#blake jonas

(this is entirely @jewishjillianholtzmann’s  fault, although i can’t find her original professor!phlake post right now)

Phil is an Economics professor—young, attractive, always prepared, very knowledgeable, cares about her students, funny, in control of the class, with incredibly chic professional clothing. Half her students have crushes on her.

She’s back from maternity leave and her daughter is 6 months old. Sometimes she shows her students photos of the baby at the start of class, and tells little 30-second stories about whatever cute new thing she learned how to do. Her wife features in a lot of these stories of course, but Phil never shows any pictures of her, and when one of her students asks, Phil refuses to tell them anything.

The students are persistent so they keep asking about Phil’s wife, and it quickly becomes a class joke. Like, at the start of pretty much every class someone will raise their hand and ask “So, Professor Gordon, can we see a picture of your wife today?” or “Professor, what’s your wife’s favorite food? Do you cook for her?” “Professor Gordon, what does your wife do?” “Professor, can you give us a brief summary of your wife’s style? Is she, like, Anthropologie, or Gucci, or Cabella’s?” ”How did you and your wife first start dating? Where did you meet?” etc. And Phil never answers, and they don’t expect her to, it’s just funny. She’s the kind of cool teacher who they can joke around with like that.

***

Blake, Phil’s wife, is a professor of theology at the same university. None of their students know that Professor Gordon and Professor Jonas are married, of course. But one day Blake comes in before the start of class to talk to Phil. And they’re kind of... flirty? Nothing unprofessional, just a few smiles, and Phil raises her eyebrows and leans in a bit to whisper something in Blake’s ear. Blake laughs and half the class immediately starts shipping them.

The other half of the class is of course horrified because Professor Gordon has a wife! Don’t say shit like that, you’ll jinx her marriage! Also, have you heard the way she talks about her wife? Because none of that stuff with Professor Jonas could hold a candle, honestly. (Julia and Destini, who are in the middle of their own friend-to-lovers trope-filled romance, jokingly suggest that Professor Jonas could be Professor Gordon’s wife. No one, themselves included, seriously considers it.) There is a #teamwife and #teamjonas shipping war in the class group chat.

And then, one day near the end of the semester, Phil comes into class and pauses for a second before starting the lecture. “No questions about my wife today?” she asks with a little smile. The entire class snaps to attention. “Who was it who wanted to know what she looked like? Because our babysitter’s sick today, so if you can stay awake for about—” she faux-casually checks her watch “oh, half an hour or so, she’ll be here in the flesh to put me on baby duty.” She wiggles her eyebrows and adds “And please try to control yourselves; my daughter is 6 months old and if you talk louder than a whisper near her when she’s fussy she’ll scream bloody murder.” And then, totally ignoring the excited splutters from her students, she starts the lecture.

37 minutes later, the door opens. The entire class looks up. Even the stoners, who don’t give two shits about any of this, look up. It’s the moment of truth! Professor Gordon’s mysterious wife is going to be revealed!

… And in walks Blake, cool as a peach, holding the baby and a diaper bag. She drops the bag next to Phil’s desk and hands over the baby. “I changed her maybe 15 minutes ago and she’s already had her first bottle, so you should be good for a while,” Blake says. She leans over and gives Phil a professional peck on the cheek, and Phil takes the baby. “Thanks,” she says. It is without a doubt the most domestic scene possible: nothing sexual or even that romantic, just two moms doing the same baby hand-off they’ve done multiple times a day for 6 months. (Julia, watching, realizes that this is what real partnership looks like and silently hopes to have the same kind of partnership herself one day. She also realizes that when she thinks about her future she’s imagining Destini. She whispers “Oh, fuck,” but luckily no one else hears her.)

“Nice to meet you all,” Blake tells the class with a smirk. “I’ve heard so much about you.” Then she gives a little wave before walking back out the door, and the entire class loses their shit—but quietly, because of the baby.

Phil just smiles serenely and takes off her jacket. She pulls out a babywearing sling, pops the baby into it, and gets right on with class. She is a teacher! They have concepts to learn! By this point, her students know her well enough not to ask any non-economics-related questions in the middle of lecture.

But she does smile a little more than usual. And one of her hands (the hand not holding the projector-clicker-thing) is stroking gently up and down the baby’s leg.

The baby (light brown skin and a head full of dark curls) is quiet, to start with, just kind of staring around the room. Her eyes are bright and inquisitive and one of her hands is grabbing at the edge of Phil’s blouse, the same way she might grab at a blanket. After a while she settles in and stops staring at the class. But a bit after that, she starts to fuss. Phil’s free hand comes up to cup her head, and in a pause while students write she leans down and makes little shushing noises and presses a kiss to the top of the baby’s head. That helps for a minute, but then the baby starts fussing again, so in the next pause Phil digs around in the diaper bag for a pacifier.

The baby is quiet for the rest of the class. At one point near the end she even falls asleep a bit, and Phil talks a little bit more quietly so as not to wake her. None of the students mind. A few people wave at her as they file out of the room, which makes Phil smile.

When Phil gets home that afternoon, Blake is waiting for her with a grin. “What did they say?”

“They freaked the fuck out,” Phil answers, leaning in for a long kiss. “How was your day?”

***