A university that probably teaches entire courses on fiscal responsibility, bleeding everyone dry with parking fines… then paying a guy to stand here all day and make sure no one dares to park for free.
Higher education is a fucking joke.
I swing a leg off my bike and walk towards the Physics building without breaking eye contact with the guy. He silently watches me, his hand hovering near the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt like it’s a badge of honour. But he doesn’t move to grab it.
When I get close enough, I give him a nod.
“Good boy.”
He quickly looks away from me with a nervous twitch, then heads in the opposite direction.
I approach the door to the Physics building at the same time as two students, and one of the girls freezes as I pull the door open for them and step aside.
“Ladies.” I nod at them.
The other one drops her gaze, slowly dragging it back up my body as she inhales slowly like she’s trying to steady herself. “Uh… thanks,” she says quietly, her hand brushing her friend’s arm as she guides her inside.
But she looks back before she’s fully through the door, her gaze sharpening with intent as a playful smile tugs at her lips.
Sorry, sweetheart. I’m here for something that’s already taken up every inch of me.
I smile at her as I move past them in the hallway, heading towards the faculty offices to find my doc.
But the main hallway looks quite different today. It’s lined with oversized posters pinned to portable boards, each guarded by an anxious-looking student. Clusters of people drift between them with arms folded behind their backs like they’re touring a museum, murmuring to each other as they peer down their noses at the displays.
I stop beside the first one and look down at the skinny, pale kid with large glasses sliding down his nose. He looks like he’s been drafted to show off his poster at gunpoint.
“What’s this?” I ask, motioning vaguely at the hallway.
“A… student conference,” he says, barely loud enough for me to hear him over the murmur of conversation around us.
I slide my gaze to his poster and nod at it. “And what’s your claim to fame?”
His eyes widen, then he turns to the board. “Uh…Field-Induced Dissociation in Weakly Bound Molecular Systems.I’mlooking at how composite particles separate under variable potential gradients and tracking the decay rates in?—”
“Never mind,” I say, and turn to continue my way down the hall.
As I weave through the crowd, I spot a stream of people heading into one of the classrooms. I follow them in and scan the rows of seats from the back of the room until I see him.
Cade sits in the front row with several other professors I recognize from my last visit to his office. He’s slouched in his seat, looking bored as fuck, twirling a pen between his fingers while some kid fumbles to set up a PowerPoint at the front of the room.
I slip into a seat in the back row where I’ve got a clear line of sight, and watch him.
The guy sitting next to him leans in to say something, his mouth curled in a conspiratorial grin. Cade just glances at him with a flat, unimpressed expression, like whatever joke he told him didn’t even earn the energy of an eye-roll.
This man just becomes more perfect by the fucking second.
“Is this seat taken?” a voice asks from my left.
“Yes.” I don’t look away from Cade as I lift my arm and drape it over the seatback.
“Ok!” A perky-as-fuck voice cuts through the low hum of the room.
I tear my gaze from Cade to see a pretty blonde woman at the front with her hands clasped in front of her and a massive smile spread across her face.
“I hope everyone had a good lunch, and thanks for joining us this afternoon for our graduate student presentations.”
She continues to yap away as she introduces the student waiting to present, and I let my eyes find Cade again.
