Page 88 of Fang Fiction

“How is that possible??”

“Because she’s my destiny, duh.”

“You hate fashion,” Tess pointed out.

Joni nodded. “It’s a construct of gender performance designed to deplete women’s time, energy, and money.”

“You don’t drink mezcal.” Tess referenced another of the questions on the quiz.

“Because it tastes like smoky spit.”

“And you won’t watch thrillers!”

“To be fair, I won’t watch movies with any kind of stakes. Too stressful!!” Joni got up to refill her coffee from the ancient pot.

“What’s wrong with Felix, anyway?” Tess turned back to her phone, skimming her fingers over her quiz results. “He’s sensitive, and intuitive, and actually values the opinions of women, and has great hair—”

“You talking about me?” Tess looked up in shock to see Rick Keeton, who was, undoubtedly, the Felix Hawthorn of the Columbia Department of Comparative Literature. Tess had thought he was cute since they started the program, but she’d seen a lot more of him recently, now that he and Joni were working on an article together—and Tess’s affections had developed into a full-blown crush. Their article, which compared archetypes in epic poetry (Rick’s specialty) to contemporary hero portrayals in pop culture (Joni’s area of expertise) was a really big deal for Joni. Rick was sure it was going to land in a major publication, the first serious byline of Joni’s career.

“Nah, your hair’s just okay,” Joni deadpanned. Rick laughed heartily and punched her on the arm.

“You guys teaching this afternoon?” he asked, giving Tess a long look. She’d caught him eyeing her on multiple occasions, in lectures, at department meetings. But he was always dating some impossibly beautiful undergrad; Tess figured she must not be his type.

“Shakespeare section,” she replied, pulling out her laptop to go over her notes for the afternoon’s discussion group.

“Oh yeah?” Rick flopped beside her on the couch. “What play?”

“The sonnets, actually.” Tess felt her body heating up with Rick sitting so close. “You know, for, um…”

“Valentine’s Day.” He smiled. “That’s just cruel.”

She peered at him. “How so?”

He leaned toward her. “I’m sure every guy in your section already has a crush on you—now you’re gonna read the world’s most romantic poetry on the year’s most romantic day?” He shook his head in mock disapproval. “Not cool, Rosie.”

She laughed. “If I use my feminine wiles to make the kids appreciate rhythmic subtext in iambic pentameter, would that be so wrong?”

“Sounds more fun than my afternoon with Anna Karenina, anyway.” Rick sighed. “It’s always death with the Russians.”

“To be fair, it’s pretty often death with Shakespeare,” Tess quipped. Rick laughed appreciatively, then stood.

“I’d better get to it—you guys coming to my thing tonight?”

Joni said, “We’ll be there!” at the exact moment Tess said, “I’m not sure.”

Rick smiled at them both, then looked right at Tess as he said, “I hope you do.”

As soon as he left the room, Joni rushed over to Tess. “Oh my god, he totally likes you.”

“You think?” Tess felt flushed. “No, he was just being nice. He’s nice to everyone!”

“He is nice, which is the only reason I support this—the window for acceptable straight men is narrow, but he’s in there,” Joni assured her.

“Okay, but you guys are working together!” Tess protested. “I don’t want to make it weird.”

“You’re not!” Joni insisted. “I really like Rick, and I really love you. What could be bad about you really liking each other? Nothing! So will you just come to the party with me?! I promise, we’re going to have an amazing time. Maybe not as amazing as if Octavia were there, but you can’t have everything.”

“Okay, okay!” Tess laughed. “You convinced me. Let’s go to a party.”