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, ‘Mr. 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.