The professor was standing at the front of the room, a few feet from the door, but his mouth dropped open when he spotted Sila.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Sila said, bowing low before he straightened. “There was a family emergency.” He waited to see if Bay would call him on the lie, a bit disappointed when the other man continued to stare at him wordlessly. “Um, Professor?”
Bay blinked and seemed to get a hold of himself, clearing his throat and straightening his spine. “I believe you’re mistaken. I’ve already gone through roll call and everyone is here.”
“I transferred in this morning,” Sila explained. “They probably haven’t added my name yet.” They hadn’t because that wasn’t done until the end of the day.
He almost grinned when a look of shock and dread flashed over the professor’s face before he could help it. That was already more emotion than the professor was known for showing in public.
“Right.” Bay pressed against the center of his glasses and then motioned to the desks. “Well then, since it’s the first class I’ll let this slide, this once, Mr….?”
If they’d been alone, he would have snorted. A week ago the guy had been moaning his name on the filthy floor of the Seaside Cinema and now he was acting like he didn’t know it?
Cute.
“Sila Varun, Professor.” He rushed forward and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Yes,” Bay cleared his throat a second time, hesitating before taking his hand and giving it a delicate shake before pulling away. He motioned to an empty seat in the back once more. “Take a seat, Mr. Varun. I was in the middle of going over the syllabus.”
He flashed one last smile before he followed instruction, settling down at the single empty desk. Once he was situated he glanced back up to find Bay was still watching him.
The second their eyes met, the professor looked away and began talking about the class requirements, doing his best to pretend like he didn’t know who Sila was and he hadn’t just been caught off guard by his presence.
Oh yes. This was going to be so much fun, Sila could practically taste it.
Chapter 2:
Racing had always been a secret hobby for Bay. Before, it’d been because his grandmother would have forced him to stop if she’d ever learned her one and only grandchild was out “risking his neck on a death machine”. When she’d passed however, it’d needed to be a secret for different reasons.
He’d only been teaching at Vail University for two years now, going on his third, and he’d developed a reputation for being an upstanding member of the staff. If the school ever discovered he was an illegal street racer? He’d be fired without a second thought, and then what? All he had were the names he was known by. If people stopped calling him professor…
Identity had always been a thing Bay struggled with. When he’d been a child growing up at the orphanage, that had been for obvious reasons. He’d been dropped off as a baby with no notes or indicators of who his parents might have been or why they were giving him up. Later, once he’d finally been adopted at the age of ten and given a name all his own, identity had still been an issue.
It’d surprised him at first, made him feel terribly ungrateful to the woman who’d been kind enough to take him in, but he’d been too young to make anything of the foreign name Bay Delmar and for years he’d struggled with wondering if he deserved it or not.
That was also why, even though he didn’t like it, Bay clung to the professor title. To honor the woman who’d raised him. Since he could no longer feel sadness for her, it was the least he could do. Literally.
Idle Delmar had been the well-off owner of a three-bedroom home on the outskirts of the city when she’d woken up one day and randomly decided she no longer wanted to spend her life alone. She’d adopted Bay that same day and he’d gone from sharing a room with twelve other kids to having one all to himself. She was already considered past her prime, unable to run around the yard with him, but he hadn’t cared about that.
While he’d never been mistreated, his life at the orphanage had been repetitious to the point he’d begun to wonder if there was even a purpose to living at all. Dark thoughts for a ten-year-old to have, and he’d often wondered how far down the rabbit hole they might have taken him if he hadn’t been selected by Idle and given the gift of a second chance.
She may have been old, but that’d only meant she’d been worldly. As a well-educated member of society, a retired professor no less, she’d had so many stories and facts to teach him. He’d been enthralled with every word that came out of her mouth, from tales of her travels on and off planet, to descriptions of the various creatures she’d seen. Through her, Bay had learned how vast the universe really was.
She’d taught him that life was greater than the four gray walls of the orphanage, too great to waste living boxed in by routine and monotony. He’d kept that lesson close to heart for the next twelve years he’d spent with her.
Everything had changed after she’d left him.
For as long as his grandmother lived, she’d made sure he was taken care of. That was why he’d agreed to study psychology when she’d asked and why he’d worked so hard at Vail University when he’d been a student there.
She’d never gotten to see him accept his diploma.
Her death had been sudden, catching him completely off guard, but that hadn’t even been the half of it. He’d found out the day of the funeral that sometime before she’d died, she’d lost their house. When he’d checked her account with the bank, it was to find that was empty as well.
The amazing, intelligent woman he’d grown to respect and love had allegedly gambled away all of her assets at the end of her life.
Bay had refused to believe it when he’d first been told. Refused to accept the police report when he’d filed with them claiming it was impossible. The house she’d cherished wasn’t something she would have carelessly gambled away and yet all the evidence the Vitality police collected said otherwise.
It’d gotten worse from there. The autopsy showed that her cause of death had been heart failure and suddenly the police were speculating that she’d died from shame. Shock over losing her house and all of her money gambling at the Shepard’s popup card stalls had supposedly driven her over the edge and killed her. Her heart couldn’t take it, they’d said.
