Alessandra Moore

Her apartment was quiet in a way her classroom never was.

No fluorescent lights.

No whispers from the back row.

No careful calibration of posture and tone and presence.

Just Alessandra.

She kicked off her heels by the door and shrugged out of her blazer, draping it over the back of a chair with absent precision. By the time she reached the couch, she had traded silk and structure for an oversized Bastian College sweatshirt and soft black leggings. Her hair—meticulously smoothed that morning—was now piled into a loose, imperfect knot.

On the television, Love Island flickered in bright neon absurdity.

“Why am I like this?” she muttered to herself as two impossibly bronzed strangers debated loyalty after knowing each other for forty-eight hours.

Because sometimes she didn’t want Senate hearings or ethics committees or the slow implosion of presidential reputations.

Sometimes she wanted mindless chaos.

Her laptop rested open on the coffee table. Her grading program showing first-week assignments —short reflection posts from Government 101. Nothing complex yet. Just diagnostic writing. Baseline comprehension. Who understands federalism. Who thinks the Constitution was written in the 1900s.

She toggled between grading and glancing up at the screen.

“Closed off already?” one islander accused.

Alessandra snorted. “You met yesterday.”

She highlighted a sentence in an essay and typed: Good start. Be more specific about your example.

Her phone buzzed.

She didn’t need to look to know who it was.

Maya.

Alessandra answered with a sigh. “If this is about a man, I’m hanging up.”

“That’s not a no,” Maya replied brightly. “That’s fear.”

“It’s self-preservation.”

“It’s boredom.”

Alessandra leaned back into the couch cushions. On-screen, someone was crying over a recoupling ceremony. She muted the television.

“I am perfectly content,” she said. “I have Dr. Pepper. I have grading. I have emotionally unstable British twenty-somethings.”

“You are thirty-six,” Maya said flatly. “You cannot live off voyeuristic reality television and academic validation.”

“Watch me.”

Maya ignored that. “Okay, listen. I met someone at a fundraiser last week. Older. Established. Corporate attorney. Divorced, but amicable. Tall. Actually handsome.”

“‘Actually handsome’ is suspicious phrasing.”

“You’re impossible. He has that look of a former athlete that has tried to stay in shape."

Alessandra smiled faintly and reached for another essay. “I only finalized my divorce three months ago.”

“And you’ve been emotionally single for longer than that.”

“That’s not—” Alessandra paused. “Fine. Possibly.”

“You need a grown man,” Maya pressed. “Not some podcaster that couldn't deal with your successes.”

“I don’t date podcasters.”

“You dated one.”

“He didn't have a podcast when we met.”

“But he didn't really have a job either. You were young and naive. Now you need stable and established.”

Alessandra rolled her eyes. "Maybe I don’t want stable and established right now.”

“Oh?” Maya perked up. “What do you want?”

The question lingered longer than it should have.

Alessandra glanced at the television, where two contestants were now aggressively flirting beside a pool. Their bodies leaned toward each other, conveying attraction. The guy was nearly in the girl's space, but she didn't back away. Like they were daring each other to close the gap between them. Alessandra realized that she hadn't craved touch like that in years.

“Chemistry,” she said finally.

Maya made a noise of triumph. “So not the attorney.”

“He sounds… polished. Prim and proper.”

“Polished is good, right?”

“Polished is predictable.”

“You just divorced unpredictable.”

Alessandra winced slightly. “That’s fair. I just want to feel attracted to someone again. I want a connection that makes my heart race. Something with zest. And Mr. Attoney does not sound zesty.”

There was a beat of quiet.

“Well damn, girl,” Maya continued, tone shifting mischievous, “if you want something zesty, let's go to a hockey game. Those men are feral. Totally primative and hot. You know Natalie? My work wife? She just hooked up with one of the players and she won't shut up about how good it was.”

Alessandra laughed, unguarded. “I am not trolling minor league hockey for a hookup.”

“Fine. What about baseball players? There is an intramural league that could be good hunting grounds for you"

Rolling her eyes, she reached for another essay without thinking.

“Baseball players,” Maya continued knowingly, “are the best in bed. At least they were in my college days. I was such a cleat chaser, before I settled down with Tommy."

Alessandra shook her head. “We are not talking about college athletes in relation to my dating life right now."

Maya gasped dramatically. “Oh my God. Do you have any hot athletes in your classes?”

Heat flared in Alessandra’s chest—sharp, defensive, disproportionate.

Why did that question make her pulse jump?

Because for half a second—just half—when Maya had joked about baseball players being the best in bed, something reckless and visual had flashed across her mind. Posters and banners spread across campus. Two sets of broad shoulders under fitted jerseys. Youth and arrogance and the kind of physical confidence that came from being celebrated before you’d earned anything substantial at all.

It wasn’t about anyone specific.

It was about the idea. The dangerous and enticing idea.

She immediately despised the thought.

You are a tenured professor. Get a grip.

“Absolutely not,” she said, too crisp.

“You hesitated.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

Alessandra stood abruptly and began pacing the length of her small living room. The laptop remained open on the coffee table, Love Island contestants frozen mid-argument on the muted screen.

This is absurd. I have had them in class for two days. Two.

She barely knew their names yet. Faces and surnames still floating loosely in her mind alongside seventy other students. The athletic department plastered them across campus like marketing props—of course she’d seen the posters. That wasn’t the same as thinking about them.

And even if she had noticed—

Noticing was not wanting.

Noticing was observational. Academic. Human.

“It's only the first week,” she said firmly. “I barely know anyone’s name yet.”

“That was not a denial.”

She exhaled sharply.

There are athletes in your class. That is statistically inevitable. This is not a crisis.

“There are athletes in my class,” she replied evenly. “It’s a large university. That’s not groundbreaking.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And they’re barely out of high school.”

“Uh-huh.”

Alessandra pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

Why is this bothering you?

Because Maya’s tone implied temptation. Impropriety. And Alessandra had built her entire adult identity around control.

She would not be reduced to some cliché of a professor flirting with scandal.

“Just tell me,” Maya pressed, delighted. “Are they at least cute?”

Alessandra opened her mouth—

—and stopped.

If she said yes, even casually, it felt like crossing a line. If she said no, it sounded defensive.

This is ridiculous. You do not owe anyone commentary on your students’ attractiveness.

“I don’t evaluate my students that way,” she said finally, cool and composed.

“Oh, come on.”

“I don’t.”

She moved back toward the couch, deliberately calm now. Detached.

Professional.

Because the truth wasn’t that she had some secret crush. The truth was simpler—and more dangerous.

She missed being desired.

Not respected. Not admired from a podium.

Desired.

The thought made her uncomfortable.

Maya softened. “I just think you deserve to feel wanted.”

There it was again.

Wanted.

Alessandra folded her arms over her chest, suddenly still.

That word had teeth.

Wanted was messy. Wanted led to mistakes. Wanted led to needed, which led to loss of control.

You teach political scandals for a living. You know how this ends.

She straightened, letting her voice sharpen slightly. “I am not blowing up my career for a hypothetical.”

“Good,” Maya said lightly. “Because scandals follow attractive people.”

Alessandra forced a faint smirk. “In politics, it’s never the act.”

“It’s the footage,” Maya finished automatically.

“Yes,” Alessandra replied dryly. “Thank you for attending my lecture.”

She paused—then deliberately pivoted.

“So,” she said briskly, reaching for her laptop as if the conversation were already over, “how was the fundraiser? Did you at least get decent food, or was it one of those events where they pretend buffet spaghetti is sophisticated?”

The shift was obvious. Awkward. Transparent.

Maya laughed knowingly. “You are deflecting.”

“I am multitasking.”

“You’re avoiding.”

“I’m grading.”

“Alessandra.”

She kept her tone light. “Tell me about the attorney. Does he say ‘my firm’ in every sentence?”

Maya groaned, but she took the bait, launching into a story about the fundraiser décor and the overpriced silent auction items.

Alessandra listened, half-engaged, eyes drifting back to the stack of essays on her table.

Names she was still memorizing.

Students who were nothing more than developing minds in her classroom.

That was all.

That had to be all.

After they hung up, the apartment fell quiet again except for the soft hum of the television.

She reopened her laptop and resumed grading.

Professional. Neutral. Detached.

Her screen chimed.

A new email notification slid into view.

Sender: Unfamiliar.

Subject line: Video recorded lecture

Her stomach tightened instantly.

On the television, someone gasped dramatically as secrets were revealed under villa lights.

Alessandra stared at the unopened email.

Video. Footage.

Her own voice echoed in her mind, steady and confident from earlier that week.

In politics, it’s never the act. It’s the footage.

The apartment no longer felt safe and quiet.

It felt like the seconds before exposure.

She hovered over the trackpad.

And clicked.