The world slows to a still and silent abyss. Stagnant air presses in from all sides, and though I gasp, I still struggle for oxygen. My heart races as the blackness fades and the scene in front of me takes shape.
I’m dressed again and clean. I’m grateful for that at least.
At first, the setting doesn’t make sense. A cavernous room with elevated rows of curved seating behind rows of curved tables. Desks. Tall ceilings. Beige carpet and cream walls.
A lecture hall? Not very scary unless you haven’t done the homework.
A deep breath calms my nerves. Another relaxes my shoulders. I scan the place.
It’s empty. I’m alone at what I think is my alma mater. Bogey is nowhere to be found, but his lurking presence is a heavy weight on my chest. He could show himself at any moment.
This room looks like every lecture hall I’ve ever been in. I can’t place it off the top of my head. What class did I take here?
On the projection screen at the front are scribbled equations. Calculus. Math 231. Sophomore year. I sat in the back with…
Suddenly, I know who’ll be teaching my next lesson.
“Max,” a familiar voice calls from the double metal doors at the top of the stairs.
I whirl to face him. “Tristan.”
He takes the stairs slowly, one at a time, hips swaying with every step, to where I stand at the bottom. “Want to copy my answers? It’ll be just like old times.” He cocks a grin. It doesn’t look evil. Yet.
Tristan was better at math than me. A biology major with med school on the horizon. He was going to be a doctor, a surgeon if I remember correctly.
I was a business major, and calculus was our only overlapping class. I flirted with him so he’d let me copy his homework, let me cheat off his tests. But we hit it off pretty well after that. Even dated for a few months.
When we split, he’d been upset, but I’d let him down gently. So what’s his beef with me? I didn’t wrong Tristan the way I’d wronged Caleb. Things didn’t work out between us, but that’s normal. That happens more often than it doesn’t.
He stops one step higher. I meet his glare head on. Nut-brown irises to match his nut-brown hair, shorter than I remember, five-o’clock shadow darkening his jawline, lips pressed to a thin line. Still as handsome as ever.
I guess he’s waiting for me to speak first. “What are you doing here, Tristan?”
Neatly shaped brows arch to twin crescents. “You can’t guess?”
I rest my hands on my hips. “Gonna teach me a lesson? Don’t cheat to get ahead? News flash. It doesn’t matter anymore. I dropped out and got a job. Turns out I don’t need calculus after all.”
Tristan shakes his head and chuckles. “Still clueless, then. Good.” His eyes sparkle with mischief. “It’ll make what you’ve got coming more fun for me.”
His attitude is so much different. More confident, less malleable. That’s fine. I’m not worried about Tristan. It’s not like all five-foot-seven inches of him is a threat to me.
“Shall we sit?” He gestures to the desks at the front. Not where we’d sat in class. We preferred the nosebleed section back then.
“I don’t see why not.” I scoot in, my big frame oversized for these neatly spaced rows, but it’s fine. I make do, squeeze into a hard metal chair, and face the whiteboard.
Tristan slides in next to me, the perfect size to be comfortable in this uncomfortable space. He would be, though. Comfortable in this setting, that is. He spent a lot more time in school than I did if he did, in fact, become a doctor. Curiosity loosens my tongue.
“What are you doing these days?” I ask as if it’s ordinary to be whisked from one place to another and confronted with figments from my past. Not that I’m getting used to this, only, well, what else am I supposed to do? I’d consented to these lessons, might as well get them over with.
“I’m a general practitioner in Miami.” His appraising gaze travels up the muscles of my arm, across my chest, to my neck, lips—lingers—and finally reaches my eyes. So it’s likethat. I can handle that. “You?”
I take him in as well and just as slowly as he did me, imagining a stethoscope around the enticing column of his throat. He looks like the sort of doctor you’d find on a daytime soap opera, with his diamond-cut jawline, those prominent cheekbones, and thick, perfectly shaped eyebrows. He must get them done. Not one single hair falls out of place. Perfectly tame, just like the man I remember.
“Lead personal trainer at a Realm Physical up near Boston.” I wish I owned my own gym, and I briefly consider lying. It’s not like I’ll ever see Tristan again. But Bogey might be listening.
Nodding, he clasps his hands on the desk in front of him. Nice hands. Long fingers. Nails as perfectly manicured as his brows. “Yeah, I can see you doing well as a trainer. You always did like to order me around. You like the job?”
“I do.” I’ll like it more when it’s scalable, but it’s a good fit for now. My stomach grows jittery. Whatever’s going to happen, I want to get on with it. “But we’re not here to talk about work.”
