“You only think that because you tune him out. When I tell you that man has never met a thought he didn’t want to share…” Toni shooed them out of her office.

Deja squinted at the back of her head while she locked her door.

“So y’all aren’t going to help me?” she asked.

Toni turned around with a frown on her face. “With what? You got a fine boyfriend, all those cliquey white women in the English Department are jealous as hell, and your hair looks great today. Some of us have real problems, Deja Evans.”

“Yeah,” Marie said with a smile on her face as they walked away.

“I truly hate both of you so much,” Deja frowned at their retreating backs.

“You can practice saying you love us if that’ll help,” Marie said over her shoulder.

Deja’s mouth fell open in shock as she jogged to catch up with them. “Not even fully on the tenure track, and you’re already being an asshole.”

Their laughter filled the Political Science hallway.

Alejandro wasn’t rushing, but he was rushing.

He’d hoped to get Jerome out of his office early enough to get to the meeting before everyone else and talk to Deja, but when he rushed into the conference room, he deflated. He was the last one there.

“What’s up, man?” Mike called. He was sitting next to Toni, who was sitting next to Marie. They were across the table from Layla, Caroline, and Keith. Dean Stampp was sitting in the chair closest to the door, and across the room was Deja, an empty seat next to her.

“There’s a seat here,” Layla said.

“I’m good,” Alejandro replied without looking her way. Mike tried — and failed — to cover his cough of laughter.

Deja didn’t look at him as he walked toward her, but he watched her. He set his laptop down on the table and then lowered himself into the seat next to her. Their arms brushed. She still didn’t look at him, but he saw the shiver roll through her body.

As soon as his butt hit the seat, Deja looked up at the table. “Okay, let’s get started. We sent out the agenda two days ago, and—”

“Actually, I’d like to talk about our mission,” Caroline said, interrupting Deja.

Alejandro saw red as half of the table flinched. He opened his mouth to tell Caroline that the time to add something to the agenda was at any point between the last meeting and today, but Deja beat him to it.

“No,” she said firmly. A complete sentence.

“Excuse me,” Caroline said, with that high-pitched voice and elitist head tilt thing older white women did all over campus.