“Me too,” I said, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, it sounded an octave lower. I coughed. “I mean, I didn’t—what are you doing here?”
He ducked his head, almost like he was shy. “I don’t rightly know,” he admitted. “Steph
en, the prior director, is a friend of mine. But his firm recently took on a big case and needed all hands on deck to defend a client in a trial this fall. He didn’t have the time for that and working here, so he had to let it go. I’d told him a while back that I wanted to do something different this summer, get out of the classroom for a bit, and he called me and asked if I could take his place until they found someone more permanent.” He smiled and shook his head. “I’d had a couple of glasses of wine when he called and didn’t think things through very well.” His smile softened. “Okay, maybe more than a couple.”
He agreed to do something charitable while drunk. He was a perfect human man. I hated everything about him. And since I was distracted by my hatred, I said, “You’re friends with the Super Gays?”
He blinked. “The what now?”
“The Super Gays. It’s what my friend Sandy calls them. The rich white—you know what? Never mind. Forget I even said that. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Obviously.”
Oh yeah, my brain moaned. This desk is so sturdy! Fuck me! Fuck—whaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeeesus!
He looked amused. “I doubt that. You’ve always been extraordinarily articulate.”
I told myself not to swoon over what was essentially me being told I talked too much. “Thank you?”
“How have you been? Haven’t seen you really since your friends’ wedding. Sorry about crashing that again, by the way.”
“It was fine,” I said. “The more the merrier.” That didn’t make sense. Like, at all. I tried again. “I’ve been… busy. You know how it is. The closer to graduation, the less time I have for anything else.”
He chuckled. “I remember those days. I don’t envy you in the slightest. Next year is your last, right?”
I almost convinced myself that he was stalking me, and it was the most romantic thing that’d ever happened to me. And since that was fucked-up, I chose to ignore it. “Yeah. Last year.”
“That’s exciting. Know what you’re going to do yet?”
I shook my head. “I’m trying not to think about it. It’s… heavy.”
He sat back in his chair again. The vein disappeared, which I was grateful for. “It is. But you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Corey. I know that you’re going to do great things, no matter what it is you decide to do.” He nodded toward the door. “Just don’t let Marina steamroll you into staying here if that’s something you don’t want to do. She’s great, but she’s also….”
“Exuberant?”
“That’s it,” he said. “Exuberant. She’s already tried to convince me to leave the university and stay here full-time. Though now, that doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”
My face grew hot. Thank Christ for my darker skin. “Uh… yeah.”
“Dad seems to be happy.”
That righted things a bit. “Is that so?”
He shrugged. “Think so.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not trying to get information from me about your dad’s love life, are you?”
He groaned, putting his face in his hands. “You don’t have to say it like that. I don’t want to think about my dad having any kind of love life.”
“Did he tell you how they met?” I asked gleefully. “There were prostates involved—”
He dropped his hands to glare at me. “I know. And I don’t like how happy that makes you sound. You’re evil. I don’t know why I couldn’t see that before.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Professor Olsen. I’m positively innocent.”
He snorted. “I have a hard time believing that. And it’s Jeremy, Corey.”
And once again, everything was topsy-turvy. “What?”
He looked smug. “It’s Jeremy. None of that Professor Olsen crap. We’re not in class. In fact, I’m not even your professor anymore. So call me Jeremy from here on out, okay?”