Nothing was ever about him wanting to help me or see me succeed. Nothing was from the kindness of his heart or his desperate desire to prop me up so I could reach something all on my own.
It was about keeping me in debt and reminding me who was, and forever would be, on top. Because I needed him, he didn’t need me. He chose me, and how lucky was I?
Scott’s eyes find mine and he gives a slow shake of his head, but his mouth turns downward. “He didn’t say. But I would like to discuss the budget for next quarter with you, if you feel so inclined.”
My eyes roll skyward. “Scott, I’m not the one who sees fit to dip their toes out of the professionalism pool. If you need to speak to me about the budget, I’ll come find you after I’m done with Graham.”
Scott barks a laugh, and the edge of cruelty cuts across my skin. “I’m not sure you’re one to talk about who does or doesn’t see fit to dip their toes out of the professionalism pool, as you so eloquently put it.” He angles his head, all sharp lines, and in a room filled with fossils of some of the most dangerous predators that ever roamed the planet, he’s somehow still the worst one. “Did you enjoy the game last week? Quite a series for him.”
Exhaling through my mouth, my fingers clench into fists, and I feel my brow furrow, an attempt to prevent the tears, but my shoulders are still in that familiar line. Smiling blandly, I blink up at Scott. “I did enjoy the game, and it was quite a series for him. It’s almost as if he’s excellent at his job.” I wave a hand over the fossil still in need of desperate attention on the lab bench.“Like I am. Like I’m trying to be right now, so if you’ll excuse me, I have a flaking vertebral column to attend to.”
Scott scoffs, disapproval tugging tight on the lines of his neck as he shakes his head. But he lifts a brow, turns on his heel, and calls over his shoulder, “My office after Graham’s to discuss the collection and the next quarter, then, so you can keep being so good at your job.”
“Glad you got to throw your weight around,” I mutter, stretching out my fingers before I pick up the pipette and look back down at the coelacanth. They stare back up at me, frozen in time, 240 million years ago. “We’re not so different, you and me,” I whisper. “Both stuck for so long that we needed help to be able to stand up straight. Lucky for you, I won’t trap you with a narcissist for the better part of a decade while you figure it out.”
Settling back against my chair, my shoulders still set in that same curve I first saw on Miller Colson-Burke’s mouth, I get back to work.
“You wanted to see me?” I knock gently on the wood frame of the door.
“Hm?” Graham makes an absentminded noise, eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he studies his computer screen before they cut to me in his doorway. “Oh. Ren. Yes. Please come in, sit.”
He waves a hand towards the leather chair opposite him, but his eyes go back to the screen, and he keeps scrolling.
My heels clicking across the tile floor, resounding through his perfectly kept office, doesn’t distract him. Not even the scrape of the chair when I pull it out from the desk, or the creak of the leather when I fold myself down into it.
He’s lost in thought at whatever he’s reading—probably some fascinating article about the tyrannosaur being a precursor for why science and academia should remain forever male-dominated, sent to him by his wildly professional assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology.
He doesn’t look up until I prompt him.
“Graham?” I force a smile. “Scott asked to chat budget before the end of the day. Do you want me to come back?”
I’m not usually this direct, not with anyone, and certainly not with him, and certainly not since I lost out on the job. But there’s something about having sat through an entire conversation with Scott where I didn’t crumble. It’s buoyant, almost.
Graham blinks at his screen before shaking his head like he’s ridding himself of an errant thought. “Apologies. No, no. We can chat now.”
He says it like he didn’t try to summon me, and I’m the interloper on his afternoon. My brows pinch together, but I cross my legs, resting my hands against my thigh, smiling as I wait.
Clearing his throat, he frowns down at the papers and journals scattered over the surface of his desk, before asking, “How are things going? I recognize you’ve been put in a unique position, what with the role going to Scott, given your personal history. And professional history, I suppose. You two studied together, didn’t you?”
“We did. Throughout undergrad and our master’s programs,” I answer, automatic and regurgitated words, but my heart dips and I clarify, “My first program, obviously. He was doing his PhD when I completed my second in museum studies.”
“Hm,” Graham muses, another absent noise of consideration I don’t really have the energy—or the desire—to try and decode right now. “And I expect you’re both keeping things that way? Professional, I mean?”
I bite down on my cheek, because there are these other words, automatic, not regurgitated, that pop up. That, maybe, he should be checking in with his bright young mind in paleontology, who sees fit to haunt the lab and my fossils like some kind of ghost of exes’ past.
But my cheeks burn when my smile stretches faker and further. “Of course.” I swallow, frowning, when trepidation settles on that straight line of my shoulders I was so proud of. “That’s not ... you’re not ... you don’t have any concerns about my job performance now that he’s here, right?”
It would almost be funny, for Scott to come take the job I wanted and then somehow be responsible for taking the one I have, too.
“What?” Graham mutters, mouth tilted down as he rifles through the refuse on his desk until he produces a manilla folder. He blinks at me from behind his wire-rimmed glasses, and strands of flaxen hair drop down across his forehead. “Oh, no. Not at all. You do excellent work, as always.”
I wish it didn’t, but the compliment rolls up my spine, and I find myself sitting up straighter.
But then he keeps talking, and he reminds me, a bit like his new assistant curator loved to remind me, that my work might be excellent, but it’s just like me—not quite good enough.
“There was just no comparison, really. His qualifications to yours. No matter your years of experience here. Unfortunate, he applied, in the end.” Graham holds up the folder. “I wanted to speak to you about this, actually.”
He sets it back down, pushing it with three fingers over the mess of his desk like we’re trading nuclear codes.
