Tingles bloom sharp and electric.
I swallow back the saliva pooling in my mouth as I remind myself that I have a path, one that gets clearer every day, and it does not include an athlete, pro or otherwise. And a man doesn’t get to sidetrack me, not when I am on the homestretch of completing my educational goals.
The occasional hook up, sure it’s healthy, but I don’t go seeking it. Besides, that last one… it’s going to take a very long time to let those memories fade. Athlete be damned, the stamina the last man I was with, the one from the lecture, was poetic in a way a pro could never be.
I didn’t belong there, but Palmer had secured me a student seat for the International Symposium on Cultural Heritage and Digital Stewardship, and I wasn’t about to waste it.
The speaker was brilliant. Dry. European. Talking about private estates and the ethics of access, about families who’d inherited centuries of letters and land and expectation, and the responsibility to preserve them without hoarding them from the world.
I was scribbling notes furiously when he leaned forward from the row behind me.
“Your handwriting,” he murmured, low and accented, “is… efficient.”
I startled just enough to smear ink across the page. When I turned, I expected some older donor or professor.
Instead, I found him. Brown hair neatly trimmed and styled. Glasses most guys wear to look smart because they aren’t. Jaw square and strong, clean-shaven perfection. Hissuit was dark and understated, tie loose. He didn’t look like someone trying to impress the room. He looked like he owned space like this without effort.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, almost amused. “I did not mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t,” I lied.
His lips tipped in a smirk. “You disagree with the speaker.”
I blinked. “I just think heritage without access is just another form of control.”
He studied me for a second, eyes sharp behind his glasses. Interested, not dismissive.
“Ah,” he said. “You’re dangerous.”
I laughed under my breath. “I’m a PhD student.”
“Same thing.”
We talked after. In the lobby. Then, over wine at the donor dinner, I somehow ended up seated at the far end with other students and assistants. He sat beside me like it was a coincidence, leaning close when he spoke, voice low and precise, words chosen carefully.
He told me about estates in Germany, about expectations passed like heirlooms, about preserving history that sometimes felt heavier than living it. He asked about my research like it mattered. Like I mattered.
No one ever looked at me like that back home. Not curious. Not impressed. Not like my brain was something worth wanting.
By the time we left the restaurant, the city felt softer. Quieter.
I remember thinking he was the kind of man women wrote novels about. The kind you meet once, the kind who lives in a different stratosphere entirely. A fantasy. A scholar. A benefactor. Someone polished and worldly and far, far out of reach.
Men like him didn’t choose girls like me.
Which is probably why, when he asked if I wanted one more drink somewhere quieter, I followed him.
I didn’t ask for his number, hell, I don’t think I asked for a name. I didn’t need to. Some nights aren’t meant to be anything but a fantasy.
“You good, red?” Paul Bronski asks, snapping me back to the here and now.
I smile at him, “I am.”
He chuckles, and I glance out of the corner of my eye at him and see him smirking.
“I, um… have to use the bathroom.”
The memory leaves me breathless in the worst way. Like my brain pulled something fragile out of storage without warning, and now my chest doesn’t know where to put it. I grip the edge of the sink and stare at my reflection, cheeks warm, pulse uneven.
