Page 5 of Break Points and Face Offs

“Fine,” I say with a huff. “Take the books.”

“I was planning to,” he says before turning and walking down the aisle like he hasn’t just taken a huge fucking sledgehammer to my day.

3

PRIESTLEY

By the time my first class rolls around, I’ve made a good start on the essential reading list and learned everything I can about Professor Moreno. She may be a slightly tougher nut to crack than the male professors who already know and adore my father, but I’m not worried. I have the titles and main points of all her research papers memorized. Her career highlights and awards I can bring up in case of emergency.

She is someone who values hard work, citing the scholarship she earned to attend Princeton back in the ‘90s as the reason for her success. I don’t need my father’s connections to make professors like me. I am studious and hard working. Surely she’ll see this and appreciate having someone go above and beyond in everything they do?

So when I enter the classroom, a few minutes early—too early and that could piss the professor off—I’m armed to the teeth with information and ready for anything.

I’m only caught slightly off-guard when the first face I see is the guy from the library.

The fact I won that particular bout comforts me enough to keep the smile on my face. His scowl warms me. It tells me I’m getting under his skin. A distracted rival is always a useless one.

I have the book in question in my bag, along with some of Professor Moreno’s published texts. It won’t hurt to have one or two in the stack sitting on my desk. Ass kissing is a specialty of mine and I’ve perfected it to a fine—and discreet—art.

I make sure to sit right in Boston boy’s eyeline. Enough so I can catch a glimpse of him without turning my head—he seems like the kind who might stoop to a spit ball in extreme circumstances. Not enough to let him distract me. I’m the distraction here. Just to piss him off, I take the hefty Zvi, Kane and Alan book on investments and portfolio management out and drop it onto the desk with a satisfying slap.

I wait for him to say something, to make some comment on the book. Maybe even ask if I’m done with it yet—spoiler alert: I’m not. But he’s silent as we wait for class to start. There’s nothing but the loud ticking of the clock on the wall to punctuate the silence. I flip through my books, take my laptop out, and arrange my stationary on the desk. I anticipate that Professor Moreno will be impressed when she comes in and I’m the first person she sees. Ready and willing and front of the class.

Boston is sitting three rows back. That’s no way to get noticed by the professor. As a grad student, he ought to know that.

The door opens. I sit up a little straighter, but it’s just another student, blustering in carrying a stack of books. He looks shabby and his glasses are skewed. I sigh with relief as I immediately dismiss him as a worthy opponent, just as I dismissed the Neanderthal sitting behind me.

Back in the library, I picked up on the Boston accent. I’m good at noticing these things. Details are important. Despite being neatly dressed, it was obvious that he was awed by his surroundings. I watched him for a moment before swooping in to take the book. If he hadn’t been so busy pawing over the first editions, he would have found the book before I did. That quip about the DDS was just to throw him off. He obviously knew his way around a library. Still, he’s not a serious opponent. My instincts tell me he didn’t get his degree at an Ivy League school, and I’m not sure what financial diversity quota brought him here now, but he doesn’t belong, just as he doesn’t belong in my father’s internship. That internship is mine.

The rest of the students flood into the room and take their seats. A couple take a front row seat, though none dare to take a chair too close to mine. I’m not surprised. My old fraternity VP, Nathan, told me I have ‘resting bitch face.’

Finally, Professor Moreno walks in.

Her quietly authoritative air and cold beauty remind me of my mother. Something catches in my throat, a fear I don’t even feel around my father.

Her eyes scan the room, landing on no one in particular.

I brush a hand through my hair to make sure it’s still neat, hoping she’ll notice me on the next go round.

She takes some notes from her briefcase and straightens them on the desk before addressing the room.

“Hello, and welcome, grad students.”

When she smiles, that cold demeanor fades into something much warmer and I see that it’s practiced—that authority. It isn’t something she’s always known she has. Hers is a power that was earned rather than given.

She begins a speech about the privileged position we’re in—a speech I’ve heard a thousand times before, though it sounds different coming from her.

When her gaze finally lands on me for longer than a second, I swear her lip curls. It’s a discreet gesture, and I could be—God, I hope I am—imagining it. But she certainly isn’t gazing at me in admiration.

She finishes her speech and slips behind the desk for a moment, resting her hands on the polished wood.

“Any questions?”

The room is still as she waits. The shabby guy with glasses sitting two seats down breathes too heavily through blocked sinuses.

“Good,” she says when no one has anything.

As she begins to write something on the board, a familiar, overwhelming desire to please starts to bubble up. This woman is impressive, but she isn’t immediately impressed by me. I need to rectify that. She could be the only thing standing between me and that internship.