Office Hours Ch. 06

All characters are at least 18 years old.

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Hank

"I'm sorry," said Jean. "I have nowhere else to go."

"Jean? What the hell happened?" I exclaimed. "Eh, never mind that, let's get you inside first." I took half of her garbage bags and ushered her through the door. She was shivering, clothes drenched, and I noticed her backpack was also wrapped in trash bag material. Placing the bags down in the foyer, I put a hand on her arm. "Wait here." She nodded, and I headed off to the bathroom to retrieve a towel before returning to her and wrapping her up. "Put the bags down."

"I'm sorry," she said again, clutching the towel to herself.

"It's okay. Let's get you warmed up before you catch a cold." I walked her to the bathroom and provided another two towels for her. "For when you get out of the shower. I'll... find some clothes for you to wear. You're partial to hoodies, right?"

She gave me a wan smile. "Yeah. Thanks, prof."

I shooed off her gratitude before closing the door on my way out, putting my hands on my hips with a shake of my head. First things first, I had to mop up all the water tracked into my apartment. As I worked my way back to the front door, I spied her trash bags again. Why was she carrying all that garbage? Unless...

I peeked into one of the bags, and it was as I feared. Inside were her belongings, with this one stuffed with clothes and textbooks. She'd said her old classmates used to laugh at her for smelling like these bags. No doubt she'd never had the luxury of owning luggage. Poor girl.

I sighed. She wouldn't want my pity. It was becoming increasingly clear that she needed to prove she was capable, perhaps prove that she was worth something. I wondered if she had trouble bringing herself to come here. And speaking of which, what had happened? There were too many possibilities, and I decided I'd just ask her later. Moving to my bedroom, I picked out a plain t-shirt, black hoodie, grey sweatpants, and... I didn't have any spare panties lying around. Boxers would have to do, I supposed. I brought the stack of clothes to the bathroom, knocking on the door.

"Jean?" I called. "I have some clothes for you!" From the sound of it, the water was still running. Most likely, she couldn't hear me. "I'm coming in!" I announced anyway.

Stepping inside, I was relieved to see the curtain still drawn. It wouldn't do to have a mix-up and end up with me catching a glimpse of her wet, dripping, naked teenage body. Focus on the task at hand. Alrighty, just had to leave these clothes on the counter--

The water suddenly shut off, and my head whipped around, eyes wide. "Jean?" I blurted.

"Professor?!" she yelped from behind the curtain. On instinct, she grabbed a fistful of it, right in the middle. "What are you doing in here?!"

"I'm leaving the clothes here. I'm going now!" Before any more commotion could ensue, I dashed out of the bathroom. Crisis averted? I could only hope. My day was turning out quite different from how I imagined it. I should probably make that call to my brothers now, before anything else crazy popped up.

I tapped the contact on my tablet to start a video call and waited for them to pick up. Soon enough, I was greeted by a familiar smile. "Hank? Hey, happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving, Keith," I replied, beaming. "Is Zach there?"

"He's not up yet. You know how he is."

"Heh, I do. You two holding up okay? How's the budgeting going?"

Keith rolled his eyes, a wry grin on his face. "It's fine, dad." We both sort of winced at that, and he continued cautiously, "Speaking of, are you going back home this year?"

I gave him an unamused look. "Do you think anybody wants that?" Keith nodded glumly in agreement. "I dunno, maybe next year. But I'm pretty sure if I go now, we'd just end up fighting again. Y'know?"

He was quiet for a bit, brows gradually pulling together as his face descended into a frown. I was about to say something when he finally spoke. "Sorry, bro."

"What? Hey, it's not your fault. Either of you. Screw dad for saying all that shit about his own sons, and screw mom for doing nothing and siding with him." He still looked concerned, and I sighed. "Look, they'll come around, alright?"

"You really think so?"

"Dad just needs some time," I affirmed. "He's not the worst out there, and I think he just needs to wrap his head around things. You two just lay low and let me touch base with him, until things cool off." Keith nodded, and I heard my bathroom door open. "Well, I gotta go. Stuff just came up that I gotta take care of. Love you guys."

"Love you, Hank. Thanks, man."

I ended the call just as Jean walked out to the kitchen to join me. "Hey, you. Feeling better?"

She managed a weak smile. "Yeah. Nothing warms me up like water, y'know? Hot showers, hot soup. They warm me up so much faster than sitting by a fire or wrapped up in blankets." She was wearing the clothes I'd provided, and... What was it about a girl wearing my clothes that was so damn sexy? Even something as mundane as a hoodie and sweats, the fact that they were my clothes seemed to stir something in me.

"Speaking of soup, you hungry?" Beating me to the punch, my question was interrupted by her stomach growling, and she tried to hide her embarrassment as I chuckled. "I'll take that as a yes. I was just making breakfast, so I'll wrap up. Have a seat."

I finished cooking up the first pair of eggs, then started another one for myself after serving them up. She wolfed down the food, and I decided to add some frozen hash browns and toast into the mix. She worked through that as well, less ravenously than before, thanking me when she finished.

"So what happened?" I inquired, glancing over at the garbage bags.

Dejectedly, she poked at the remains of her hash brown. "I... got evicted."

"What? What the hell. Who evicts somebody on Thanksgiving?"

Her eyes met mine for a moment before looking back down at her plate sheepishly. "I might have been late on the rent. Like three months late. Last night, landlord said he'd finally had enough, and I needed to be out by six this morning. I tried, okay?!" She was suddenly on the verge of tears, her voice raised. "All my money went into school. And I thought I'd at least find a job and earn enough to pay for that shit-ass apartment, but I couldn't find a job to save my goddamn life. I tried everything! It was like somebody was out to fuck me over, and had me blacklisted at every place I tried." She calmed herself down a bit, clenching her fists as she continued at speaking volume. "I was so happy to finally be hired at Taboo. I was even happier when I heard a couple of the other girls had asked for advances before, and they never had a problem. But when I asked my manager for one, he shut me down immediately. Which, yeah fair enough, it's only my first week, but..." She looked down at her lap, the first few tears falling. "I needed it."

I reached across the table and placed my hand on hers. "Jean..."

"Can I... Can I stay with you?" she sniffled. "Just for a couple days. I'm gonna go beg my manager for an advance, and after that, or if he still won't give it to me... I'll figure something out."

My grip on her hand tightened. "By 'figure something out,' you mean..."

"Lots of girls do it to put themselves through college," she reasoned.

"No. Not you." I realized I was clenching my jaw, because it was starting to hurt with how hard I was gritting my teeth.

"Why not? I literally can't afford to be proud. I shoulda done it before I was evicted--"

"You are not whoring yourself out to random men," I declared, squeezing her hand. She looked at me suddenly with such pain in her eyes, and it was so confusing. What was going on in her head?

She let out a shaky breath and nodded. "Got it."

Pulling her hand out of my grasp, she stood and walked over to my side of the table. Then she got down on her knees and began tugging at my pants. I grabbed her wrist, holding it firmly, heart pounding against my ribs.

"What the hell are you doing?" I growled.

"Earning my keep," she said sadly.

"What?! No. You're not doing that."

And then she started to sob. What the hell was going on?!

"Do I... Do I disgust you?" she asked through tears.

"What. Are. You. Talking about, Jean? No! Of course not!" My God, this girl was such a mess.

"It's okay," she blubbered between heaving breaths. "You can treat me like trash if you want. Because I am trash. Whatever you want--"

"Jean, stop!" I felt my heart break a little. She just looked at me, tears pouring down her face, and I pulled her up into a hug. She shook against me as she cried, and I just held her tighter. In a murmur, I told her, "You can stay here as long as you want." That only seemed to make her cry harder, and I patted her back and let her let it out. Eventually she wore herself out, and I pulled her away to look at her with a smile. "Better?"

She sniffed, letting out a large breath. "God, I'm being such a little bitch. You really bring the worst out in me, you know that?" she joked, managing a weak smile. "Thank you, professor. You're... wonderful. But I can't stay here for free. I gotta do... something."

I inhaled deeply, then nodded in understanding. "Alright, fine. You wanna earn your keep? Today you earn it by helping me with Thanksgiving dinner."

She stared into my eyes, lip quivering a bit before breaking into a smile. Her eyes were still red from crying, but she looked so beautiful in that moment. "Thank you," she whispered.

--

"Should we even get a whole turkey? I don't think we can finish it between the two of us," I reasoned. "We'll be eating leftovers for days."

"I'm honestly okay with, like, some turkey ham or some shit," Jean replied.

I gave her a sour look. "C'mon, that's a bit too sad, isn't it? We should at least do some sliced turkey. Or maybe a chicken. Chicken's a more manageable size."

We were at the meat section in the grocery store, going back and forth on what to do for dinner. Jean was seemingly back to her normal self, which I was thankful for. Lots of thanks going around, now that I thought about it, but it was the perfect day for it.

"Who the fuck eats chicken on Thanksgiving?" Jean scoffed. "Wait, never mind. I think I had a family who did chicken. They didn't like turkey, y'know? So yeah, I guess we could do that."

"We could rub it with herbs or something."

"Dude, don't make me hungry before dinner."

I grinned over at her and she looked away bashfully. "Let's pick the chicken up last, then. Sides! Do you like yams? If you don't, I make some great garlic mashed potatoes that we could use as substitute.

"They both sound really good," she admitted.

"Let's do yams then. Plenty of time for me to cook you mashed potatoes some other time, now that you're living with me." It only then occurred to me that Jean was now my live-in girlfriend, the revelation picking my heart rate up. She must have realized it too, because she bit her lip and rubbed her neck shyly. "Alright. You like stuffing?"

"Hell yeah."

We weaved through the aisles, picking supplies up. It was almost like we were a real couple, which was a great feeling. I just really hoped we didn't get caught or anything. I had nothing ready to explain why we were together should somebody recognize us.

"What about green beans? Garlic green beans. Sorry, I like using garlic."

"Bruh, I think I'd seriously just eat anything you'd cook," she laughed. "But I love garlic. Great for making out, too." She was blushing, but still went for the tease, making me chuckle.

I saw somebody drift past the end of the aisle, and I froze. Had they seen us? What should I do? My options were to wrap up our shopping as soon as possible, leave immediately, or confront them. I was afraid leaving now would tip off Jean, and it would leave us without dinner. Well, we could just go to a different store. Then they passed by again in the other direction, and I realized I needed to deal with this.

"Hey, can you get us a can of cranberry sauce?" I said. Jean nodded and headed off, turning the direction away from the person tailing us. As soon as she was gone, Lexi doubled back and approached me. She had a mischievous vulpine grin, her honey blonde locks flowing over a comfy-looking purple sweater. The fact that she was here didn't bode well.

"Why'd you send her away, professor?" she lilted. "You two looked like you were having so much fun. Far be it from me to ruin the moment."

"What do you want?" I said through gritted teeth.

"My, so serious! So protective. I can see why Jean likes you." She giggled, standing next to my cart and looking back the way Jean had left. "Poor, pathetic Jean. Can't even take care of herself, so she has to find a man to do it for her." Her airy tone, coupled with her words, was starting to piss me off.

"You don't know anything about her," I snapped. "Look, if you're gonna blackmail me, I don't have much, but I'll give you whatever I can. Just take it and leave us alone."

"Oh, I'm not interested in your money, Professor Lang. Far from it. No, I want something... else." She leaned on the edge of the cart, and her breasts bounced underneath her sweater.

"If it's what I think it is, I can't give that," I said firmly.

"Ooh, very loyal of you. Noble, too. I like that. Hero types turn me on. But then in that case, I guess I'll just have to continue to make Jean's life a living hell."

"Continue?"

Lexi smirked. "Who do you think evicted her?"