The Husband Game

“Yeah, well, a third grader would know more about the proper way to treat a woman,” New Guy snaps before I can so much as open my mouth. “Apologize to her, or I swear to God, I’ll snap your neck right here, Tyler.”

Creep—Tyler, I guess—grits his teeth. For a moment, it looks like he might argue. But his gaze drops to New Guy’s hands. Very large hands, currently balled into intimidating fists. And I guess Tyler must have seen New Guy go to town on some other misbehaving student before, because he relents.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler says, more to the air somewhere above my head than to me, strictly speaking. But hey, it’s more than I expected to get out of something like that.

“Do you want to report this?” New Guy asks me. “I’ll help if you’d like. I’m willing to witness.”

I sigh. If I was still a student, I would. But since I’m here on false pretenses in the first place… “As long as he never comes near me again,” I say. Tyler’s already backing away, palms raised before himself in a gesture of surrender.

New Guy watches him retreat with a scowl that could have burned down half the buildings around us, if you measured the intensity on a heat scale. “If you don’t mind,” he says softly, “I’d like to report it anyway. I don’t have to name you. I can just say an unnamed student.”

“I’m not a student,” I say, relaxing just a little now that Tyler is vanishing from sight around the far corner of the engineering building. “But if you want to report it, please do. I think that would be good.” I manage my first smile since Tyler’s onslaught. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?” New Guy turns back to me, looking incredulous. “I only did what any decent person ought to, when they see a situation like that unfolding.”

And yet no one else out here stopped. No one even thought to help me, until he did.

My heart skips a beat. Those gray, fathomless eyes fix on me, and I find I can’t look away. Not now. “Still. It was really cool of you. Nobody’s ever stood up for me like that before.” The words slip out before I can reconsider them.

He frowns. “Now that is a damn shame.” After a moment, he brightens, and offers a hand. “Charlie Cross. Now, if you ever need stood up for again, you can track me down.”

I laugh and offer my hand in return. He grips it, and his palm feels surprisingly rough against mine, covered in thick callouses along his strong fingers. This is not the hand of a man who works a white collar job. I wonder if he’s really a professor at all. But an electrician or blue collar worker wouldn’t be on campus in a suit in the middle of the day, would they? “Nice to meet you, Charlie. I’m Lila.”

I hope he doesn’t notice the way I avoid my surname. After all, Google Lila Baker, and the first few pages you’ll find are filled with my articles. Some of which have headshots attached. The last thing I need to do in the middle of an assignment is get outed as a reporter.

Well. If you can count this as reporting, anyway.

Forcing the thought from my head, I flash a smile. “But, just so you know, I definitely could have taken that creep if need be.”

Charlie grins back, and oh, damn. I did not anticipate sooner how dazzling that corn-fed, guy-next-door smile of his would turn out to be. “In that case, I apologize for interrupting. Tyler Messing’s had an ass-kicking coming to him for weeks. I should’ve left you to it.”

I laugh. “Well, next time you’ll owe me.”

“Do you one better,” Charlie says, glancing from me to the half-unpacked easel behind me, and the painting in my hand. “Why don’t we get out of the cold, and I’ll buy you a coffee. To make up for stealing your fighting title.”

This is a bad idea. I know it is. I’m here for work. I need to get back to my assignment. My assignment of trying to flirt with some poor haphazard undergrad in the name of proving that the 1950s are well and truly over. But after my encounter with Tyler, I’m pretty sure I’m done for the day.

So, before I can talk myself out of it, my smile widens. “Deal,” I say. Then I nod to the easel and stool. “But only if you’re volunteering to do the heavy lifting.”

And right on cue, Charlie sweeps a little bow and picks up the easel and stool for me, both at once, lifting the metal set like it’s made of air. I suppress a grimace. It took me half an hour to struggle across campus with that earlier. Who is this guy? I wonder, not for the first time.