you get that scared again, anywhere, like on campus or anything like that, not that we're friends or anything, but you tell me, and I'll make sure that you're not scared anymore."

I frowned. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, for starters, I can get security to walk you to your bus. That's easy enough. And if someone deliberately scares you, not that that's what this was this time, but we can talk to the school administration. Have security posted, that sort of thing. But you were just overreacting, right?"

I met his gaze and nodded slowly. "Yeah, just overreacting."

I'm sure Dr. Kaufman would have a field day with this, but speaking my truth wasn’t going to happen with my teacher, no matter how kind he was being. When my tea came, I was actually grateful for it. And the pastry was delicious.