Monday seems to come and go. Now instead of just staring intensely at my back Josh smiles every time my eyes happen to meet his. Instead of leaving immediately before class he stays a bit to watch me prepare for the next class, sometimes with a small exchange of words.
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"Teacher!" One of my students has my desk phone to his ear with a hand covering the bottom part. I set down the packets another professor dropped off and head towards him. "There's a call for you. A Ms. Levine."

Ms. Levine? The name rings a bell.

"I don't know if you noticed the name was mine, my parents got divorced right before I applied to university here and I took on my mother's last name."

"I've got it. Thank you." I take the phone from him and close my door. I haven't talked on the phone with Josh's mother in ages.

"Ms. Levine?" I unconsciously fiddle with my tie. I feel nervous as if she were my mother, debating whether or not to speak casually or professional.

"Oh Michael! Its been so long! How are you? Are you eating properly? Did you have a good breakfast this morning?"

I instantly recognize her voice and my heart loosens.

"Ms. Levine you're too kind as always. It sure has been a while. I'm eating fairly well. I had eggs and coffee for breakfast before coming to work." I decide on a bit of a formal attitude. Its takes a bit to adjust to calling her Ms. Levine since the old name is kind of stuck with me.

"Ah that's good to hear. I'm sorry, my last name must have confused you. I changed it after I divorced recently." Her tone is clipped but I sense no remorse. I wonder about what made them divorce but I wasn't about to ask her such a personal question. "I'm glad your doing well." Her tone flips back to sweet and I can hear the affection in her tone so strongly it's as if she was standing right next to me fussing over me as if I was the chick and she was the hen, focusing solely on me.

"Yes I've been keeping busy. How are you doing over there? Anything you've been up to lately?"

"I'm doing alright dear. Just busy with tending to some plants in my garden these days. I have a box of vegetables I grew just sitting in the kitchen. I'll send those to you. It's important that you eat healthy."

"No no. You don't have to trouble yourself." I tell her quickly, she grew those for herself.

"It's no trouble at all they'll just be wasting away otherwise. Michael I was wondering if you'd be willing to do something for me."

"Of course, what do you need?" I take a sip of the coffee on my desk.

"We'll you see- I hope this won't trouble you. I'm a bit worried for my son Josh. Would you mind going to see him every now then at his apartment then? Make sure he's living properly? He had tried taking a culinary class in high school but failed to learn how to make anything. He burned all the food they gave him to cook. Even caused a fire that made them evacuate the building because of it."

Her laugh rings. I try to imagine a young teenage Josh being such a trouble maker means it makes me laugh too. "I'm sure that he's probably trying to live off instant food and all that. So please make sure his food choices are reasonable."

I told Josh that I didn't want to go beyond a student teacher relation ship while he attends school here. Now it seems that I'll have to go a bit beyond that.

"Of course. I'll take care of it. Who am I to refuse a request from you Ms. Levine."

"Thank you dear. I really appreciate this. Have a good day and work hard." I can feel the smile in her tone rather than see it. I'll just have to deal.

"No problem. I will and you too. Bye."

"Bye." I hang up the call and run a hand through my hair. I'll go see him I'm finished with my last class. Ah, but I don't know where he lives. He never told me where he was staying. I debate whether to call Ms. Evans up again but I decide against it. I'll just ask Josh myself. I check my watch on my left wrist and see that I still have another half hour to go before class ends and the one I have with Josh starts. I'll ask after his class ends. Which will still be a long time away. Oh well.

Once class ends the students leave and the students from the next class start to trickle in.

"Alright guys. The deadline for the essay I assigned you all is due today. Make sure you have it ready by the end of class. Now on with the lesson." The students grumble a bit but don't say anything.

One class is over the students come up to my desk in a line and set their essays down on my desk. Josh is the last one to turn in his and gives me a long look while he sets his neatly on top of the others. His stare digs deep into me and I fidget a bit in my chair.

"Did you want to ask me something Professor?" The question stuns me. Did he know I was going to check up in him to day?

"How did you know?"

"Well I saw you glancing every now and then at me during class today with what looked like some words stuck in your throat."

"Very funny."I didn't feel I was acting any different during class today.

"Haha I have awesome perception skills when it comes to you Michael." Josh grins.

"What happened to 'Professor'?"

"That's way to formal and nobody is around anyway." The corners of his mouth turn up.

"Alright." I sigh. I still have to work on that with him. "I wanted to come over to your place today. Would you mind?"

"Not at all." Josh gives me another long look yet there is a feeling laced into it that I can't pinpoint. Should I not have asked to come over? He did see my apartment already, its only fair I get to see his.

I head to home quickly thinking about what Ms. Levine has said about him most likely living off instant food and start preparing a bunch of dishes and put them in plastic containers. I stuff them inside a grocery bag and head over to the address had wrote down on a piece of paper before he left for his next class.

I take out the grocery bags once I reach Rose Apartments. I ring the door bell and hear a hard thud that's questionable before the door swings open revealing a highly disheveled but grining Josh. "You made it. Come on in Michael." I almost say something but he raises his hand. "We're not the university so loosen up a bit."
Josh moves to let me inside and notices the grocery bag I'm carrying.

"Well what do we have here?"

"I just brought some food over." I adjust the bag in my hand. I look down the hallway and see some boxes filled with things seeming to have been tipped over. That must have been what I heard, in him tripping over those boxes to get to the door. Had he been that excited to see me?

"I'll show you to kitchen." I set the bag down on the counter he said was okay to put it and watch him pounce on it and inspect the contents. "Wow. Did you make all this?" He pulls out each container one by one.

"My cooking isn't that good but hopefully you'll like everything." I take a look around the notice row after row of instant noodles and I spot a stack of empty pizza boxes in a corner. Ms. Levine seemed to be right about him.
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Hope you enjoyed. :) see you all in the next chap

River632