Dr. Johnson’s room is a tiny shoebox of polyester and lecture chairs with fold-down desks. His grad student looks hung over and desperately in need of sleep, and is halfway out the door before I even finish saying, “I’ve got this.”
The students file in—hoodies up, earbuds tucked away, faces set like they’re heading into battle… most of them unarmed. I stand at the front, drop the stack of exams on the desk, and start passing them out myself because otherwise they’ll end up crumpled and coffee-stained before the first page is even read. Once everyone has a packet, I lay down the rules in my dry, non-negotiable voice, then settle at the little wooden desk in the corner like an executioner waiting for heads to roll.
I plant the proctor stare—the one that says ‘I can spot a hiddenphone from orbit and I will end you with a whisper.’ It works. Mostly. Maybe. Probably not.
It’s a strange kind of silence, the hush that settles once twenty-something undergrads have an exam in front of them. Not reverent silence, not focused silence—more like the quiet hum of collective dread. Papers rustle, pencils scratch, someone clicks a mechanical one like it’s a fidget spinner.Good lord that clicking is annoying.
The kid in the front row chews on the end of his hoodie string.Gross.Another keeps tapping her sneaker against the tile like Morse code. I wonder if she’s communicating anything. Like she’s an undercover spy, sent to Middle Peak University by some black ops organization to communicate secret messages to Russia through Dr. Johnson’s Linear Algebra II finals.
I huff a laugh at the absurdity of my thoughts, trying my best not to draw attention to myself. I cross my legs and pretend to check my phone, but really, I’m people-watching. Exams bring out the weirdest survival instincts. One girl has three sharpened pencils lined up like weapons. A guy in the back pulled out a bag of baby carrots, crunching away with his mouth open—again, gross—not a care in the world for the noise he’s making. I half expect someone to start stress-knitting.
But no matter how interesting a distraction these students prove to be—despite the very reason I came in here in the first place—my brain drifts straight back to Leo.
Leo, with his smug growl in the copy room.
Leo, with his mouth so close to my ear I nearly lost my balance.
Leo, with his cocky, ridiculous, infuriating math puns that shouldn’t make me laugh but do, and his body heat pressed against mine until I couldn’t tell if I wanted to strangle him or climb him like a freaking tree.
I snap my attention back to the exam room.Jesus, Tori. Focus.You’re here because you needed space. You volunteered to proctor this exam so you wouldn’t be trapped in the office withhim. So you wouldn’t risk finding another excuse to knock staplers with that numbers wrangler in the copy room.
Knock staplers? Numbers wrangler?What the hell is wrong with me? My brain is writing cowboy fanfic while my body’s supposed to be a hall monitor. Fire me. Someone fire me.
One student raises his hand. “Can we use graphing calculators?”
I point to the exam packet. “Rule three. It’s right there, in bold.”
He glances down, sheepish, then nods. They always ask questions they could answer themselves if they just looked. Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe it’s the belief that exceptions are always negotiable. Either way, it’s irritating.
I settle back into my chair, cross my arms, and stare at the clock. Only ten minutes down. Nearly two hours to go.
Super. Love this for me.
My mind drifts again, this time to the trail, the boulder, to Leo’s mouth curving into a smile and sayingThis is more than fucking okayright before he kissed me back. I can still feel the pressure of his hands on my hips, the way his voice went soft when he told me he wasn’t expecting more but was damn glad I kissed him.
A pencil snaps in the front row, and I jolt. The kid mutters a curse and digs around in his bag for a backup. I fish a spare from the desk I’ve occupied, stand, and walk it over. His hand shakes when he takes it.
I remember being nineteen and convinced one broken pencil could ruin my whole life.
“You’re fine,” I add, softer than I mean to be. He is. Maybe I am, too. He takes it with wide eyes, like I just handed him the holy grail.
“You’ll survive,” I mutter, returning to my seat.
He might, but the truth is, I’m not sure I will.
Not if Leo keeps this up. Not if I keep letting him under my skin. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t back down. He doesn’t dothe dance of pretending nothing happened, the way I keep trying to. And dammit, part of me respects that. Wants that.
Which is exactly why I’m sitting here in this classroom instead of back in the pod where I belong. Because if I’d stayed, I know myself well enough to know—I would have found my way back into that copy room, and I would have kissed him… again.
And this time, I don’t think I would’ve stopped.
When the lastexam thuds onto the front desk and the room empties in a stampede of relief, I stack the packets with the care of a jeweler.
Order is a spell I know how to cast. Yet today it barely holds.
Exams complete and submitted to the lockbox at the center of the building, at about eleven I duck into the women’s bathroom to relieve myself and freshen up. I wash my hands and then stare at myself in the mirror, taking a moment to give myself a mental pep talk before heading back to my desk.
The mirror shows a woman with flushed cheeks and a blouse that did not seem too low cut when I put it on this morning, but now I’m questioning my wardrobe choices. Twisting the faucet cold, I press wet fingers to the nape of my neck until the heat steps back.
