The Professor’s Holiday Surprise (Cam Show Crush #1)

2. Paisley

Chapter 2

Paisley

“Why isn’t Plant Daddy here when we need him?” My classmate moans and throws up her hands. We’re dividing small-leaf pussytoes in the greenhouse, practicing for our upcoming practical exam. It should be an easy task, according to the practice handout Dr. Lowry posted to the class website.

It’s not easy at all, and I agree, I wish our professor was here right now, but the Sunday afternoon lab time we signed up for is unsupervised.

“Don’t call him that,” I whisper, glancing around nervously, but nobody heard her over the strains of “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea playing overhead. Whoever is in charge of the music today, they’re right into the holiday season, which I appreciate, because there’s something magical about the countdown to Christmas.

I have no logical reason to think that. Every holiday for as long as I can remember, and definitely through my entire adult life, has been completely forgettable.

That doesn’t stop me from hoping each year will be different.

“Everyone calls him that.”

Everyone is rude, I think darkly.

Of course, everyone else is practically a teenager. The girl beside me is twenty, for example. I feel like her geriatric elder.

I think I’m the only mature student taking this class.

And I’m definitely the only person who didn’t buy a Sexual Plant Reproduction t-shirt after Noah wore it to the first lecture.

I mean, Dr. Lowry.

My classmates might be literal children, but I am a dirty, dirty girl who cannot get over the fact that my prof flirted with me before he knew he was my prof.

Maybe.

He maybe flirted with me, but in the Dirty Girl History Books, we’re erasing the maybe.

After two months of watching Dr. Lowry shepherd the children through labs and lectures, I know that he was probably only being friendly that day in August. But it felt like more than that, and my lonely, romantic heart can’t let it go.

It doesn’t help that everyone calls him Plant Daddy. The nickname is painfully accurate, from his attentive teaching style to his close-cropped beard to his stern rebukes when he finds people scrolling TikTok instead of writing lab notes.

Noah is a saint.

So it’s wrong to have a crush on him. Very wrong. For that reason and that reason alone, I have invested some of my carefully saved pennies in a silly distraction, a subscription to an OnlySantas creator who does an intensely hot weekly live stream.

For a few hours every Sunday night, CowboySanta, the self-appointed Rodeo Champion of the North Pole, takes me away to a fantasy where just the thought of a girl like me makes a big country boy wild.

He never talks on the stream, which is part of the appeal—his face is in shadow, and I have no idea what his voice sounds like.

It’s pure cowboy smut.

Also, he’s getting over a broken heart, which I can relate to, even though my loss is only a silly crush.

His bio on the website is clear: I want a girl I can’t have, so I’m going to imagine her watching me thinking about her instead of wallowing like I’m in a country song.

I have it memorized.

An alarm goes off on my phone. A calendar reminder that I need to be home in forty-five minutes. “Okay, let’s try this one more time, and then I have to go. I have an appointment.”

My classmate gives me a skeptical look. “On a Sunday night? In Climax Springs?”

“It’s an online thing.” I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to this child. I grab the soil bucket and a trowel. “Let’s go. This isn’t rocket science.”

My pulse races as I log in to OnlySantas. I made it home, past my aunt with a muttered reminder about my “Sunday night study Zoom”, and up to my room with four minutes to spare.

I don’t know what kind of computer set up CowboySanta has, because he’s sitting far away from the camera, but I know he can see comments without looking down at his phone, and I like to say hi before he gets started on his…show.

It feels so voyeuristic to call it that.

He jerks off. That’s it. That’s the show.

It takes him two hours every Sunday night. He edges himself over and over again, until his whole body is sweat-slicked and shaking with need.

Every show is exactly the same. He texts with us in a chat room. He encourages replies, and sometimes varies up what he’s doing based on our responses.

My handle on the site is GoodGardenGirl, and tonight, I’m the first person to say hi to him, although there are a few other accounts logged in. I see FestiveBrat and RaymondLovesEveryone, two regulars on this stream, and a couple of anonymous handles that seem to be new. Every week there are some looky-loos who never come back.

GoodGardenGirl

hi CowboySanta

CowboySanta

hey! Nice to see you again GoodGardenGirl

I’ve got something special for you tonight

He’s pretty professional about this gig, so I won’t get much more than that, but the immediate reply gives me a thrill.

GoodGardenGirl

can’t wait

CowboySanta

are you nice and comfortable?

GoodGardenGirl

almost

CowboySanta

I can’t start until I have your undivided attention

Oh my God. I did not expect that.

GoodGardenGirl

You do. I’m crawling into bed right now.

CowboySanta

that’s perfect

This is more than we’ve ever interacted before, and even though I know he’s just a stranger on the internet, I’m riding a buzzy kind of high as I unzip my jeans and make myself comfortable.