Alex watched as you took a slow sip from a ridiculously vibrant, neon colored drink, his focus drawn to the way your lips curved around the straw.

This was certainly not how Professor Turner envisioned his Saturday night ending: seated in a dimly lit, slightly bad hotel bar, across the table from one of his sharpest students.

Professor Turner was a man rarely caught off guard. No student had ever managed to truly throw him, not with a baffling question, not with a controversial essay. Nothing. Until you. Your insightful questions, your confident observations, were too smart, too smart for a student of your age.

Alex often found himself genuinely challenged, and for the first time in his teaching career, momentarily speechless.

He admired your intellect, the precise rhythm of your voice, the way you thought. And somewhere along the line, that admiration had blurred into something he couldn't quite label.

He had been sitting at the far end of the bar, trying to enjoy his solitude, when he first spotted you.

You were sitting across the room, surrounded by a lively group of other college kids, bright and laughing. Your eyes met his across the crowded space. Alex felt a distinct, unprofessional jolt, a falter in his practiced academic composure. You noticed it, and you made your way over.

Now, here he was, sitting directly across from you, the neon glow of your absurd drink catching the light. Alex found himself fighting to keep his thoughts in order, feeling less like a respected professor and more like a nervous teenager.