Chapter One
Then … Spring 1974
Deborah
“Thishasto be a mistake,” I mumbled to myself as I stared at the paper in front of me. Written in blue ink was the name Robert Townsend. My new, semester-long partner for this World Mythologies elective I’d decided to take my final semester.This isn’t going to work.
My left hand shot into the air. “Excuse me, Professor James,” I called, my voice reaching the professor’s ear as he moved to the front of the large lecture hall.
“Yes, Ms …” He paused as he peered down at this clipboard running his index finger down the row of seats he’d meticulously assigned us to.
Seriously, what type of professor gave his students assigned seats? In a class of over a hundred students no less?
“Ms. Tate, how can I help you?”
“There has to be some sort of mistake. I think I received the wrong partner assignment.”
His bushy, greying eyebrows scrunched together and brown eyes narrowed behind the thick-rimmed glasses he wore. He lowered his head to look down at the clipboard again, this time flipping the page.
“Let’s see … it says here you’re partnered with Mr. Robert Townsend, is that correct?” He raised his stare to me.
“Yes, but—”
“Then it’s correct.”
“Right, but I’m sure there’s been a mix up. Is it possible to be reassigned?” I briefly caught a few students looking back at me, likely wondering what the big deal was.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Tate,” Professor James responded in a voice that made it clear he wasn’t actually sorry. “Partner assignments are final. Now …” he began to continue on with the rest of the lecture.
I slammed my back against the wooden, foldable chair, tossing the paper on the wraparound desk in front of me. This was ridiculous. I waited years to take this elective. For four years I’d pushed myself to power through my grueling course load including trigonometry, applied mathematics, and statistics courses to get my degree in mathematics. I’d opted to take the World Mythologies class in my last semester, thinking it’d be a breeze in my final semester here at Stanford, and yet—
“Don’t fret, princess. I don’t bite … well, only on the rare occasion.”
I stiffened, my eyes moving before I slowly pivoted my neck to the right, twisting around to find myself staring into the dark brown eyes of none other than Robert Townsend. In typical fashion, his lips were parted, half smirking, but his eyes were dark, contradicting the smirk. Those freckles that lined his upper cheeks prominent as he grinned.
I narrowed my gaze but didn’t respond to his words. Silently, he stared at me for another second before I turned to face the professor who was lecturing about some Greek god I’d probably heard of already.
Just great.
“We need to discuss this project,” I stated, impatiently, as students hurriedly exited the lecture hall. I’d stopped Robert just outside of the door, needing to get this over with. This might be a low level class, taken by mostly freshman and sophomores, but I wasn’t going to let it mess up my nearly 4.0 GPA.
“What’s there to discuss, princess?” he asked, a dark eyebrow raised.
I huffed, hating that stupid moniker he’d used with me ever since our first encounter freshman year. I rolled my eyes at that particular memory.
“My name’s Deborah. D-e-b-o-r-a-h. Got it?”
Another smirk. “I think so.”
“Freakin’ trust fund babies …”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Listen, you might have been okay with skating your way through these last four years and—”
“Is that what I’ve done?” He folded his arms across his chest, voice deepening.
Shaking off the silly shiver that moved down my spine, I straightened my back, lifted my chin, and looked up … and up, until my eyes caught his. He stood tall, towering over my five-foot-six frame by at least eight inches. I opted not to stare directly into his eyes for too long, for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on, at that moment.
