"Same time next week?" Alistair said.
"It's a public lecture," Tav said.
"Yes." He gathered his notebook and his coffee cup and his coat. The unhurried step of someone leaving a space they are comfortable in. "So anyone could attend."
He left.
Tav sat in the lecture room for approximately thirty seconds after Alistair had gone. He studied the whiteboard where the load distribution equations remained.
Then he fixed on the seat where Alistair had been sitting.
He thought about the small figure in the corner of the page.
He thought: I have been looking at this person every day for three weeks and I have arrived at a conclusion I was not asked to arrive at, and the conclusion is that the thing I feel when I sit three feet away from him is not professional attention and has not been for at least a week and possibly longer.
He thought: this is the liability I anticipated.
He thought: it is significantly larger than I estimated.
He gathered his things.
He left through the west exit and walked back to the apartment in the changing autumn light of a Tuesday afternoon, and thought about load distribution, and about how structures managed weight that was distributed unevenly, and whether there was a load path that worked.
He did not arrive at a comfortable conclusion.
He arrived at the apartment to find Alistair already there, making coffee in the kitchen with the easy ownership like he had been using this kitchen for years.
"I made enough for two," Alistair said.
"Thank you," Tav said.
He accepted the coffee.
He sat on the barstool.
He thought: the load is distributed unevenly and the structure is managing it, and the management is going to cost something.
"Good lecture," Alistair said.
"Yes," Tav said.
They drank their coffee.
The afternoon light moved through the windows.
• • •
CHAPTER SIX
The buzzing came again.
Once. Twice. The muffled, insistent pulse of a device trying to be noticed.
Both of them stood without moving, the moment still stretched between them, and then Tav said: "You hid a phone under your bed." "You're in my bedroom uninvited."
"Deflection."
"Accurate deflection."
