Meeting Andy
Scene 1 – From Jackson’s PoV
It had been a few months since the drama earlier in the year.
My hook up with Tyler had been about payback. About making a point. He thought being in charge meant people owed him something. I disagreed. I wanted him to teach him that true authority was earned, not assigned. I wasn’t someone you tried to pin down.
Connor was different. Simpler. He had a bad case of muscle lust and was into my alpha vibe. He didn’t pretend otherwise. A pretty face, a good mouth. No expectations.
He texted sometimes. Usually late. Horny. When I wanted to watch someone gag on me and not ask questions after, he was the one. But, there was no thrill in it. He was way too eager to please. Just a sure thing. A step up from using my hand when I needed to unload.
I was still hooking up with girls too. They liked the size, the confidence, the way I took control. But it never lasted. Somewhere between the first kiss and the second date, they’d start trying to reshape me. They want me to be softer, sweeter. Cuddly. I didn’t argue with them. I just didn’t change. Eventually they figured out I wasn’t the kind of guy they could mold. And when they couldn’t crack me, they’d reluctantly trade me in for someone easier. Someone safer.
The guys weren’t much better. Most of them wanted a body, not a person. They liked the muscles, the easy way I took the lead, and my insatiable appetite. So yeah, the sex was good. Physical. But it started to feel routine. They wanted a release, not a connection. No curiosity. No tension. No surprise. They were either too needy, or too intimidated to see themselves with me more than a few times. They either wanted something I wasn’t offering, or they figured I’d lose interest fast and left before I could prove them right. I couldn’t blame them. Most days, even I wasn’t sure what I was really looking for.
So I poured energy into the gym. Extra sets, longer lifts, pushing through every plateau like it owed me something. The Apexwear contract had just been renewed, so there were new shoots lined up, new incentives to keep my physique tight and the lines sharp. I leaned into it. I looked the part, thick, sculpted, defined. I was proud. But inside, something felt off. Even when the pumps hit right, even when guys at the gym stared, that restlessness didn’t go away. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something.
What energies weren’t devoted to my body, I devoted to school.
I wasn’t top of the class, but my grades were decent, top third of my class. I had room in my spring schedule and remembered being surprised by how much I liked Psych 100. People were easy to figure out, and I was looking for another elective that would help my GPA.
I chose Psych 218 – Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Dynamics because I thought it’d be easy.
Reading people came easily to me. I didn’t need a textbook to tell me what desire looked like, or how someone covered up insecurity with noise. I saw it in posture, in eye contact, in hesitation. I could tell when someone wanted to be pushed, and when they were already begging, even if they didn’t know it.
So yeah, I figured I would cruise through.
That was until a few days ago when the midterms were returned.
I got a B. Not bad. But not the easy A I signed up for.
It stung because someone looked at what I gave them and decided it wasn’t enough. That I hadn’t tried. Or worse, that I had, and still came up short.
And then there was the comment:
Strong observations, but you stayed in your comfort zone. A more compelling analysis would engage more directly with the emotional stakes and the underlying motivations behind behaviour.
It didn’t read like feedback. It read like someone flexing their so-called “learned opinion” a little too hard. Like they thought they could call me out from a distance, and I’d just take it.
I didn’t even know who wrote it at first. I hadn’t given much thought to the TA. Andy, I think his name was. Just another grad student. Quiet, always on his laptop, tucked away, off to the side like he didn’t want to be part of the room. Just typing through lectures, rarely looking up. I figured he had the whole course colour-coded or something. Nothing about him said authority. Just that , bookworm vibe that made me think he’d fold if you stared too long.
The only time he paid attention was during the in-class discussion period. He’d look up and start following along. Like he was tracking who got it and who didn’t. It felt like he was running a quiet little audit in his head. Who was worth his attention. Who wasn’t.
I’d felt him watching me. Not staring, not checking me out, but watching. Like he’d already filed me under “pretty but predictable” and was just waiting for the evidence. Did he even know it was my test he had commented on?
None of it felt right.
Lying there on my bed, I figured he assumed the recipient of the dressing-down wouldn’t say anything. Only he didn’t know me. I wasn’t about to walk it off like everyone else.
So yeah, I was going to pay him a visit. But I wasn’t going just to talk about his feedback.
I would go to remind him that if you want to challenge someone, you better be ready when they show up. I wasn’t planning to raise my voice. I had better ways of making a point.
Scene 2 – From Andy’s POV
The hallways in the psych building were quiet. It was late enough in the day that most of the undergrads had cleared out, but not so late that I could leave without finishing this stack of grading. I was halfway through a sentence, something like “correlates with but does not demonstrate causation,” when the door creaked open behind me.
I turned around, and he was already inside.
All six-foot-something of him, stepping into my office. The muscle from Psych 218. I’d seen him in class, always confident, always took up a lot of space. I didn’t know his name. I never needed to. Guys like him didn’t usually leave a mark, academically speaking. But I’d heard him speak. And sometimes, what he said made me pause. Like there was more there.
But now he was just a few feet away, in a compression shirt that clung to him like sausage casing. The fabric traced every ridge of his torso, sleeves hugging arms that still looked pumped from whatever workout he’d crushed before walking in here. He had to be six-foot-two, maybe taller, and built like he knew it—broad across the chest, narrow at the waist, thick everywhere else. Blond hair, slightly tousled. Piercing blue eyes that didn’t blink nearly as often as they should have. The kind that locked on and held. And the way he carried himself, like he knew the effect he had. His body did the talking. I could see why.
Up close like this, I had to admit, he was ridiculously hot. A strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, eyes that scanned the room. That face, paired with a body built to turn heads, still made me feel something, even when I told myself he wasn’t for me. But I was more interested in what he thought was going to happen next.
His mouth tilted, just slightly. A half-smirk. Confident. Like he’d seen this play out before and knew how it ended. He didn’t know who he was dealing with.
“Hey,” came a low, almost casual voice. “You marked this?”
The sound of his voice cut through the moment, as his deep voice brought me back to reality.
“Depends on what ‘this’ is,” I said, a little too dry.
In one long stride he was standing beside me and dropped the exam on the edge of my desk.
“This,” he repeated. “Psych 218 midterm. You’re the one who left all the comments, right?”
I glanced at the name. Jackson Brannick.
Yeah. That tracked.
He hadn’t been in class all that often, but when he was… he made an impression. Sprawled across the middle row like showing up was optional, like we were lucky to have him there. I’d noticed. Hated that I had. The kind of guy who shouldn’t have been my type.
Except I reacted like he was.
Tall, muscular, vaguely feral. That bad-boy calm like nothing ever got to him.
And now I had a name to go with the jock standing less than a foot away. He was even bigger up close, and more intense than I’d expected.
He watched me like I was the one under review.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, I graded it.”
Now I could see where this was going. Jackson wasn’t the first to come in here thinking charisma and swagger could change a mark. Though he was the first who was twice my size.
He thought this was going to be routine. He was wrong.
He didn’t posture or shift. He just stood there, expectant, like his size and tone were supposed to carry the weight. Guys like him usually didn’t need to push. They were used to watching people step aside. But I didn’t. And he noticed.
A beat later, he leaned forward, bracing one hand on the desk. His forearm flexed subtly, the veins lifting. Did he think that would get my attention? I tried not to look, but I did. Christ. His arm looked bigger than my legs.
“You wrote, uh—‘Strong observations, but you stayed in your comfort zone. A more compelling analysis would engage more directly with the emotional stakes and the underlying motivations behind behaviour.’”
He smirked, but it was too thin to be a real smile. “That your way of calling me shallow?”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s my way of suggesting you didn’t go deep enough.”
His eyes scanned my face. Not threatening, yet invasive, curious. He was sizing me up, looking for a weakness to probe. “You ever think maybe I just see things clearly?”
That earned the barest twitch at the corner of my mouth. “Clarity without depth isn’t insight. It’s summary.”
He didn’t move. He stayed there, looming. His thigh brushed the edge of my desk. Close. Intentional. And I stayed still, though my pulse had spiked.
I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about how wide his shoulders were. Or how his shirt clung to him, showcasing the way his chest swelled and tapered. With defined muscle pressing against fabric like it was made to show off his physique. Or how his voice dropped when he said he just sees things clearly, like he already knew he’d thrown me off.
He wasn’t my type. I’d never dated guys like him. I didn’t fuck guys like him. Guys like him were all muscle and ego and drama. The kind that left wreckage behind without noticing, without sticking around to clean it up. Except my body wasn’t playing along. My breath was shallow. My thighs were tight. And the heat pooling low in my stomach had nothing to do with nerves.
He was testing me. Not academically. Personally.
And yeah, he was hot, but that didn’t make him right. Being beautiful didn’t mean he got to steamroll me. Not here. Not today.
My fingers tightened slightly on the page. Just for a second. Then I flipped it back to him with a clipped nod. “If you disagree, there’s the professor’s email.”
“I don’t want her opinion,” he said. “I want yours.”
His voice was low now. Focused. And it landed in my chest with weight.
“I gave it,” I said evenly. “You just didn’t like it.”
He watched me for a beat longer, then pushed off the desk.
The way he shifted his stance, easy and practiced, it was obvious he was used to winning these kinds of standoffs. Used to people folding, giving in, agreeing just to stay in his good graces.
But I hadn’t folded. And there was a quiet kind of pride in that.
“Guess I’ll have to write something that proves you wrong.”
He said it like a promise, not a threat, as he reached the door.
I didn’t rise to it. I didn’t speak. I just watched him go. The second the door clicked shut, I exhaled. Deep and slow. I told myself it was the tension of the confrontation.
But I could still feel the heat of his arm, the static left in the air between us, the sound of his voice lingering like a low hum in my bones. And his scent was still there. Clean, faintly spiced, unmistakably male. It clung to the room like a presence that hadn’t fully left.
And I hated how much I wanted it back.
Scene 3 – From Jackson’s PoV
The door clicked shut behind me as I stood outside Andy’s office.
I didn’t walk away right away. I just stood there for a second, staring at the edge of the floor tile where it met the baseboard. My hand still gripped the midterm, but I wasn’t thinking about that anymore.
I’d gone in expecting to be persuasive. Maybe flash some charm, lean a little on presence. I figured I’d nudge the mark, walk out with the win. That’s usually how it worked. A little posture, a little confidence. Most people picked up the signal and backed down.
But that’s not how it played out. It should have bothered me, but that’s not how I was feeling. And somehow, I didn’t mind. Andy hadn’t budged. He didn’t get defensive. Didn’t try to impress. He just sat there, calm and sure, like he knew exactly what line he was holding. And now I was the one standing in the hallway, replaying the whole thing in my head.
It shouldn’t have stuck with me. But it did. His voice, his stillness, the way he delivered that comment like it wasn’t up for debate. He’d seen something in my work that I hadn’t. And maybe that was what got to me. He wasn’t just grading a test. He was reading me. And I didn’t know if I wanted to push back harder… or just understand what the hell he saw.
I noticed the way he looked at me too. Not like a challenge. More like curiosity. Focused. Steady. Not intimidated. Just… present. Most people look and flinch. Or look and stare. He didn’t do either.
And yeah, he was better looking than I remembered. Slim, clean-cut, sharp in a way that didn’t try too hard. That quietly pulled-together vibe. Like he’d figured himself out and didn’t much care what others thought.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I had a type. Andy was that type.
I came here to push back on a grade. Instead, I walked out thinking about his mouth. His tone. His nerve.
And wondering why it all stuck.
Calling on Andy hadn’t been a waste. He surprised me. He had a spine and a mind sharp enough to cut with. One-on-one, he had a kind of presence that didn’t need to be loud to hold the room. He’d been hard to read. Self-contained. The kind that made me curious about him. I wasn't used to feeling like this.
Authors Note: I don’t plan to overuse multiple POVs, but sometimes it just feels necessary. Let me know if it worked for you—I’m always open to feedback. :)
