Alejandro laughed. “I know, I know. We’re very corny. Your eyebrow doesn’t have to judge me so hard.”

Deja laughed, and they continued strolling, unhurried toward their building. His hand stayed at her elbow, and their bodies bumped together with every other step.

At Mark Hall, Alejandro opened the exterior door for her. She smiled, ducked her head, and brushed past him to walk inside. All the oldest buildings on campus were clustered around the North Oval, and Mark was one of the oldest. It was squat and brick and always a little too cold in winter and too hot in the spring. It had four floors: a student computer lab in the basement, the History Department on the first floor, Political Science on the second, and Sociology on the top floor.

Deja walked up the short flight of stairs to the first-floor landing. “Thanks,” she said, turning around to face Alejandro. She wished this moment didn’t have to end, but also, she hadn’t quite taken an easy breath in a few moments, and that, plus Alejandro’s nearness, was starting to make her feel lightheaded.

“Anytime,” he said, ducking his head to make eye contact, a small, almost wistful smile on his face.

Deja assumed the wistful gaze she saw there was a figment of her imagination, and she vowed to remember it tonight in bed with her favorite vibrator.

Four

October

“By now, I’m sure you’ve all seen the new university home page, with the scrolling personal interest stories…”

Deja tapped her right foot against the table leg in annoyance, ignoring the rest of that supremely dry sentence. Even though she’d seen this item on the pre-circulated meeting agenda, she still couldn’t believe the committee was forcing them to listen to — she checked her watch for the fourth time in as many minutes — a twenty-minute conversation from the Head of Information Technology Services about random and unnecessary upgrades to the website. She didn’t care — like at all — and she wasn’t going to pretend she cared when the campus internet was too slow most days to stream a YouTube video for her lectures. They had bigger issues to attend to, but the tediousness of the Faculty Senate meant there wouldn’t be enough time to deal with their slow Wi-Fi when some bored technology manager who’d spent months rewriting the website’s code had the floor to giddily tell any and everyone who was willing — or forced — to listen all about it.