Tenure

4. Kiernan

4

Kiernan

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumble to SJ.

“You can fuck right off with that nonsense! Spill. Are the guys hot? Please tell me they’re hot. What colour is the men’s hockey team dressing room?”

His face was burned into my brain, and it was starting to irritate me. The inky black hair, the stubbled jaw, the cheekbones you could use as a cheese grater . . . If he hadn’t been such a colossal asshole, I’d have gone as far as saying he was inhumanly good looking. But the guy had clearly been marinading in pompous dick for a decade or two. That sneer could make small children cry.

It almost made me cry.

Fuck, he was something. Just standing in his space was like being on one of those Gravitron rides at the fair. Felt like you were being sucked up off the ground and casually tossed against a padded wall. Guts? Missing. Survival? Not guaranteed.

“You met someone, Kier. I can tell.”

I sigh. “I got in an . . . argument with someone.”

She rolls her eyes and flops down on the bed. “You called the professor an idiot, didn’t you?”

“No!” I shout. “Well, not directly.”

“Goddamn, Kier, not even university professors are up to your standard?”

I chew my bottom lip, and she sits up, eyes narrowed.

“He’s hot, isn’t he?”

I shrug.

“Oh!” she squeals. “He’s super hot then! Okay what’s his name?”

I cross my arms, and she rolls her eyes again, snatching my class list from my desk and starts typing frantically on her phone. I know when she’s found a picture because her mouth drops open, and she stares at me.

“ This? You got in a fight with this?” She shoves her phone in my face, zoomed in tight on his faculty photo from the school site. She stares down at her phone again. “Holy shit. How many freshmen do you think he bangs a day? Five? Ten?”

I scowl. “None. Trust me, he’s not doing freshmen.”

SJ laughs. “There is literally zero percent chance that he does not have a naked freshman on his lap right now.”

“Naked woman, sure. But . . .” I pause and suck on my lip again. I’m not sure why, but I just very much got the impression that he has absolutely no patience for anyone my age. Not as students, or as. . . Girlfriends? Lovers?

My cheeks flush and SJ cackles, screenshotting his face. “For later,” she says with a wink.

The rest of the week goes by like normal. High school classes, work after school, dinner at SJ’s as much as I can. Home feels empty without my parents even though they call every day. I sleep at SJ’s a lot. Mom wanted me to transfer, go finish my final year there, but I didn’t really want to leave. Not right at the end.

I catch myself thinking about him all weekend. The stupid professor. Except that he’s not stupid. The farther down the rabbit hole I go, the more impressive he is. I know some of the people he’s published with, or have heard of them anyway. Names my parents talk about a lot. Names my dad says the way other men talk about football athletes.

My cheeks get hot from irritation at myself for not being able to stop looking at his smug fucking face. Why God thought it was a good idea to make someone that handsome that smart is beyond me.

He should have been a himbo. Make it fair to the rest of the species.

By the time Monday morning rolls around, my stomach is churning with anxiety. I check and re-check my work nine hundred times, and read several more chapters ahead, just in case he singles me out. Just in case he calls on me, tries to humiliate me, or worse.

I’m sitting over to the side in a middle row when Graham appears with an easy smile, slipping into the seat next to mine.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” he says.

“I’m not afraid of dicks.”

His eyes twinkle and I flush.

“I was more concerned he’d chop you up and bury you. You know he was in a bad mood all day after that?”

I cock an eyebrow at him. “How would you know?”

“I have another class with him in the afternoons.”

I guess God sent all the smart pretty people to the same fucking school.

I open my mouth to say something, but the room is rendered silent by The Professor —ugh, I scowl at the idea of having to call him that—storming in, shrugging off a black peacoat and striding straight to the chalkboard.

“Matrix inverses and determinants,” he says, his voice booming despite the relatively small lecture hall.

No introduction. No hello. No warmup, no joke, no turn to page sixty-two. Just chalk, and him, and . . . why am I staring at his ass?

He’s wearing snug jeans and a casual crewneck sweater, his hair a little too long and catching on the collar in the back as he frantically writes an equation across the board.

He turns around and glares at the room, his eyes taking us all in, before he sees me and pauses. I tense, ready for him to call me out, but his expression remains neutral, and they shift away. He keeps talking.

I exhale, long and slow.

An hour in, I’ve relaxed a little. He seems to have chosen to pretend I don’t exist which suits me fine; my muscles unclench as I lean back in my seat, close my eyes, and listen. Without the obvious disdain, without the angry, irritable expressions and near-constant eye rolling at student questions, I can hear it in his voice—the love he has for his work. It slips into his tone, his words rushing together when he explains a particularly complex idea, like his heart rate is accelerating and he’s getting excited.

I wonder what else gets him excited.

My eyes pop open and I shift uncomfortably. Where the fuck did that come from?

Right on cue, my phone vibrates. It’s SJ.

On a scale of 1-10 how nice is his ass? There are no pictures of him from behind ANYWHERE on this website. They need to hire a new IT guy.

I chuckle under my breath to myself and sense him pause. I glance up and my cheeks flush; he’s looking at me, even though there’s no way he could have heard me.

“Time for a break,” he says to the class without looking away.

I feel Graham glancing between us with interest, but I ignore them both, letting my hair fall in front of my face again, stifling a yawn.

“You want to try for that coffee again?” Graham asks.

I don’t look, but for some reason I feel like The Professor (ugh) is still watching me.

I square my shoulders, look up at Graham, and smile. “Sure,” I say loudly. “I need something to help keep me awake.”