“Until then, I’ll be your professor.”
I snorted.
It slipped out before I could stop it.
His brow twitched. “Something amusing?”
“A professor,” I repeated. “You mean the same professor who just went toe-to-toe with the dean and told me to report my water intake like I’m a dehydrated houseplant?”
His mouth actually curved this time. “Hydration is important.”
“Oh my god.” I laughed under my breath, shaking my head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Yes.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. “We’re just supposed to go back to work and pretend we’re normal?”
“Youcan pretend.”
Completely inappropriate.
…and somehow still working for me.
“Come on, Professor,” I muttered, stepping past him toward the building. “Try to act like you didn’t just threaten my entire life.”
“I didn’t threaten it.” He fell into step beside me. “I improved it.”
Maybe I should’ve been more concerned with where this was going… but all I really wanted was to get there faster.
10
HENRY
Ididn’t trust what people said about themselves. It was too easy to shape—too easy to sand down into something clean enough to pass without being questioned.
Most people learned that early.
Archibald had too.
He was just terrible at it.
Not because he didn’t try, but because his body refused to cooperate.
There was always awareness with him. Something held just beneath the surface—a constant, quiet calculation that never fully shut off. It showed in the way he carried himself, in the small, automatic corrections. He was fixing something only he could feel before anyone else had the chance to notice it.
It wasn’t perfect.
Control like that never was.
Archie sat six feet away, half-curled over the small side table I never bothered to use. His laptop was open, one of my article drafts spread beside it in printed pages. The legal pad I’d given him earlier was already crowded with notes in dark, slanted handwriting.
My rabbit worked with his whole body, and I was fucking captivated by it.
When he concentrated, his shoulders would round slightly, as though he was trying to pull the task closer into himself. When he got irritated, that mouth of his pressed into a thin line, and the edge of his pen tapped twice against the page before continuing.
In the thirty-one minutes he’d been here, he adjusted his glasses four times and took exactly three measured sips of water.
He was managing himself.
