“You know. Studies and teaches and writes all about knights and kings and stuff.”
“So, like chivalry and shit?”
I laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, just like that.”
“He might want to practice what he preaches.” He walks around the bar toward the kitchen, slinging an apron around his waist as he goes.
“You’d be surprised.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Men were real assholes to women back then.”
Jake watches me, jaw tight and hard, before disappearing into the kitchen.
A couple hours later, he comes back out, plate in hand, sliding one arm into his coat.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking up halfway through the week’s liquor order.
“Black Forest.”
“Seriously?
“Seriously.” He looks at me, no smile at all on his face. There’s a pause during which I wonder if he’ll say screw the rules and lean over to kiss me. He might think it, but in the end, all he does is boop me on the nose. “Be back before service. Tell Frida there’s a note to get her ready.”
“All right. Everything okay?”
“All good,” he says with that easy grin. And then he’s gone.
Jake
Pretty fucking easy to find a medievalist when you want one.
This one happens to be the only professor in the university history department named Clark. And his schedule’s listed on the school’s website, which is pretty handy.
The department secretary lets me know that his office hours are over for the day, but he’ll be headed out immediately after his seminar. He’s got birthing classes, apparently.
I’m leaning against the building’s brick wall when a slew of students come out, followed, eventually, by the man himself.
“Clark.”
He pauses, turns. It takes a second, when he sees me, for his eyes to pop wide with recognition and by then, the place is deserted.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to talk to you.”
“Got nothing to say, man.”
“No? Fine. I didn’t come to listen.”
His mouth opens and shuts again and, while he’s trying to puzzle out exactly how this is gonna go, I take a step—one step—into his space and he’s cornered. A rookie move. But this guy hasn’t done a day of time in his life.
“Give me your phone,” I tell him.
“Are you kidding me? No. You’ve got to be.”
One more step and he knows just how big I am, just how little I care.
