“He was shocked and hungover on the first day of class. He could barely believe you were his professor. And as far as I know, he hasn’t shown anyone else. And I genuinely don’t think he will.”
“That’s nice to know. Thanks.” And then, just to make small talk, I asked, “You working Friday?”
“And Saturday, and Sunday,” he said with a hint of a groan. He scratched at his short-cut beard. “If you want another free drink, stop by.”
I thought about that while walking to my next class. The way this week had gone, I was already looking forward to my end-of-the-week cocktail.
Those Tinder messages were still on my mind. I wasn’t concerned that Jace would reveal them to anyone, like Brock assumed. I just didn’t like knowing they were out there at all. And I wouldn’t be able to properly enjoy my texts with Jace until that was taken care of.
I was able to focus on my next class, and there were a lot of good questions and discussions about the subject matter. But when class ended, and Camden Keene grinned at me on the way out, an idea came to me.
“Hey, question for you,” I called after him.
He frowned like something was wrong. “I, uh, swear I haven’t done anything illegal on the faculty Wi-Fi.”
“I’m sure you haven’t. I have a computer-related question. Let’s say I have a Tinder conversation with another person. If I delete our conversation from my phone, it still exists out there in the cloud or whatever, right?”
He immediately nodded. “I don’t know what their data retention policy is like, but it would be stored somewhere on their servers. And on the other person’s phone.”
“Is it possible to delete it? Remotely?”
Cam flashed an excited smile. “Are you asking me to hack into Tinder’s servers?”
“You’re right,” I quickly said. “I was just curious, but I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Hey, I didn’t say no,” he replied. “I need some more info. My next class isn’t until after lunch.”
“I’ve got office hours now, so let’s go to my office,” I said.
We left the building and walked across the campus lawn to the primary Criminology building. Cam was humming a song that sounded familiar.
“Is that… Dancing Through Life? FromWicked?”I asked.
“Uh…”
“It is! I’ve been trying to figure it out since we walked outside.”
Cam seemed flustered. “No. Yes. Whatever. I’m not embarrassed about it. I like musicals. They calm me down when I’m stressed.”
“You’re stressed right now?”
“Maybe. It depends on how difficult Tinder’s enterprise security system is to break into.”
When we got to my office, I closed the door. Cam plopped down into the guest chair and opened his laptop, turning itsideways so I could see. There was already a web browser open to the school athletics page. It was the profile for one of the basketball players, Joshua Davenport.
“What’s that about?” I asked. “Got a crush on an athlete?”
“God, no. It’s nothing. And I’m straight.” Before I could interrogate him more, he opened a new browser. “Login for me here?”
I reached for the laptop, then hesitated.
“You can trust me,” he said. “You know that I have access to the faculty Wi-Fi, and haven’t ratted me out. I’m not going to mess with you. If anything, I owe you one.”
He made a good point, so I logged into my Tinder account. “It’s this message here. With Jace Strickland.”
“I figured it was about him.” He smirked and took the laptop from me. “Anything in here you don’t want me to see?”
“Nothing scandalous. A photo or two. Don’t go snooping, though.”
