“Oh Dr. Denis and I go way back, I was on his hiring committee. There was a lot of talk before we hired him, as there usually is when the department takes a big chance on a candidate.”

Before Patrice could answer I stood up, grabbing our drinks. I was not going to let Brad get up to his usual shit stirring and ruin the dinner with Patrice that I’d been looking forward to all week.

I glared at him, my tone chilly. “I’m sure the pressure was high to make the best offer possible to Patrice, considering all the options he had.” I looked over to the man in question and he was standing with his back against the wall, his face completely closed off. Then I turned back to Brad. “We’re headed to our table, have a good evening.”

I handed Patrice his drink and we started walking. Patrice muttered something that sounded a lot like a curse word and was at the table before I had taken two steps there.

When we sat down, his face showed the frustration that I was sure he’d held back at the bar.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said as I glanced in the direction of the bar and saw that Brad had already left, probably looking for someone else he could fuck with. “Brad is an ass.”

Patrice watched him walk away, his gaze icy. “Brad thinks he can talk to people however he wants.” He paused then and I could tell he was working on letting go of the annoyance of the last few minutes. He took one breath, then another and lifted both shoulders as if to shed some of the tension there, the whole time his eyes trained on mine.

He opened his mouth to say something, but instead of saying whatever was on his mind, he reached across the table and grabbed my hands possessively. His eyes locked with mine. “What bothers people like Brad is that I don’t take his bait. He wants to get a rise out of me, so when I curse him out he can point at me and say I’m trash and that I don’t know how to act. He knows I don’t give a fuck about him getting off on talking to me like I’m the help, and that just makes him look bad.” It was clear he was not done talking about all the ways Brad pissed him off, and the way he was looking at me made me hold my breath. “But if I see him pawing or talking to you like that again, I’m going to pop him in the mouth. I don’t care what kind of influence he has in the department.”