Deja jumped from her chair and grabbed her purse from her desk. “Gladly. Come on, you can talk my ear off on the way.”

Deja’s inbox was clear, and her desk was clean. Well, clean-ish. She was now officially ready to receive the influx of blue books and unstapled essays and last-minute requests for an extension. Okay, her desk and inbox were ready for all those things, she was not, but her desk was an important part of the battle. Now that that was done, she grabbed her laptop and purse, locked her door, and headed downstairs.

For whatever reason, the Sociology floor was the quietest. There were rarely students in the hallway unless Deja was holding office hours. Most of her colleagues kept their doors closed, and sometimes it was so quiet up here she could hear a pin drop. Political Science was livelier, especially when Toni’s door was open. But Alejandro’s floor was always bustling.

Maybe it was because they had the youngest faculty in the building, or because their student outreach was the best in the College. Deja didn’t know, but she did know that her department was equal parts annoyed and jealous of History, and she secretly loved it. She also just loved being on this floor. As soon as she pulled the door from the hallway open, she was shocked at how loud it was.

Okay, she loved it, but she couldn’t have worked here.

“Hello, Deja,” Sheila said as she stepped out of the department’s conference room with an iPad in her hand and a smile on her face.

“Hi, Sheila. How are you?”

The woman smiled and rolled her eyes. “Counting down now.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Are you here to see Alejandro?”

For a second, Deja’s entire body clenched in fear, but then she remembered that there was nothing to hide. Granted, Sheila didn’t need to know all her business, but if she suspected that she and Alejandro were dating, it didn’t matter.

“Yep,” she said cheerily. “We’ve got a meeting for that outreach committee we’re chairing.”

“Oh, right. How’s that going?”

Deja’s stomach turned in knots. “You know,” she said vaguely with a titter of nervous laughter and a head nod.

Sheila watched her intently for a bit. “Caroline Enwright is on that committee, right?”

Deja nodded.

“She can be difficult to work with,” Sheila said.

Even just hearing her name made Deja feel queasy; difficult was an understatement. “Hmmmm,” she hummed, not exactly sure how to respond. Sheila seemed nice, and Alejandro liked her, but after Deja’s review and tenure files left her department, they went to the College-level committee, and she couldn’t chance that anyone could hold a grudge and work against her. She couldn’t stand Caroline, but she didn’t want anyone besides her close friends to know.