Page 6 of Mate

“It’s a million degrees outside. It’s unnecessary,” I assured frankly, pulling it back over my head and off. In fact, with the provost after me, I found that I was already sweating. I passed him the sweatshirt, which he didn’t seem happy about accepting.

He frowned, then winced. “Not as unnecessary as you think,” he said, and I was frazzled enough that I picked up no clues and thought he was talking about a storm said be coming in later in the afternoon.

“I’m fine,” I said, wondering if he didn’t like seeing my navel, but it was in-fashion now, so he was going to have to get used to it…

He then concluded this strange interlude by turning me around and giving me a playful shove toward the door. “Admin building. Leave here, take a left. It’s the building with the big bell on it,” he told me as if this was my first day or in case I was deaf, blind, or too absorbed in myself to use my senses.

It didn’t matter; I was terrified as I thought of any and all reasons why either the provost or the president would be looking for me. The last interaction with the provost didn’t go well, and I felt like he just wanted to go back on his negotiations since I’d pretty much won.

Maybe it didn’t have to do with my council position. Maybe it was because I’d been bad. I did have a lot of beer in my dorm. Or maybe I was the scapegoat for the weird party under me over the weekend? Maybe one of my dormmates had turned up dead, and there was an investigation?

Okay, maybe that last one was because I’d been listening to murder-mystery podcasts all Sunday… But still, it waspossible. Most of the reasons I could think I was in trouble for were fabricated, but all of them were bad news.

About the time I got to the admin building, I heard a shuffle behind me and saw the provost was coming down the sidewalk towards me. I gazed curiously in his direction, wondering which story about him I believed the most, but then I realized he was already looking at me.

Me.

What was the fascination about me today? I checked my smell. I still smelled like soap. Maybe a little bit like the vanilla candle I’d used to cover up the weed smell in my bedroom, but not bad. I combed my hair out with my fingers. There wasn’t a bag of dope in my hair or anything… What the deal was, I couldn’t guess.

I slipped inside of the building, already uncomfortable with the three seconds of eye contact I’d had to exchange with the scary provost, and although I understood that the administration building was where he came to roost, I felt safe enough just being on the other side of a wall from him for now.

The building looked like it was designed to discourage people from finding whoever they wanted inside. It was a labyrinth of hallways and rooms that seemed to wind around in a fantastical manner. Eventually, I found a secretary that looked very official, and I decided I must be in the right spot. I adjusted my heavy bag on my shoulder and stepped forward.

“Hi,” I said, finally getting the secretary to look up at me. “I was told to come here. I guess the president’s expecting me or something? I don’t know. It’s just what my professor said…” Iwas suddenly uncertain if that encounter had ever happened. Sort of like the wolves—was it too strange to have really occurred? Or was I just getting early-onset dementia?

“What’s your name?” she asked, but she obviously thought I was crazy, too, and that my confusion about my own importance was going to cause a headache.

She looked at my shirt, and I realized, finally, that the professor had passed me that sweatshirt because of my nipples, not my belly button, because I had forgotten to wear a bra that morning since I hadn’t worn one all weekend. I hadn’t been making a statement; I just completely forgot that bras existed. I immediately looked down with shame and she gave me a look set to shame me more. Still, she didn’t send me away.

“…Kaci Iverson?” I replied, like I wasn’t sure what my name was. If I had any confidence inside myself today, then it had bailed on the way over to the administration building.

She suddenly looked a little startled. “Oh.Oh!Yes, he mentioned you were going to be sent this way this morning. Um… Let me see if he can see you,” she said, suddenly sounding a lot more friendly and reaching for the phone.

I was about to sit in a chair and wait, but my butt hadn’t completely gone all the way down on the seat before the door of the president’s office flung open and the all-too-gorgeous man was standing there, looking at me with an almost wild expression. “Kaci.” He said my name and just let it plop on the floor without purpose.

“Yes,” I finally said, breaking a silence that seemed to be creeping on and on.

He seemed to look around him, as if he forgot where he was. “Come into my office,” he offered, but it wasn’t a friendly offer. He was handsome, but he never did sound friendly. He had one of those voices that would have sounded grumpy even if he was surrounded by newborn kittens and puppies.

I shuffled into the door that he held open, walking underneath his arm. He was taller than me. I was five-two, and he was huge, just like the other hot guys he had working for him. I wondered if he’d simply met all these professors at the gym or something. They didn’t look similar, yet there was something in their physiques that was so alike that they almost came across as related. I had simply never noticed until just now, when I felt like I was paying more attention than I ever had before.

He shut the door behind me, and his expression did not hint that this was going to be a good visit for me—it was well fucking beyond firm.

Well, shit just got real.

CHAPTER 3

Kaci

As soon as the door shut, my heart leapt into my chest, or at least it felt like it had. I stood awkwardly by the door as he moved around me, and I gulped like a teenager that had just been caught with a pound of weed in her locker and was about to face something far worse than just detention.

Fuckity fuckfuckkkk.

My mind raced, trying to figure out why I was here. As far as I knew, I wasn’t failing any classes. Sure, I wasn’t going to make the sigma cum laude list anytime soon, but I was at least doing well enough to keep my scholarship. I had to keep something like a 3.0 and I wasn’t in danger of losing it with a solid 3.4. Anyway, what did it matter? I’d always heard C’s get degrees anyway, am I right?

I almost laughed out loud.Almost.

That would have certainly convinced the president that I was nuts.

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