Then I shove him. Hard. He stumbles against the stall frame, startled.
“And I wouldn’t touch your dick if my life depended on it, Professor.”
My emergency glasses come out of my bag. Neon lime green—yes, these were Skye’s idea. The worst possible choice with thisoutfit. Okay,everyoutfit. I jam them onto my face, shoulders squared, dignity maybe, possibly, intact.
We’re late for a meeting. I’m still half blind. My glasses clash like a toddler picked them out.
Wait. How am I still half blind if my glasses are on my face? Shit, I forgot to take out my other contact.
By the timeI make it into the conference room, my pulse has barely slowed. I slip into the last open chair at the long table, grateful the lime green frames don’t clashtoocatastrophically with the polished wood surface. Six professors look up from their folders and mugs of coffee as if I’ve just interrupted a sacred ritual. Because of course, my having to remove the other contact lens meant Leo arrived before I did.
I am the late one. Or, the latestone. Super.
Dr. Johnson gives me his customary nod—for such a gentle old man he sure knows when to step into his department head shoes. His nod is stern, efficient, already turning back to his notes. Dr. Patel offers a polite smile. Dr. Liu adjusts his glasses and clears his throat, always ready to redirect the conversation to whatever data set he’s been obsessing over lately.
And then there’s Dr. Wallace.
Mid-thirties. Thick-rimmed glasses. Crisp tie knotted too tightly under his sweatervest, like he wants to be takenveryseriously. His gaze flicks toward me and lingers—too long. Not lecherous, exactly, but weighted, like he’s trying to calculate me along with his equations.
I swear I had set my laptop in front of a seat on the other side of the table before heading to the bathroom to fix my contacts earlier, yet here it is, in front of the empty seat next to him. Did he move it so I would sit next to him?
Surely, not. That’d be weird.
Thenagain,heis weird. Not creepy, per se, but definitely socially awkward.
I drop my bag quietly beside the chair before taking my seat and opening my laptop to take notes. Dr. Wallace leans forward, folding his hands on the table. “Good morning, Victoria,” he says smoothly, as though I need reminding of my own name. “Rough commute?”
“No,” I answer simply, offering him a thin smile. Was that his attempt at a joke?
Leo’s chair creaks beside mine as he leans back, arms crossed. I don’t have to look at him to know his jaw is set.
Dr. Wallace chuckles like I’ve missed his joke—so, yes, there was an attempt—then launches into a five-minute “question” about the midterm schedule that is really just him showing off how thoroughly he’s thought through every possible contingency. By the time he’s finished circling the point, all he’s really said is: I’d like my exam proctored on the 17th.
I type it in without comment.
Leo shifts again, louder this time, like the chair is just as annoyed as he is.We get the point, dude. You don’t want to be here any more than we do.
When Dr. Wallace glances over at me again—whispering something about “make sure you block out extra time, I’d hate for you to feel overwhelmed”—Leo exhales through his nose in a way that’s one step short of a growl.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. Why is he acting like such a caveman?
The meeting rolls on. Syllabus adjustments. Departmental budget complaints. Everyone drones their way through the agenda. Dr. Patel mentions a student caught cheating; Dr. Liu proposes stricter proctoring protocols; Dr. Johnson agrees with a decisive thump of his hand against the table. His palm catches the side of Dr. Patel’s beloved calculator and I swear it’s about to fly off the table, but before it catapults across the room, Dr. Patelsteadies it and carefully sets it on the other side of his laptop, away from Dr. Johnson’s demonstrative affirmations.
I record everything neatly, typing deadlines, dates, and whatever else into my document. My fingers move on autopilot, but my mind keeps tugging on loose threads.
And through it all, I feel it—Leo watching me when he thinks I won’t notice, gaze steady enough to make my skin hum. Dr. Wallace’s lingering looks, pretending to skim my notes when I know he’s glanced at my boobs at least four times since I sat down.
Maybe I should take back my thoughts about him not being creepy. Because staring at my boobs is not cool.
I keep telling myself to focus—this meeting, these minutes, this list of directives—but my head won’t stay put. It drifts into questions I don’t want but can’t shake.
I never thought I’d work anywhere other than that accounting firm in Moraine. Never thought I’d be single, starting over. New city. New people. And yet here I am, smack in the middle of a university departmental meeting—hell, not even an accountant anymore—wedged between two mid-thirties, single men. Both conventionally attractive. Both at least physically attracted to me.
And instead of soaking it in, instead of maybe even enjoying it, I spiral. What do they see in me that Chase couldn’t? What was so absent in me that my husband couldn’t be bothered to notice—let alone appreciate—when I dressed up for him, when I made his favorite dinner, when I packed his bag before a business trip? What variable did I miscalculate? What part of me never balanced out?
The irony twists in my chest—because if anything, sitting here between Leo’s quiet watchfulness and Wallace’s too-obvious stares only proves what I’ve had to repeat to myself over and over since I left: I was not the problem. I’m not perfect. Every marriage is made of two imperfect people. But there was one person in ours who refused to treat the infection buried deep in their psyche, and that person was not me.
Finally, Dr. Johnson closes his folder with a sharp snap. “That’s everything for this month.”
