Author’s Note: This story is a complete work of fiction from the get go and is intended solely for the readers to enjoy. My thanks to EasySpeak for the work of editing this story so that it makes sense and makes it easier to read and understand.

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by Ronnie Milsap’s song “Inside” from which the story takes its very brief title. His song and the lyrics are available on the internet.

It was the first day of the fall semester and I was sitting in class waiting for the Professor or the Graduate Assistant instructor to arrive in the classroom. Nearly every student desk in the classroom was taken except for one next to me and a couple in the front row of the classroom. Most students are somewhat averse to sitting in the front row of the classroom and those student desks are generally the last to be occupied at the start of and during class.

I kind of thought that all of the students who were attending this class had already arrived and they were already at their desks. All that the students were really waiting for was the Prof to arrive.

During that time I opened the book that was required for the course and was looking through it. I wanted to get some idea of what the course content would be and I was pretty well engrossed in that before the start of the class.

All of a sudden the chatter in the classroom quieted down when the Prof-instructor walked in the door. The instructor appeared to be a grad student teaching assistant that I recognized from another one of my classes.

Just as he stepped into the classroom he was followed by a young lady who I assumed to be a student. She stood for a moment and surveyed her choice of student desks that were available to her and her eyes settled on me and the desk situated next to the one I was sitting in.

I watched her very nonchalantly without staring as she navigated her way to the row where I was sitting. She walked down the row past me to the vacant desk. She stopped at my desk, turned and looked me in my eyes. Then she asked me, “May I sit at this desk or is there someone already sitting here?”

With a broad smile on my face and a welcoming smile in my eyes I looked directly back into her pretty eyes. I replied, “You are certainly welcome to sit at that desk. No one else is using it. Please have a seat, Miss.”

Of course, looking at her and how pretty she was I sure as hell was not about to tell her, ‘No, fuck you shove off. There are a couple of other seats up on the front row. Go sit in one of those seats. My Momma taught me better than that. And she would have tanned my ass if I had ever said something like that.’

She put her books down on the desk top and sat down. She immediately turned to me, smiled and said, “My name is Kellyanne, Kellyanne Danaher. For short, my family and my friends all call me K-Anne.

I had a very long brisk walk clear across campus to get here in time for this class and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get here before class had begun. I was right, I almost didn’t make it here before the prof arrived and called the class to order.”

Reaching out my hand I replied, “My name is Reggie or Reg, Campbell. My actual first name is Reginald but, I really don’t like that name so I always tell people to just call me Reggie or Reg as they prefer. I think I was named after a great uncle to please him and I wish I hadn’t been. It’s very nice to meet you, K-Anne.”

She quickly returned my greeting saying, “Nice to meet you, too, Reggie. Are you taking this course as a requirement or as an elective?” as she shook my hand.

“For me this course is a firm requirement for my major.” It is just one of several math courses I’m required to take for my major. My major is Mechanical Engineering and this Calculus course is just one of a couple more math courses that I have to have to meet the requirements for my degree.”

“You do? What other math courses do you have to have as well as this one?”

“I have to have Advanced Calculus and Diff-Eq. I may even have to have Vector Analysis before it’s all said and done with, too. Or it may even be as a forced elective. My Ph.D. councilor thinks that if I don’t take as much advanced math I’m not getting the full value of my education.

He has told me a number of times that school is the only place where a person always tries to get less than what they pay for. And that includes the number of hours I sign up to take each semester. He always says he thinks I’m limping along with a light load unless I have one or two courses more than what the standard student load is.”

“Well, Reggie, I hope you are good at math because it sounds like you are looking forward to this course and those following courses. I really wish I didn’t have to take this course. But, it’s a requirement for my major, also, and I have never done particularly well in these math courses. I’ve heard of Diff-Eq. but I’ve never even heard of Vector Analysis before. Why do you think you need all of those math courses?”

“Well, K-Anne, those math courses are just kind of more of the same to really over simplify it. My counselor says I need them because I want to go on and get my Masters and ultimately get my Doctors Degrees. What’s your major, K-Anne?”

“I’m going to get my degree in Investment Finance and Corporate Accounting. I want to go into Investment Finance hopefully with a specialty of Mergers and Acquisitions.”

“What do you plan to do once you get your grad degrees, Reggie?”

Thinking momentarily I replied, “I could do some teaching at the university level here or elsewhere but, I’d really like to get into FEA, Stress Analysis and Fracture Mechanics. FEA and Fracture Mechanics really fascinate me.”

“I have an idea of what Stress Analysis is but, I’ve never even heard of FEA and Fracture Mechanics, Reggie.”

“Oh, not many people had ever heard of them either, K-Anne. FEA is an acronym for Finite Element Analysis. That is a computerized method for stress analysis. And Fracture Mechanics is the study of how materials behave on initiation, during and at the end of fracture.

That can be elastic mode; elastic-plastic mode or brittle failure mode and it can be part of a method for determining the life expectancy of parts under high stress less than the yield strength of the material.”

At that time the prof called the class to order cutting our conversation short. Watching her facial expressions out of the corner of my eye, I could see that she wasn’t comfortable with the prof’s explanation of the work.

As we left the classroom after our class I said to her, “K-Anne, if you need help with this course let me know and I’ll be more than happy to help you. All you need to do is ask.” I said as we walked out of the classroom and out of the building.

“Ok, Reggie. I’ll probably take you up on your offer. Thank you for your offer to help me. See you here in class tomorrow.” She turned and started walking briskly across campus and I assumed she was going to her next class across campus.

Reflecting on the afternoon the vision of K-Anne remained vividly in my mind. She was very pretty and she had a really nice shape. She was intelligent and she had a very bright, warm and engaging personality.

I thought, ‘What a nice girl to meet today the first day of the semester. She gave me a good feeling deep inside me and I knew I would like to see more of her and spend some personal time with her, as well.

Spending time with K-Anne and helping her with our calculus course would be a good start’. And later I thought, ‘Maybe we could get together and go out to a club or just go out to get a drink or even to a football game. It really didn’t matter as long as I could spend some time close to her’.

There was no sign of K-Anne around campus until our next Calculus class. However, that wasn’t something I was concerned about. Since she had a completely different major than mine, most of her classes were held in different buildings in a different area of the campus. When I got to the classroom for our next Calculus class it was only about half full at the time.

I chose a desk a couple of rows back from the front and in the middle of the row. I knew that most students really liked to sit at or near the end of a row. K-Anne had not arrived there in class yet but, I figured she would be along after bit. I reasoned if she had to walk most of the way across campus she would likely be one of the last to arrive in the classroom each afternoon.

As I sat down at my desk, I pulled out my book and was going over the material for the day and I also looked at my work on the home assignment again to check for accuracy, errors and completeness. Like the previous class there was a vacant desk next to mine.

Just after the Prof walked into the room, I felt a hand very lightly touch my shoulder. I looked up into K-Anne’s pretty face and into her very pretty and expressive blue eyes. She greeted me warmly saying, “Hi, Reggie. It’s nice to see you again today. May I sit here next to you, please?”

“Why certainly, K-Anne. Please have a seat. It’s nice to see you again, too, K-Anne. I figured you’d be along very shortly.” About that time the prof started his lecture and he filled the entire hour with his lecture and his assignment for home study for the following day.

After the end of our class K-Anne asked me, “Did you have any problems in completing our home assignment, Reggie? I got the assignment done but I’m not sure that I got them all done and solved correctly.”

“It took me a while but, I got it all done and I think I completed the assignment correctly. Tell you what; I don’t have any more classes this afternoon. So, if you would like to go to the student union or to the library I can show you the answers I arrived at and how I got there. I’ll even buy you a cup of coffee or a soda at the student union if you would prefer to go there. We can work on today’s assignment also if that will help you out.”

I expected her to say she had another class or she had something else to do. But, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Oh, yeah, Reggie, that’ll be a really big help to me. I don’t have any more classes this afternoon either. So, it’ll be a good use of my free time this afternoon.”

Her pretty blue eyes were sparkling as she spoke and they told me that she genuinely wanted to study with me this afternoon or at the very least spend some time with me. Of course, just spending time with each other is good from the get go at least from my perspective, anyway. That good feeling deep inside me just returned and I really liked it. I was hoping that she had a similar good feeling deep inside her, too.

We walked out of the building for the short walk across campus to the student union. I couldn’t get over how cute she looked as we walked with her shoulder length blond hair being gently ruffled by the light gentle afternoon breeze. Her cute shapely figure wiggling in front of me as we walked added to her very feminine allure, as well.

The gentle sway of her skirt as she walked held my attention nearly as much as anything else about her. I really wanted to reach out and take her hand as we walked or to put my arm around her waist. But, I thought that would be too presumptuous and too forward of me to do that. So, I heeded my own admonishments.

I was just really happy to be with her for the time being. I had to hope maybe this will develop into something more in the coming days or weeks of the class. It seemed that she was happy to be with me, too. K-Anne was really just a chatterbox all the time we were walking to the student union together.

Of course, she was pretty much a chatterbox anyway before we left class. I know some guys think a chatterbox is an indication of a girl being an airhead but, I knew that was not the case with her and I really enjoyed her company.

It certainly was not all one way either. Maybe she thought I was a chatterbox and an airhead. But, if she thought I was an air head she surely wouldn’t have asked me to help her with our Calculus assignment.

When we got to the student union I bought her a diet soda and a snack and I got a cup of coffee and a snack for myself. Then we sat down to go over our past assignment and to start on our current assignment. In our first class the prof told us there would be a home assignment every day.

He said there would be no credit for it except it was somewhat like the anti in a poker game. If we missed handing in our assignment too many times we would be dropped from the class. That provided a strong incentive to get us to do our home assignments. Although, he did say he would correct them and hand them back to us for our own study later.

I mentioned to K-Anne, “You need to keep all of your corrected assignments because I have a strong feeling that they will make up a large part of our final exam. I also told her that was what I was going to do. That would be a great way to prepare for the final at the end of the semester even if our home assignments were not a part of the final.”

Her eyes lit up like headlights on high beam in the night and she said, “Thank you, Reggie. You’re probably right and that’s a really good idea. Even if they aren’t part of the final exam there won’t be anything lost in keeping them until after the final exam time. And they’ll form a huge basis for preparing for the final exam.”

K-Anne and I went over the previous assignment and I showed her step by step how I arrived at the solution to the problems. She said, “I got most of them right but, I made a huge mistake on a few of them and now I understand how I made my mistakes, thanks to your explanations and thanks to you for your help, too, Reggie. If you do go into teaching I know you’ll be a great teacher, Reggie.”

We went over the current assignment and we worked out the solutions to each of the problems. After another soda or two for K-Anne and at least two more coffees for me she reached over, grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes with her piercing baby blues and said, “Thank you again, Reggie, you’re a life saver for me. I don’t think I could have gotten these all done correctly without your help.”

She scooted her chair over closer to me and kissed my cheek. Something inside me in my belly did a flip flop. I didn’t know, it may have even been a little lower. It made me wonder just what she was feeling inside to make her kiss my cheek like she did. I would have thought a simple thank you would have been sufficient. Then I thought to myself, ‘This girl appears to be a real sweetheart and is probably a keeper, Reg.’

I told her, “K-Anne, helping you like this has helped me just as much or more than it has helped you. I’m really happy I could help you. So, you’re welcome. If you want to do this again, I’m happy to study with you after each of our calculus classes.” She grabbed my hand again, gently squeezed my fingers and nodded her head affirmatively.

K-Anne looked at her watch and said, “Reggie, I didn’t realized it has gotten so late. If I don’t hurry back to the dorm I’m going to miss supper there.”

She got up to leave and I asked her, “Which dorm do you live in, K-Anne?” She told me and I said, “That’s on the way to my room. Come on. May I walk with you? I really don’t want you out walking on the street alone after dusk has fallen.”

“Ok, Reggie. It’s beginning to get dark and I’d really love to have you walk along with me. I’m normally back in the dorm well before dark or I’m with someone else. I never want to be alone on the street after dark. It always scares me to think of what can happen.”

It was only about a five minute walk to her dorm and when we got to her building she stopped and turned to face me. She leveled those baby blues of hers to look right into mine and said, “Thank you so much for all of your help this afternoon, Reggie.”

With that, she put her hands on my shoulders, pulled us together and kissed my cheek. There went that flip flop inside my belly again. I grabbed her waist, pulled her to me and kissed her cheek in return.

As I turned to leave for my room she said, “I’ll see you in class tomorrow, Reggie. Goodnight.” as I started to turn to head for my room and she turned to go into the dorm.

“Ok. Goodnight, K-Anne. I’ll see you in class then. Have a good evening.”

In our next class K-Anne sat down at the vacant desk next to me and greeted me very warmly and very cheerfully saying, “Hi, Reggie. I’m glad to see you’re here again this afternoon.”

I returned her cheerful greeting saying. “Hello, K-Anne. It’s good to see you here again this afternoon.”

At that time the prof told everyone to hand in their home assignments. K-Anne handed me hers which I passed on down to the end of the row with mine for the prof to pick up. She just gave me a broad smile when she handed me her work.

I took her smile to mean that she was very proud that she felt her work with my help would be correct and she understood the content and how to get to the correct solution for each of the problems.

After our class we went to the student union and worked on our next home assignment. I was beginning to become much more involved with her and after we finished our assignment I asked her, “There’s a home football game this Saturday, K-Anne. Would you like to go to the game with me?”

“Sure, Reggie. I’d love to go with you. Are you a big football fan?”

“I like to watch football and I enjoy it but, I wouldn’t say I’m a real die hard fanatic about it. I played a couple of years when I was in high school.” We talked about what time the game was to begin and what time she wanted me to pick her up at her dorm. Then I asked her, “K-Anne, I have some other work to do and I need to be heading back to my room. Can I walk you back to your dorm?”

“Yeah, Reggie, I was hoping you would walk along with me again this afternoon.”

When we got to her dorm she thanked me for the help with our home assignment. I grabbed her, pulled her to me and I kissed her. Without hesitation she returned my kiss. “It was a pleasure being with you again and helping you again this afternoon after our class K-Anne. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon to take you to the football game.”

Before I could turn to leave she pulled me to her and kissed me again very tenderly. That flip flop jumped up in my belly again and it did a double back flip this time. I was right; she was turning out to be a real Sweetheart. Damn, I thought I was falling for this sweet girl.

I picked her up at her dorm the next afternoon and we walked to the football field with her holding my hand. She seemed very happy to be going to the football game with me. During the game I kept telling her what plays to look for. I’d tell her, “From the looks of their formation it looks like it is going to be a running play.” and she would look at me like maybe I was in the huddle with the team.

Then I’d tell her, “This next play looks like it could be a passing play.” Then I think she thought I really was in their huddle with the team. Our team got down to the one yard line and I told her, “Now, keep your eyes on the quarterback and look for the quarterback sneak play, K-Anne.”

She had to ask, “What’s a quarterback sneak play, Reggie?” And I had to describe what it was to her. After our team ran the quarterback sneak and scored the touchdown, she jumped up, cheered and kissed me. Then she looked me in the eyes and asked, “How did you know that was the play they were going to run, Reggie?”

I just calmly answered, “That’s one of the most common plays to run in that situation, Honey, and it’s pretty hard to defend against it in a short yardage situation like that.” From then on every score that the teams made she jumped up and cheered and then she kissed me. She did that for the home team and the visiting team as well.

When the visiting team scored the third time, I pulled her to me and whispered into her ear, “Honey, the guys with the red jerseys are our home team and we normally just cheer for our own team. I like your enthusiasm and the sportsmanship you are showing but, I don’t want to throw cold water on it, Ok?’

“Ok, Reggie. I know who they are but, I just like cheering for every score. And besides that it gives me a chance to kiss you each time. I have watched football with my dad but, he never explained what the teams were going to do like you have, Honey.”

“Have you ever been to a home game here before, K-Anne?

“Yeah, I have but, it was always with a bunch of other girls from the dorm and we were just talking and looking for boys and we didn’t pay much attention to the game or what was going on out there on the football field. We thought that the game was somewhat boring but, with you telling me what is going on it isn’t boring now. It is exciting”

“Well, you don’t have to wait for a touchdown to kiss me, Honey. You can kiss me anytime you want to. I sure won’t object to that.” She just turned and looked into my eyes like she had just had a quick understanding.

After our team won the game I took her out to eat and then we walked back to her dorm. I kissed her and said, “I had a really good time with you this afternoon and evening, Honey. I’ll see you in class next week.”

K-Anne put her arms around my neck and kissed me very tenderly and whispered to me, “Thank you for taking me to the game with you this afternoon, Baby, and thank you for taking me out to eat. I had a lot of fun with you today, too. See you in class next week, Reggie.”

She quickly turned and disappeared into the door of her dorm building. As I made the short walk on back to my room I had to think, ‘What a sweet girl K-Anne is and how lucky I was to get to know her. There had to be a thousand other guys who would like to get to know her like I have, also.’

I saw K-Anne in class the following week and we went to the student union to work on our home assignment. It continued that way the rest of the semester. I took her to another football game and also took her out to eat and to the movies. At Halloween, K-Anne told me, “I’m going to go home for the weekend to visit my Parents, Reggie.”

“Where’s your hometown, Honey?”

“It’s about fifty miles east of here in a little farming town. Are you going to go home for Halloween as well? I know a lot of other people are going home for the weekend then.”

“No, I’ll be right here. It’s just too far to go home for just a weekend like that. My Parents know and understand that. Besides I have to work on some of my other courses and I really need to keep current with them. I really don’t want to get behind in those courses and risk getting a poor grade. I have to make sure I get a good grade in all of my classes if I want to get into grad school.”

“Well, where do your Parents live, Reggie?”

“It’s about 250 miles west of here in a little rural town. It’s well over a five hour drive from here. The roads between here and there are just small rough two lane country roads and there isn’t a lot of interstate driving to get there. So it takes a lot of time to get there. The route goes through a lot of little towns and I lose a lot of time going through those little towns.”

“Are you going to be going home for Thanksgiving, then, Honey?”

“Probably not. It’s just not worth the time to drive there then, either. Probably not until Christmas break when I’ll have a lot more time to make the drive home and have enough time to visit with my Parents.”

“Reggie, I hate to see you here all by yourself over Thanksgiving. I think you need to consider coming home with me then. I’m going to talk to my Parents about you coming home with me for Thanksgiving so that they can meet you and vice versa.

Would you like to go home with me if my Parents are good with it, Reggie? I’m sure my Parents will really welcome you to be there to visit with us. They will really be interested in meeting you and hearing about what your future plans are.”

“I like being with you K-Anne and I’ll strongly consider it if your Parents are Ok with it. I just don’t want to be an intruder in your Parents’ home. Let’s talk about it more when you get back and your Parents have had a chance to give you their thoughts, K-Anne.”

Later, I got to thinking K-Anne apparently thinks more of me than I thought, if she wants me to go home with her to meet her Parents. Since she wants me to meet her Parents I owe her that much to go with her and see her home and meet and visit with her Parents for a couple of days or so.

When K-Anne returned to school after the weekend off, she told me, “Reggie, I talked with my Parents about you coming home with me and visiting with us over the Thanksgiving weekend. And they said you’re certainly welcome to come home with me then. Will you come home with me for Thanksgiving and meet my Parents, Reggie? We have a guest room for you to stay in while you’re there visiting with us.”

“Yeah, Honey, I will. I couldn’t turn you down after you have gone to all the trouble you have gone through to talk to your Parents about this.” She was very happy that I was going to go home with her. Then later I got to thinking, ‘If she wants me to meet her Parents she must be thinking about us getting married sometime in the near future.

But, she knows what my plans are for my continuing education and my advance degrees. And I really can’t get married for a few more years. I liked her very much but, I was nowhere near being able to get married to her or to anyone else, either. It really didn’t matter how much we liked each other.’

On Thanksgiving weekend I traveled with her to her home and met her Parents. They were very gracious and wanted to know all about me. They thanked me very much for helping K-Anne through our Calculus class. I told them about my plans to go on to grad school to get my Masters and ultimately to get my Doctors Degree.

K-Anne’s Parents thought that I had some really laudable plans. They said, “You really are serious about getting your advanced degrees, Reggie.” All the while K-Anne was sitting next to me and I could see her smiling broadly out of the corner of my eye. I just thought she was so cute as she sat there smiling at me, at her Parents and at what I was telling her Parents.

While we were there she showed me around her hometown. I told her, “K-Anne, it looks a lot like my hometown, too.”

After we returned to school K-Anne told me, “Reggie, my Parents really like you. They think a lot of you. They think you are going to have a great future and I like you very much, too, Honey.”

She pulled me to her and kissed me very tenderly. Then it dawned on me she is wangling for an invitation from me to take her home to meet my Parents. I just felt like I had just been wangled into inviting her to come home with me over the Christmas break.

That night I called my Mom and told her, “Mom I have met a girl here at school and I went home with her at Thanksgiving.” Then I asked, “Mom, is it Ok if I bring her home to visit with us over Christmas? She is very pretty and very nice and I think that you and Dad will really like her when I bring her home to visit with us at Christmas.”

Mom replied, “Sure, Honey. Bring her along with you. We’ll be happy to have her here and meet her when you come home for Christmas.”

The next day I talked with K-Anne and asked her, “Would you like to come home with me over Christmas, meet my Parents and see where they live? But, I need to tell you it’s a very long drive and it takes a lot of time to get there. Before we get there you’ll be asking, ‘Are we there yet, Reggie’?”

“Yes, I would love to go with you, Reggie, but, let me call and talk to Mom tonight and see if they have anything special planned.” I felt like this was a set up, too, but, I really didn’t have any choice except to go along with it. I really didn’t want to disappoint her by deciding not to take her home with me. I could tell she had really wanted to go with me before I even asked her.

When I saw K-Anne again she told me, “I called and told Mom I was going to go home with you and spend Christmas with you and meet your Parents, Reggie. Mom told me, ‘I think that’s a good idea, Honey’.

So I’m going to make plans to go home with you over the Christmas Holidays, Reggie.” I felt like she knew it was Ok with her Parents before she even called them if she even called them at all that night.

“That’s great, K-Anne. I’m happy you are going to go home with me. I know my Parents are looking forward to seeing and meeting you, too. I’m sure you will like my Mom and Dad.

Your Parents reminded me so much of them when I met them. You’ll find that they are good, down-to-earth people just like your Mom and Dad are. I’ll call Mom and tell her you have decided to come home with me for Christmas then.”

When Christmas break arrived I picked her up at her dorm and I drove us to my hometown and to my Mom and Dad’s home. About half way home K-Anne remarked, “This is a very long drive, Reggie. I can see why you don’t make this drive home all that often.”

When we got there, Mom and Dad greeted me and then I introduced them to K-Anne. Both Mom and Dad greeted her very graciously and very warmly. They welcomed her into our home and Mom offered us some refreshments. Mom then said, “I’ll have supper ready in about an hour. K-Anne would you like to freshen up some before supper?”