Quarantined With My Professor Read online

  Quarantined with my Professor

  Quarantine Romance Book 1

  Coral Adams

  Copyright © 2020 Coral Adams

  All Rights Reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this publication may be reported or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher.

  Chapter One

  Laurie

  Laurie fully expected the buzz of her phone to be a news alert about Coronavirus. Her whole class had signed up to them, from every news outlet going. There was a morbid fascination for them around the whole thing, especially as they were currently abroad.

  Salzburg, Austria, had been their home for the past two days. It was a college trip that had been in the works for a year, now. They’d all committed in the previous school year, despite not knowing if they’d even pass their exams to be able to attend.

  As classical music students, attending Mozart’s birthplace to witness a special concert performed in the famed Salzburg Cathedral, had been an incredible opportunity. Even more incredible was the fact they had been asked to perform a small concert of their own in the cathedral the day before, as a preshow of sorts. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  A once in a lifetime opportunity that Laurie had been incredibly excited for until Duane had happened. After Duane she hadn’t been excited for much of anything.

  As it turned out, the timing had been completely wrong. Both concerts had been canceled on the day they arrived into Austria, and all the restaurants and tourist attractions had shut the day after. They had instead walked around the city seeing things from the outside, and religiously checked their phones to get the latest update.

  None of them had expected this breaking news alert, though.

  America closes borders to EU countries. Effective immediately.

  The buzz in the hotel lobby, where they had gathered to go and wander around the city some more, became a cacophony.

  Laurie joined in the frantic chatter, repeating the same, So does that mean we’re stuck? and This is terrifying!‌ as everyone else.

  Her gaze found her professor amidst the chaos. He was the one who was going to be making the call as to what they did next.

  Professor Hughes had always been calm and chilled, unlike a lot of the professors on their course. He was a bit younger than most, she guessed in his mid thirties, and he’d managed not to make chaperoning the group awkward so far, which was impressive. She’d always liked him, and it wasn’t just because he was smoking hot. She would have liked him even if he hadn’t had a jawline to die for and a body that she never would have expected from a violinist.

  Now, he looked fraught. His eyebrows were pulled together as he stared at his phone, and presumably the same news alert we had all just received. His whole body was frozen.

  Then he moved suddenly into action, tapping on his phone and putting it to his ear, and moving away from the group a little.

  She kept her eyes on him, wanting to know the second he gave it away whether the college was going to be of any help or not. She breathed a sigh of relief just seconds after he had done the same.

  “Okay!” he called over the group of students. “Listen up. I know we’ve all just had the same news, and it’s worrying. I’ve just spoken to the college, and we’re going to head to the airport and try and get some last minute flights out of here. There might be some that aren’t grounded yet. I know it’s scary, but we’re all going to be absolutely fine, okay?‌ Let’s all go and get our things and get back here within ten minutes. If you’ve got to leave a couple of clothes behind because it means packing quicker, then you’ll just need to do it. I’ll be chasing people who aren’t back here in ten minutes.”

  Laurie hadn’t really unpacked, and so she was back in the lobby within a couple of minutes, not choosing to stay and watch as the stuck-up Amber she’d been unfortunately bunking with tried desperately to shove her mountain of clothes back into her suitcase.

  She was one of the first back, and she stood next to Professor Hughes as they waited for the rest to pile back down the stairs.

  “What will we do if we can’t fly back?”‌ she asked him.

  He looked like he was strongly resisting the urge to pace, and his knuckles were white where they held his phone. “We’ll cross that hurdle when we come to it, I‌ suppose.”

  It wasn’t the reassuring answer either of them had been hoping for.

  She wanted to keep asking him questions, but resisted. He didn’t have any more answers than she did. They were on equal footing now, and that was terrifying in itself.

  People did as they were told and arrived back on time, and they filed out to pile into taxis. The Euros they’d bought as spending money for the remaining three days they should have had in Austria went toward the cabs.

  Laurie spent the drive to the airport typing out a response to her mom, who had texted several times with panicked requests for an update, and whether she needed to transfer her any money to cover a last-minute flight back to the US, if any were even taking off. Laurie told her mom they were headed to the airport now, and she would be okay for money. She worked part time during the year and lived at home, so she’d managed to get a bit of her own buffer since starting college three years ago, without relying on her parents’ money. They had already put her through college debt free, something she would never be able to repay them for.

  The airport wasn’t as hectic as she’d expected. There couldn’t have been that many Americans in Salzburg. They headed as a group toward the ticket desk, and Professor Hughes was the one that spoke to the woman in a mask and gloves behind the counter. She was too far away to hear what was being said, but there seemed to be some nodding going on, and then people were queuing up and purchasing tickets to somewhere.

  It was via whispers like in a game of telephone that Laurie, at the back of the queue, found out that there was one flight with seats left that was heading toward the US. It would be New York, and mean a layover in Frankfurt which they couldn’t guarantee people wouldn’t end up stranded in instead, but it was, at this moment in time, still intending to fly. New York was the opposite side of the country to their campus in San Francisco, but it was back within American borders at least.

  As she moved closer to the ticket desk, she overheard a crying girl at the front explaining shamefacedly that she couldn’t afford the ticket price, that she just didn’t have enough money in the bank.

  Laurie had gone to step forward and offer to cover it, when Professor Hughes did the same. She felt a rush of endearment for the professor as the girl struggled to vocalize her appreciation.

  Finally, Laurie reached the front of the queue. The woman behind the counter went to hold out her hand for payment, but then her face fell. “I’m afraid there are no seats left on the flight. They are being booked online and in Frankfurt Airport also, and the last one has just been bought.”‌ Her English was heavily accented, but grammatically perfect.

  Laurie’s heart thundered in her chest. “There are no other flights?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not. Not at this time. There are flights in the future, but we do not know whether these will be canceled or not. The current travel ban is for fourteen days.”‌

  “Okay.”‌ She looked at Professor Hughes, who hadn’t bought his own ticket yet, either. “Thoughts?”‌ she asked him.

  “I guess we’re crossing that hurdle now we’ve come to it,” he said, giving the woman behind the counter an unconvincing smile and then gesturing for Laurie to leav
e the queue of people so the ones behind her could access the ticket desk.

  The group of nineteen classmates who had managed to get tickets looked at them warily, and Laurie forced a smile onto her face. For whose benefit, she wasn’t sure.

  “Well there are definitely worse places to be trapped.”

  Chapter Two

  Adrian

  Adrian was really trying not to show how stressed he was.

  He might not have any more experience than his students when it came to a pandemic, but he was still supposed to be in charge.

  It had all been going so well until Laurie hadn’t been able to get a ticket, and that meant he wasn’t able to get one either. He had no idea what they were going to do now they were stranded in Austria.

  But first he needed to make sure that the students who had gotten tickets actually made their flight.

  “Okay!”‌ he called, deep voice cutting through their clamor. None of them were attempting to hide how anxious it was making them. None except Laurie, who kept the smile on her face despite being the one person who wasn’t going to make it home. “You all need to hurry through security and make sure you board the flight. I’m going to pass out my telephone number to everyone so that if you run into any problems here, or in Frankfurt, you can get in touch, but understand that my powers are limited.”‌ They were all in their final year of college and adults. They were perfectly capable of handling catching a flight by themselves.

  “Did anyone have any questions now?”‌ he asked. He felt like he should be doing more, but it was out of his hands. They just needed to get moving.

  They all shook their heads.

  He spotted Laurie speaking to Michelle, whose flight he had just paid for. She was still wiping tears from her face, but gave an embarrassed smile to whatever Laurie had just said.

  And then they were gone, having used their boarding passes to get through into the security checks where he and Laurie couldn’t follow.

  They stood in silence as they went, and then both sighed in unison.

  “Well,” he said. “I suppose we start a new life in Austria now, then.”

  He was relieved when she laughed. She didn’t look like she was going to fall apart.

  “As I said, there could definitely be worse places to be trapped. The woman at the ticket stand said the flights are going to be out of action for at least fourteen days, so that is the current situation.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to stay in that hotel for another fourteen days.”

  “I don’t think a hotel is going to be a very good quarantine base, anyway. The restaurants have all shut down, so we’d be living on the Austrian equivalent of pot noodles since all we’ve got is a kettle. Really we need somewhere with some cooking facilities.”

  He was glad as well that they’d both come to the same conclusion that there was no point in searching desperately for some way of getting back to the States. It would be a wasted effort. Right now, finding somewhere to isolate themselves until things settled down–which he hoped would be at the end of the current fourteen day timeline–was their best plan of action.

  “Shall we get a coffee?” he suggested. “And decide on a plan of action?”

  The airport at least hadn’t shut everything down, and there were still plenty of places to grab an overpriced coffee from.

  They sat in silence while scouring the internet for an apartment they could hunker down in. Adrian tried not to let himself feel awkward about the situation. He was here with a student, not a friend. With just the two of them, and the bizarre scenario, it was easy to fall out of the role of her teacher.

  “I think I’ve got something,” she said, leaning toward him to show him her screen. She hovered close to his side as she started scrolling through pictures, but when she looked up and saw how close their faces were, passed him the phone instead.

  If she kept doing things like that, then it was definitely going to be difficult to remind himself he was her professor.

  “This is good,” he said as he looked at what she’d found. A city center apartment with just one bed, but a couch which was big enough to sleep on. It was self check in and available immediately, and for the next month. The price wasn’t outrageous. Adrian guessed they’d probably just had a cancellation.

  “You’re happy with it?” she checked. “I’ll get it now if so. The check in instructions should come through straight away in an email, apparently.”

  “That’s good for me. How long are we booking it for.”

  “I figured getting the whole month is safest. Thinking that flights are going to be immediately back in action after fourteen days seems optimistic.”

  He agreed with her, but doubling the time they booked the apartment for doubled the price, and while it was reasonable for a city center apartment in an expensive city, it was still a lot, and he’d just forked out nearly a thousand dollars to send one of his students home. “Maybe we should go for the fourteen days and then add on if it comes to that,” he suggested. Admitting that he had a mortgage more expensive than he could really afford, and what had led to that, wasn’t something he had any intention of discussing with his student.

  She looked at him in a way that suggested she had read him like a book. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it now.”

  “Taxi back into the city then, I suppose,” he said, draining the last of his coffee and then standing up. “And then we should go shopping. I hope everyone isn’t panic buying here like they seem to be back home.”

  “And that our apartment comes with a significant amount of toilet roll already,” she joked.

  She stood up and stretched, wincing when her back popped, then bent down to pick up her cello.

  “Did you want to swap?” he asked, holding out his much smaller violin case.

  Her smile was almost affectionate, and it created a sense of intimacy that he tried to ignore. “That’s okay. I’ve been lugging this thing about forever. I assume we’re heading straight back into a taxi anyway.”

  “Definitely. Do you have the address? Or any German?”

  “My German… isn’t terrible,” she said. “I’m happy to ask, though.”

  “My German is non-existent. No idea why I got picked to chaperone this trip.”

  “I’m assuming because no one wanted to spend a week being responsible for twenty people in their early twenties, no matter how pretty the surroundings.”

  “Perks of being the newest member of the faculty.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure pandemic, travel restrictions and quarantine wasn’t on their radar when they palmed it off on you.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I certainly hope not.”

  They got into a cab and Laurie spoke in what certainly sounded like perfect German to the driver. They sat in the back together and he took to staring out of the window at the beautiful city with the impressive Alps as the backdrop, trying to figure out where he was going to draw the line in terms of keeping themselves sane by socializing, but being able to return to college without it being too awkward.

  While he pondered it, Laurie rang her mom. He could only hear her side of the conversation.

  “Hi mom. Yeah, I’m fine. No, I’m not going to be able to get back. No, no, calm down, I’m fine mom, really. You know there’s not even that many cases in Austria, and the shops are all still open. I’m staying in an apartment where I’m going to isolate until the travel restrictions are limited. Most people got on a plane back, but they’d run out of tickets by the time I got mine. No, God, of course I didn’t try and buy one off anyone. That would have been ridiculous. Besides, seems like I’m probably less likely to get it here than there.”

  She looked out of her window as she talked, and he couldn’t help but observe her as she chatted. It was the first time he’d ever been in a position where he needed to consider a student beyond their musical ability, and it was unnerving. He didn’t want to consider what kind of food she liked, or whether she snored loudly, or whe
ther she would be calling anyone else after her mom. A boyfriend, a fiancé?

  “Mom calm down. Calm down. I’m the only student here, but my professor is here too, so I’m not on my own, I’m with someone responsible. I’ll keep you updated, and I’ll be back in the US as soon as I can. Honestly you don’t need to worry at all. No, I don’t need any money. Well, actually, I mean, you know I don’t like to ask, but it would be really helpful. No, I definitely don’t need ten thousand dollars! I was thinking more like one, just in case of an emergency. And I will be transferring it straight back if you send me that much. Yeah, okay. Fine. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Love you, and give my love to dad as well. Stay safe both of you. Yeah. Okay. Bye. Bye.”

  She hung up and her smile was affectionate. He definitely hadn’t mistaken the emotion she’d been giving him earlier.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I thought I may as well get it over and done with. She’s a massive worrier.”

  “Pretty understandable at the moment, I suppose.”

  “Yeah. Oh well, I think I managed some amount of reassurance, at least.”

  Adrian felt the urge to pretend to ring someone, to stop it being so obvious that there was no one who would be worrying about him. He supposed he needed to ring the college. They would be worrying about themselves if they didn’t hear from him. And he was hoping for some sort of assistance financially from them for the extension to the trip.

  He needed to figure out what the insurance covered as well.

  From the conversation he’d just listened to, it didn’t sound like Laurie was going to have any financial troubles either way.

  “When we get to the apartment and sort shopping out we’ll talk about finances,” he said.

  She shifted in her seat, like she was going to object, and he almost wished she would, though he couldn’t have allowed her to pay either way. “Yeah, okay.”

  The taxi driver dropped them off at the apartment, which was one of the classic flat façaded buildings, painted orange. Each apartment had a balcony, which he knew he would appreciate. The view of the mountains and the castle even from the ground floor were stunning, and he thought he remembered their apartment being on the fourth floor.