“Tell you what, I will end the lecture early.”
A burst of cheers echoes throughout the room.
“Ifwe get through these last two exercises with full participation. Meaning, I need all of you to tap your shoulder buddies and get them awake. You don’t spend all this money on tuition tosleep.”
She watches as several students tap the desks of others, and drowsy eyes lift and blink. A familiar pair never meets hers,and she’s thankful, she thinks. She’s been trying—and failing miserably—not to think about her actions from two nights ago.
Clearing her throat, she sets her drink back down.
“Welcome back to the land of the living. Here’s what’s happening: I’m going to give you a dataset. Your task is to calculate the first two principal components.”
Jahlani’s eyes flick to her watch after thirty minutes, and she moves back to the front of the room.
“All right, I think you’ve got the basics down. Next week, we’re going to talk about factor analysis, which is similar but focuses on underlying relationships between variables, rather than just reducing dimensionality. Please make sure you complete the practice module, as it will give you feedback on how to address any issues you encounter.”
As students trickle out, Jahlani heads back to Jackson’s office.
Two hours later, all she manages is a page of cat drawings. Jackson had already passed through, letting her know she can head out early if she wants to, but she decides to stay, not wanting to go home. She still hasn’t spoken to her mom and has other things occupying her head lately.
She needs to focus on her essay. She needs to focus on getting her degree. She tears the fresh sheet of doodles from her notebook, crumpling it before throwing it across the room.
“Jeez, what’d I do this time?” Roman’s toned arm reaches down to grab the crumpled paper, unraveling it.
Jahlani stands from the chair in record speed as her chest starts to pound.
“Roman,” she says, running a trembling hand over her head. “What are you still doing here?”
He turns the crumpled paper toward her, giving her an arched eyebrow. “Didn’t know you could draw. It’s not bad.”
She moves around the desk, snatching the paper from him, his familiar lavender scent overwhelming her before she moves back to the security of the grand desk.
“It’s nothing. Something I do when I can’t focus.” She doesn’t meet his eyes as she starts straightening papers. Checking the time on her laptop, she sees it’s well after six.
From her peripheral vision, she sees his arms cross his chest and for some ungodly reason, her body seems to have a visceral reaction to the sight. She recalls those arms gripping her waist, pulling her in?—
“You avoiding me, Jones?”
Her hands stop moving.
Absolutely.
“No, Roman. I’m not avoiding you.”
“Well, you haven’t looked at me once in the”–he looks down at his watch–“fifty-six seconds that I’ve been here,” he says, closing the door.
She scoffs. “I’m busy, and in case you forgot, we had class today and Wednesday.” She stands straight, crossing her arms over her chest. Her eyes flit to his for a moment, and her body burns thinking of the way those same eyes looked at her in his kitchen. “Happy?”
A small smile grows on his face. “Ecstatic.”
She moves again, placing her laptop in her bag.
“Okay, well. It’s late, so I’m going.”
“Can we talk?” he asks, tone low. He paces toward her, gripping the back of the chair across from her.
She shakes her head, her pulse quickening as she shoves her beat-up charger into the bag next.
“About?”
