For the next two hours, she sat behind her desk, sipping at her tea, and took a little solace in the fact that she didn’t have to give another lecture today, even as she ignored the calendar notification about her last meeting of the day.

Alejandro had been trying to tamp down on his own happy excitement all day.

Technically, there was very little about his afternoon schedule that would normally inspire any kind of excitement, just meetings and more meetings, but his last meeting of the day was with Deja. Other people would be there too, but Deja was the one that really mattered.

Even though he’d woken up with her in his arms this morning and it had only been a few hours since they’d seen each other, he still felt desperate to be near her again. In truth, that had been the case since he’d arrived back in town from winter break. It seemed like every day, he felt as if he was falling deeper into this pit of need for her, and he didn’t want to crawl out.

The only real downside was the few times he saw her across the Oval or around their building and couldn’t touch her. Sometimes, his fingers would flex with desire, and it would take all his restraint to stop himself, and he was terrified that one day he would fail. She made him feel reckless, and that was the last thing they needed.

If it were up to him, he and Deja would have already gone to HR to register their relationship, so at least he didn’t have to stop himself from standing too close to her just in case someone could tell from his body language that they were sleeping together. And maybe once they did that, he could sate his own desire by just holding her hand as they walked across campus together.

But Deja wasn’t ready. When they were off-campus, she was all in on their relationship, but it was as if the minute she stepped onto the North Oval, she changed. He didn’t want to push her too hard or too fast to make their relationship University-official, because he wasn’t even entirely sure that her reticence was about him. So until she was ready, he decided to let her set the pace and be happy that they had an hourlong meeting on the books once a month for the rest of the semester and maybe beyond. Whatever it took to snatch just a few more minutes in her presence.

Alejandro checked his watch as he stepped in line at Go Brews!

“What’s up, man?” Mike said behind him, enthusiastic as ever. “You ready for this meeting?”

Alejandro smiled and shrugged. “It’s just a meeting.”

“Sure,” Mike said with a knowing grin.

“Shut up,” Alejandro said.

Mike laughed, and Alejandro rolled his eyes.