Mr. August: A Student/Teacher Romance (Calendar Boys Book 8) Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  Mr. August

  Published by Nicole S. Goodin

  Digital edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9951206-4-8

  Copyright 2019 by Nicole S. Goodin

  All rights reserved. ©

  This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Mr. August

  First published August 2019

  All rights reserved. ©

  Cover design by Nicole Goodin

  Images purchased from Shutterstock

  Editing by Spell Bound

  DISCLAIMER

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, places, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges all song titles, song lyrics, film titles, film characters, trademarked statuses and brands mentioned in this book are the property of, and belong to, their respective owners.

  Nicole S. Goodin is in no way affiliated with any of the brands, songs, musicians or artists mentioned in this book.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  THANK YOU!

  MR. SEPTEMBER

  OTHER TITLES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PLAYLIST

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  UPCOMING TITLES

  DEDICATION

  For all the babes born in August

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book has been written using UK English and may contain euphemisms and slang words that form part of the New Zealand spoken word.

  Please remember that the words are not misspelled. They are slang terms and form part of everyday, New Zealand vernacular.

  I.e: I’m from New Zealand and sometimes we say weird things down here… please try and be cool about it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Liam

  I tug my collar a little higher as I step out of my apartment building and into the chilly morning air.

  I forgot how freezing it gets around here in the wintertime.

  I shrug my bag up onto my shoulder and set off towards the campus.

  I know I’m prepared, but I still don’t feel it. I’ve been moping around at home for six months now, and it feels like an eternity.

  I go over a few of the lesson plans and class content I’ve been given from last year in my head and try to remember what I’m meant to do when I get there.

  I know one thing; I’m not going to be doing jack shit without getting a coffee into me first.

  I shiver as I cross the road and head towards the little coffee shop just around the corner. It still serves the best in town – that much hasn’t changed while I’ve been gone at least.

  I jog the last half a block in a futile attempt to warm up.

  I torture myself with memories of warm sunny beaches as I pull the door open.

  The warmth and sweet aroma of coffee fills my nostrils, and I inhale deeply as I step inside.

  I line up and glance around the shop.

  It’s still fairly early, but there’s bound to be at least a few students from the uni milling around, there always is.

  I notice a big, burly-looking guy frowning at something on the screen of his laptop – he’s bound to be here on some type of sports scholarship, then there’s a group of three girls all giggling and sipping on huge cups of some elaborate drink, and another two guys that give me the distinct impression they spend more time smoking weed than they do studying.

  I’m just about to turn around and face the counter again when she catches my eye.

  A young brunette woman, her dark wavy hair falling around her shoulders and her pretty face etched in concentration as she clicks away on her mouse and studies something on the screen of her laptop.

  I swallow the lump in my throat as I watch her. I can’t seem to look away. She tips her head to the side; her lips turn up into a slight smile before she straightens again.

  She’s beautiful.

  I don’t know if she’s a student or not, if I had to guess, I’d say not – she looks wise, somehow.

  As though she can feel my eyes on her, her gaze drifts from the screen and meets mine.

  I’m too absorbed in her to even consider the fact that I should look away, so I don’t, I just stare, my heart beating rapidly against my rib cage.

  She holds eye contact for a few seconds before dropping her head in embarrassment, her cheeks colouring with a pink blush.

  Shit. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m staring.

  A woman hasn’t captured my attention like this in a long while, and I don’t know how to deal with it.

  I pull my eyes from her, and step forward in the line.

  I order my flat white and wait to the side, intentionally keeping my eyes from wandering back in her direction.

  No one likes a creepy staring dude.

  “Liam.” The guy making the drinks calls my name, and I take the takeaway cup from him gratefully.

  I’d love to have the balls to go over and ask the pretty girl if I could join her, but that’s not going to happen, so instead, I go back through the door I came in, and only once I’m back out in the cold do I glance back.

  She’s watching me leave, an intrigued expression on her face, and I can’t help but give her a small grin. She returns it with a small, shy smile, and I feel like fist pumping the air.

  I don’t know what the hell that was, but that pull was insane.

  I feel stupidly elated for the rest of the walk to campus. Even when I enter the photography studio and pull out my camera, I’m still smiling like an idiot.

  I can’t figure out what’s come over me.

  I sit my bag on a chair and get out my laptop and the textbook that I’ll need for my first class.

  I glance at my watch.

  I’ve only got ten minutes until it starts.

  I power up my laptop and make a few quick adjustments to a photo I’ve been editing while I wait for other people to start arriving.

  Finally, I hear chatter in the hallway, and I grab a pen from my bag in preparation.

  Students start filing in and I smile at a few of them. I’ll be spending the rest of the year with them, ideally, I’d like to make a good first impression.

  A few of the girls start whispering behind their hands to one another and giggling. I frown at them.

  A couple of the guys give me a chin lift or a nod as they come in.

  I turn my back on the class and scrawl my name across the white board, ‘M
r. Conrad’, as I hear the room fill up.

  I turn back around and my eyes land directly on the young woman sitting at a bench right in the front row.

  She gasps as she recognises me, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to openly stare at her again like I did less than half an hour ago.

  It’s her.

  The girl from the coffee shop.

  Of course, she’s my student.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Perry

  I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and try my hardest to settle my racing pulse.

  He’s the reason all the girls were fixing their hair and makeup in the bathroom before class – he’s the reason everyone has been whispering about the hot new teacher.

  He is the hot new teacher.

  And damn, the rumours weren’t wrong.

  He’s unbelievably sexy.

  I’ve never had a teacher that looks like this before, and right now I’m grateful for that.

  I haven’t got a clue how I’m meant to focus on this class with him here – the gorgeous man I caught staring at me at the café earlier. It’s beyond distracting.

  I was hoping I’d share a class with him after I watched him walk off in the direction of the campus, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

  “Is he even old enough to be our teacher?” I hiss to Maddy as she sits next to me, openly ogling Mr. Conrad.

  “No idea,” she whispers back, “but whoever thought it was a good idea to put that hotty in rooms full of hormone-driven teenagers, clearly needs their head read.”

  I try to muffle my giggle. She’s not wrong about that.

  I can’t speak for anyone else in the room, but I’m sure I’m going to be a hell of a lot more distracted in this class than any of my others.

  It’s a shame too, photography was my favourite elective from my entire class schedule last year. It’s my passion – what I want to do with my life, and now I’m probably going to fail, and all because a man makes butterflies erupt in my stomach.

  “Welcome to photography, year three, semester two,” he tells us and Jesus, even his voice is hot. “I’m Mr. Conrad, and I’ll be your lecturer for the rest of this year. I have a bachelor of fine arts, majoring in photography, and I’ve spent about four years of my life as a photographer travelling around the globe and, more recently, working in advertising and personal photography.”

  I try to figure out how old that might make him, but I’ve never been good with numbers.

  “P.” Maddy nudges my knee under the table, and I scowl at her as I try and fail to calculate in my head.

  “What?” I demand.

  “Professor hotty wants us to write our names on that.” She jabs her finger at the clipboard that the guy across the aisle is holding out for me.

  I smile apologetically and take it from him.

  I write my name on the square that represents the desk I’m sitting at.

  Guess it’s mine for the semester.

  I seriously regret picking the front row now.

  Even though this class is bound to have a lot of independent work, I doubt I’m going to be able to keep my distance from my sexy new teacher.

  I slide the board to Maddy, and she adds her name before passing it back to the row behind us.

  Mr. Conrad tells us to get out our laptops and bring up our favourite collections of our work from our studies so far.

  I watch his mouth move, but I’m too scared to look higher to his eyes, in case I find them looking back at me.

  Not that they will be.

  I must have been mistaken this morning.

  He’s a university lecturer for crying out loud – the last thing he’s going to be doing is checking out twenty-year-old students.

  I need to get my head together and stop being such a girl.

  I tug my computer out of my bag, set it on the table and wait for it to load up.

  I frown again at the image I was working on all morning. I just can’t seem to get it right.

  I minimise it down and search through my folders for a series of photos I took last year – the ones that stand out to me the most.

  Maddy is the model in these ones, her and her boyfriend Trevor, and a dark starry night’s sky.

  I spent many a sleepless night working on this piece for my final year two portfolio, but it was worth every minute of it with the marks I got back over the holidays.

  I killed year two, and the first half of this year too, I just have to hope that the rest of year three goes even half as well for me.

  “Alright, I’m going to be coming around to see your work throughout the class, so have it ready, but for now, if you could go onto the online forum and read through the course content for this semester, it outlines what is required from you for the duration of the course, what you’ll be graded on and when.”

  I nod and pull up the information he’s requested we read.

  So far so good.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I hear Maddy’s voice from next to me, and I cringe.

  If I know Maddy – which I do – this is bound to be embarrassing.

  “Yes, Miss…” he glances at the clipboard that has made its way back to the front and into his hands, “Miss Dean, what can I do for you?”

  Maddy pops her gum and smirks at him. “Call me Maddy, and I was just wondering if you’re new to the uni? I haven’t seen you around before.”

  I can feel myself blushing, and I don’t even know why – Maddy is the one looking at our new teacher like she wants to eat him alive, not me, but I still feel totally embarrassed.

  I can still picture that sexy smile on his lips this morning, whether or not it was intended for me is irrelevant at this point – it still makes me feel like a teenager with a crush.

  I guess technically I’m only a year over being exactly that.

  “Yes, Miss Dean.” He makes a point of ignoring her request for a first-name basis, and I can’t help but grin. “I am new here, this is my first day, and you are my first class for the semester. I’m covering Mrs Bennett while she goes on maternity leave.”

  Well, what a way to start.

  “I’m sure we’ll all make you feel more than welcome.” Maddy grins suggestively, and I just want the floor to swallow me whole.

  “I hope so,” he says, his voice amused, and when I risk a glance up, his eyes meet mine for the briefest of seconds.

  He turns away, and I release a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

  “Girl, you’re blushing,” Maddy teases as Mr. Conrad passes by our desk, heading for the desk furthest from ours.

  “Whatever.”

  “You are, I don’t even blame you, P, they don’t call him professor hotty for nothing.”

  I cover my face with my hands to hide my blush. “No one calls him that, Maddy. You just made it up right now.”

  “But they will.” She smirks as she finally decides to get her own laptop out. Truthfully, I’ve got no idea how she’s made it to year three with her laid-back attitude.

  She’s even less likely to pass with a distraction like Mr. Conrad in the class.

  Maddy is crazy in love with Trevor, but they’ve always been big believers in the ‘look but don’t touch’ rule in their relationship.

  I peek at our new teacher over my shoulder. He’s talking to the gangly-looking dude with the awful body odour who always sits at the back of every class.

  My palms start to sweat again at the idea of having to speak to him directly about my photographs. I’m struggling to be in the same room as him, without actually having to form coherent sentences.

  I try my best to read through the course outline, but I fail.

  I’ve read the same paragraph about half a dozen times and I still have no idea what it says, all I can concentrate on is the sound of him coming closer and closer as he works his way through every student in the room.

  I can hear him talking to Brooke, which means there’s only one workstation left between him and me.

>   The thought of him coming close makes goosebumps break out on my skin.

  “I don’t know what to show him,” Maddy grumbles as she flicks from folder to folder on her screen. “I hate them all equally.”

  I giggle. “What about the ones you did with the flowers?”

  She scrunches up her nose in distaste. “Not those… Do you think he’d be opposed to seeing my collection of selfies instead? They really are my best work.”

  I shake my head in amusement. “I’m not sure that’s what he had in mind.”

  “Nudes?” she asks hopefully, a smart-ass grin on her lips.

  “Oh yeah, you should go for it, we’ll find out if he’s a tits or ass man,” I drawl.

  “Miss Jenkins.” The smooth voice comes from behind me and my eyes widen.

  Shit.

  I turn slowly in my seat, all the while hoping that he didn’t hear the remark that I just made.

  That would not be a great first impression. Well, technically, second impression.

  “Hi,” I squeak.

  His eyes roam over my face before settling on my eyes. He’s got brilliant blue eyes that feel like they’re seeing entirely too much when they look into mine.

  My hand twitches in the direction of my bag, and I have to fight the urge I have to pull out my camera and photograph him – something I’m certain he wouldn’t appreciate.

  The corner of his mouth lifts – in amusement I assume, and I realise my jaw has fallen lax as I stare at him with my greedy eyes.

  I snap it shut and give myself a mental pep talk about being considerably less pathetic for the rest of the semester.

  His eyes drift from my face to the screen of my laptop.

  “What have you got to show me, Miss Jenkins?”

  I open my mouth and hope like hell that nothing about tits and asses comes out this time.

  “This is my final collection from last year,” I say as I stare at my screen.