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Love Flavored Latte - Chapter 18
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“How much have you heard?”
“All of it.”
Those were their last words before the whole room completely fell into silence. Eve was the only one who was still moving like a normal human being. She glanced at Matt, then at Chloe and Ethan, and the entire process repeated for a few more seconds.
The quietness was supposed to be scary or uncomfortable, but she was somehow giggling at this situation. It was probably because her friends just looked so awkward that it was funny. All three of them were as still as rocks and their eyes staring intensely at each other as though they were in the process of hypnotizing. The only difference here was their expression – Matt had a deadpan look while Chloe and Ethan’s had their mouths agape, their jaws dropping.
Even though she was laughing about how Chloe and Ethan looked, she could perfectly understand why they were so shocked. It was already surprising enough to hear that your friend just had a new partner, but Matt’s case wasn’t that simple. Not only did he get a boyfriend, but he also just admitted that his special someone was their own professor. This news must have sent a bolt from a blue for the two.
After what felt like forever, Matt broke the silence by groaning into his palm.
“Now all of you know. Great.”
“M-Matt…” Chloe said with a shaking voice, seemingly trying her hardest to recover from the shock. “So, so you’re really…”
“Yes, you heard it right.” Matt sighed as he removed his hand from his face. “I’m dating our professor.”
Silence came again unexpectedly, but this time, it was different. Instead of staring at the other two blankly like a robot, he was actually starting to feel nervous. Why was he anxious out of the blue, especially after he just nonchalantly came clean to them about who his new partner was?
Sweats began forming on his forehead as he tried to observe his friends’ expression. They were surely stunned, but what was possibly on their mind? What were they thinking about him and his new relationship with their professor? In their eyes, was Ray still their admirable Professor Angevine, and was Matt still their friend?
Thousands of questions just kept appearing, and Matt gradually felt more and more scared as each second passed by, his heart beating rapidly under the increasing pressure. How could he just disclose the news like that without any reconsideration? Why didn’t he think about all these matters before he confronted Eve? The other three had been extremely quiet, which made him regret his decision even more, but it was too late to back out now.
He was about to say something when Chloe dashed to him at lightning speed, gripping his shoulders so suddenly that she nearly knocked him over.
“Matt!” She squealed excitedly to the point that she was stuttering. “Please say that you’re telling the truth. Please!”
“Um, uh…” Matt was having troubles responding to this unexpected reaction. “Y-Yeah, I am.”
Chloe was so happy that she was speechless, gasping loudly as her smile grew wider and wider. “My god, f-for real? This, this is so cool!”
Matt raised an eyebrow as he chuckled nervously. “C-Cool? I don’t know if I’d put it that way-“
“Of freaking course it’s cool, don’t you dare say otherwise!” Chloe shook him aggressively. “Have you ever seen a student dating their own professor while they’re still in college?”
She paused for a while upon realizing that she didn’t really make a good point. Undeniably, there had been countless love stories between a professor and a student who had yet to graduate. It was just that their realtionship wasn’t revealed until later.
“Never mind that, you know what I mean!” she went on anyway, trying to steer away from the fact that she wasn’t able to come up with any convincing argument. “Ever since I started school, I’ve never had a friend who’s dated a teacher or professor!”
“Yeah, it happens once in a blue moon!” Ethan added. “This is certainly something new to me.”
Looking at their eager and curious face, Matt’s mind immediately relax. The way they were acting was, without doubt, unforseen, though it wasn’t a bad thing. They showed no sign of objection or dislike, and on top of that, they were actually overjoyed. A smile made its way up to his face as the feeling of relief washed over him.
Now that he was free from all worries and concerns, he turned over Eve to bring up the question he had wanted to ask her. “So, Eve, how did you find out?”
Chloe and Ethan sat down, waiting for Eve’s answer.
“Well…” Eve began after a good few seconds of thinking. “You all remember that morning when Matt came home and said he’d had to stay at Professor Angevine’s place?”
Matt was startled, his eyes widening as he looked at Eve in bewilderment. T- That’s when we just got together! She noticed us that soon?
“Yeah, he couldn’t return to the dorm because of the heavy rain, right?” Ethan rubbed his chin as he tried to recall that day.
“Exactly,” Eve continued. “The two of you might not have noticed it, but it was pretty strange to me that he didn’t show any sign of discomfort.”
“How come?” Chloe asked. “I mean, isn’t he our prof’s TA? He’s probably used to Prof Angevine already, given how many times he had come to help him with his work.”
“Yeah, but,” Eve trailed off, “before that day, they looked like they were… having a fight or something.”
This was the second time she had surprised him now, and he didn’t know that this would be the last one. Not only did she suspect them early on, but she also noticed the time they were avoiding each other?
“A fight?” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Why did you think so?”
“You know they’re very close, right? From time to time, after the lecture ends, our professor would talk with Matt at the podium. And they meet up pretty often, too.” Eve intertwined her fingers in front of her face, resting her elbows on her knees as she thought. “But about one month before that day, they suddenly became very distant with each other. It was like… they never met in the first place.”
How Eve described that period of time was perfect to every detail. It felt exactly like that-they acted completely like strangers, like they had not once gotten to know each other. Thinking about it did make him a little sad, but he told himself to cheer up, as things were better now.
“Hmm… I really didn’t notice that until now.” Ethan averted his eyes for a while to think. “But then, how’s that related to Matt being uncomfortable at our prof’s?”
“Would you willingly stay at someone’s place if you’re having a fight with them?” Eve asked before pausing to rethink about it. “Well, in this case, maybe Matt had no other choice because it was raining so hard that night. But what struck me as odd was that he didn’t seem uneasy one bit when he told us he’d spent the night at our professor’s.”
“Oh, I get it!” Chloe looked up from the ground in realization. “If you’re having a fight with someone, you’ll feel uncomfortable when you’re forced to stay with that person. Is that what you’re implying?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Eve said. “I was suspicious, but then I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking they made up somehow. However, after that, they became closer than before, too close even.”
“And…” Matt finally managed to talk after a long while of being silent. “What gave it away in the end?”
“Let’s see, there are quite a few things.” Eve began to count on her fingers. “First off, you smile whenever Professor Angevine’s mentioned.”
She gave him a quick glance as she said that. Matt sweated as he chuckled awkwardly, knowing that was what he had just done this morning.
“You meet up with our professor way too frequently. You go out at night more often. You act overly friendly with him. Don’t give me that look, I caught you holding his hand once you know. You try to find excuses so that you can spend more time with him. You have that stupid grin whenever you daydream and start to lose focus. I still remember that I thought I had to use to a damn speaker to just get your attention. You and him exchange smiles in class. You two look so intimate that it’s possible you can kiss at any moment-“
“Okay, okay, you can stop now.” Matt was forced to cut her off, his face beet red from embarrassment. “I get it, I get it. I’m super obvious, I know.”
Eve chuckled upon seeing him blushing uncontrollably. “I’m not done yet. There’s still this one important detail that confirmed your romantic relationship with him, Matt.”
She paused for a few seconds before looking straight at him in the eye, her smile turning into a mischievous grin.
“He gets jealous.”
Matt’s heart skipped a beat at that statement.
“He’s very good at hiding his jealousy, but there are some rare times when he let it loose,” Eve went on. “When you’re talking happily or standing too close to another boy, he’ll sometimes give his love rival a deadly stare. What professor would do that if they’re not in some kind of special relationship with his student?”
Those who hadn’t seen his jealous face began to let their imagination run wide, resulting in them both shivering from the chills.
“That sounds… scary,” Ethan commented. “Who would’ve thought that the professor who’s known for being so calm could be like that sometimes?”
“That’s what love does to you.” Chloe turned to Ethan. “You have a girlfriend, so you must understand it at least a little bit, right?”
Ethan thought about it for a few seconds before nodding shyly as he scratched the back of his neck.
“Hey, although we’ve uncovered this secret, I bet there’s another one that Matt’s hiding. Do you know what it is?”
Chloe and Ethan shook their head at Eve’s question, but Matt had a very tense expression instead. Eve somehow looked very evil, so evil that she made him feel on edge. An amused smirk appeared on her face as she answered them unhesitantly.
“Our professor must be that handsome customer he fell for.”
Eve once again unveiled another one of Matt’s secrets, just like he had feared. She was actually scaring him with how she was able to find out more than she was supposed to. He knew that Eve was smart and quick to catch on things, but this was genuinely freaky.
“Wait…” Chloe’s eyes widened. “Don’t you mean that ‘cute guy’ Matt met at his workplace? But that, that was before the semester had even started!”
Eve just nodded, silently letting the new information sink in. Chloe and Ethan were shocked once more, but they quickly giggled afterward instead of being frozen on the spot like last time.
“My, my,” Chloe said in a singsong voice. “You two have a long history, don’t you? You got to meet our professor way sooner than anyone else in our class. I’m quite jealous.”
“E-Eve…” Matt stared at the dark-haired girl in disbelief. “H-How…”
“On the first day of the semester, you told us that Professor Angevine was your customer. And coincidentally, before that not too long ago, you mentioned meeting a handsome customer at his workplace. That kind of made me suspicious already, but I didn’t think I was actually right.”
“But…” Chloe held her head and closed her eyes as she thought, looking as if she was trying her best not to be confused. “That customer came to the shop one week before our prof. How could you possibly conclude that it was the same person?”
“Um, Chloe, to be completely honest…” Matt scratched the back of his neck. “That… was a lie, because I was scared of being found out.”
“My brain was fried for nothing”, that was the message he got from the look Chloe gave him.
“Matt, you do know you called our prof a ‘cute guy’, right?” Ethan chuckled. “How bold of you.”
“Sh-Shut up!” Matt protested with a dark red blush tinted on his cheeks. “I, I didn’t know he’d be our professor back then!”
“Well, I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.” Ethan grinned from ear to ear. “It’s normal to call your boyfriend cute, after all.”
Matt could do nothing but sit there idly and bury his face into his palms as they continued to tease him, making the blush on his face even redder. But then, he couldn’t deny that he was greatly thankful to them for accepting his new relationship with Ray. He had been afraid that this evening would go horribly wrong because he didn’t expect Chloe and Ethan to be here-
His flow of thoughts came to a halt upon remembering about something he should have questioned at the very beginning.
“Hold on,” Matt said, cutting off his friends’ laughter. “Chloe, Ethan, why are you here? Aren’t you two supposed to be at a party.”
The other three glanced back and forth at each other before Eve decided to take the initiative.
“Well, um…” Eve let out a little laugh as she nervously tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Actually, there was no party to begin with. I, uh, planned this.”
There was a long pause between them before Matt broke the silence.
“‘Planned’?” He raised an eyebrow, looking straight at her as she tried to avoid his gaze.
“You see, they noticed I was acting weird with you today, so they asked what was up.” She was still averting her eyes as she spoke. “I couldn’t really hide it, so I… somehow thought this was a good way to explain everything to them.”
Matt wanted to face-palm again so badly, but he had already done it so many times in the past few minutes. He felt that it would be excessive if he did it again.
“B-But hey, at least I helped you tell them the truth, didn’t I?” She laughed anxiously. “E-Everything worked out in the end, so it’s okay, r-right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Matt couldn’t help letting out a small laugh, though he wasn’t blaming her. It was true, she did do him a favor in a way. If she hadn’t set this up, maybe it would have been a while before Matt could find the courage to tell Chloe and Ethan about this.
Ethan let out a sigh as he leaned his back against the couch. “Goodness gracious, Matt. First, you were his barista. Then you became his favorite student, his TA, and now you’re his boyfriend. I’m genuinely at the loss of words right now. It’s like you keep evolving.”
Ethan was giving Matt a look of belief when he grinned.
“By the way, from what Eve said, that rainy night three months ago was when you two got together, wasn’t it?”
Matt shyly nodded and Ethan’s smirk widened.
“So… some action did happen, am I right?”
Matt stared at him for a good few seconds before his face burned up upon realizing what his friend was suggesting.
“Ethan!”
He yelled as he hit the man in question with a pillow.