My man is wearing a cable-knit sweater. AndI want nothing more than to bend him over a desk in that and nothing else, andfuckhim.
But also… something seems off.
While he’s usually a cranky fucker, and I fucking love that about him, there seems to be a different kind of darkness hanging over him today. His hair is messier, like he’s run his hands through it one too many times, and his scruff is longer than usual. He looks exhausted and completely uninterested in anything happening in this room, more than any other time I’ve watched him.
He looks hollow, and almost… sad.
His fingers brush the side of his coffee cup on the table as he slowly twirls his pen in his hand while he listens to the presentation, and I wonder what he has in there today.
The student at the front finally wraps up, and a slide appears on the large screen withQuestions?in bold letters.
For fuck’s sake, this isn’t over yet?
Several hands lift into the air across the room, and I roll my eyes with a sigh, which earns me a glare from a girl a couple seats down. I cock an eyebrow at her, and when her gaze drops to my cut, she quickly turns away and starts whispering to her friend.
A guy in the middle row clears his throat when called on to ask his question. “Did you account for vibrational mode coupling when you analyzed the dissociation pathways?”
The student brightens, like she’s been waiting her whole life for that question, and flips back a few slides in her PowerPoint. “Yes, I did consider that when isolating frequency dependencies…”
Oh my fucking god.
And Cade looks just as annoyed as I feel. He reaches for his cup and downs what’s left in one long gulp, like maybewhatever’s in there might stop him from stabbing himself with his own pen.
Finally, question period ends, and another student takes the front. I drag a hand down my face, wondering how many more of these I’m going to have to sit through before I can bury my cock in my professor’s ass.
But then the next PowerPoint appears on the screen, and my interest piques.
Thermodynamic Implications of Ancilla–System Interactions in Stochastic Quantum Measurements
Spencer Holwell, Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Dr. Cade Cormier
“Hi, everyone.” Spencer smiles around the room, and I huff a quiet laugh to myself.
He’s the complete opposite of his supervisor, looking like he’s right where he wants to be, and loving every second of this before it even begins.
“Thanks for coming. I’m Spencer Holwell, Ph.D. candidate under Dr. Cormier, and today I’ll be talking aboutthermodynamic implications of ancilla–system interactions in stochastic quantum measurements.”
He dives right in, talking about things like back-actions, interaction Hamiltonians, and measurement costs as if they’re part of casual small talk. But I’m not watching Spencer. I’m watching Cade as something interesting happens.
It’s subtle, but something in him seems to spark to life as he listens to his student, the change barely there but impossible for me to miss. He sits up a bit straighter, and he brightens just enough that only someone watching for it would notice. To anyone else, I’m sure he still looks like a disinterested asshole,but I see the way his focus sharpens, how his head tilts slightly when Spencer says something that makes him think, the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth when a point lands the way he likes, and those small, approving nods he probably doesn’t even realize he’s giving. It’s the quiet shift of a man locked onto something he cares about, and for a moment, I almost understand why people sit through this kind of thing willingly.
Almost.
Suddenly, I feel eyes on me, and I slide my gaze a couple seats down from Cade, where the perky blonde from earlier is watching me with an uneasy look on her face.
I remember her quite fondly from the first day I came here looking for Cade. She was all attitude and gatekeeping until her coworkers folded. But she had fight in her even though she was clearly scared shitless.
She leans over and taps Cade’s arm, trying to get his attention. But he just shoots her a look and shrugs her off.
God, I love him.
But she persists, murmuring something to him, and he stills. Then his gaze slides over his shoulder and finds mine.
Hey, baby.
He holds my gaze for a moment, then turns back to Spencer like I’m not even here. He’s fucking perfect.
