Jules let a breath pass, steadying himself despite the authority in Connor’s voice making his skin feel too small for his body. This was a classroom. There were other people in this room. His body needed to behave.
“Advantage implies awareness,” Jules said. “Both parties know the field. Exploitation is unilateral. One party is operating under assumptions the other has already invalidated. The ethical line isn’t about the advantage itself. It’s about whether the other side knows the game is being played.”
That same micro-shift Jules had caught at Veil appeared again. The not-quite-smile that lived beneath the surface of his impassive façade.
“Adequate.” Connor turned to the next section of the lecture.
Adequate. Jules felt the word like a hand pressing against his chest, keeping him still despite his head floating in the clouds of euphoria above him.
From anyone else, it would’ve been an insult. From Connor Thorne, it was practically praise.
It was still very much do better wrapped in pretty packaging. But it was still somewhat positive.
Jules’s blood heated. He wanted to do better until Connor ran out of challenges, and then he wanted to find new ways tobe challenged. He wanted that voice directed at him, only him, telling him to try again, push harder, come closer.
He was dangerously close to spinning a fantasy that involved Connor’s attention in a very different context, and he needed to rein himself in before his body decided to make the situation obvious.
Jules shifted in his seat. Crossed his legs. Tried very hard to remember that he was in a lecture hall and not in the back room of Veil. He needed to understand the man at the front of this room was his professor for the next five months.
The effort was only partially successful.
The remaining time in class was a special kind of exquisite torture.
Connor didn’t look at him again. Not once. He addressed the room, fielded two more questions from students bold enough to try, and delivered the rest of his lecture like Jules didn’t even exist.
Jules knew better.
He knew because Connor’s pacing pattern had changed. In the first half, his circuit had been left to right and back, covering the full width of the room. After Jules had answered, Connor’s circuit shortened. He paced the right side and center but stopped before reaching where Jules sat. Not avoiding, really. Adjusting would be the better term.
It was a small thing. Tiny, really. Yet it pleased Jules to know he’d gotten under the other man’s skin.
Prinia, beside him, was taking furious notes. She’d already filled several pages in her notebook. Jules glanced at his own where he’d written one line.
Professor Thorne. Interesting. Adequate. Delusional.
He closed the notebook with a grin.
“That concludes today’s session. Read chapters before Wednesday. I’ll know if you haven’t and there will be points deducted.”
The room stirred to life again. Laptops closing. Bags being thrown over shoulders. Footsteps damn near rushing from the room.
Jules took his time packing up while the room emptied behind him. He was aware of Connor at the podium, returning papers to his portfolio with calm, even movements. There was no sign he’d been ruffled by Jules’s presence, even though he hadn’t mentioned his university by name.
Neither of them had acknowledged the club either. They’d played an entire game of emotional chess in a room full of witnesses, and no one had seen the board.
Prinia waved at him on her way out. Jules returned it with a small smile. He hoped she wouldn’t try to befriend him any further. Davis was enough of a handful to keep up with.
The room thinned fairly quickly. Students filed past, a few murmuring to each other about the difficulty level. One guy near the back audibly questioned his life choices.
Jules shouldered his bag and walked to the door. Connor hadn’t looked his way even though they were almost completely alone. Only one pair of students lingered in the doorway.
He was four steps from the hallway when it happened.
“Mr. Goode.”
Jules stopped. The world narrowed to the voice calling out for him.
His last name, delivered with zero inflection. Yet he’d frozen like the command was much harsher.
