He sat back in his chair and ran his hand over the top of his head. Alejandro’s hair was that perfect shade of black that was almost blue. He had a thick tangle of waves on top, and it was cut short on the sides. His waves were gelled perfectly in place, but it didn’t have that crispy gel look. Deja liked to think of Alejandro’s hair as stylish perfection, no hair out of place. And it wasn’t just his hair. It was his suits, his nails, his facial hair, everything. Deja tried to dress professionally and fashionably, but sometimes she strolled into her early morning classes with mascara on just one eye, only to find out that her shirt was buttoned incorrectly. But Alejandro was on an entirely different sartorial planet and was always impeccable. Even now, as he frowned at his laptop, he had the nerve to look like a model.

He leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingers against his closed eyes. Deja knew that look of exhaustion intimately, and it made her heart ache and warm at the same time. She was so caught up in sympathetically watching him that she didn’t notice when his hands moved until his mouth twitched. Her eyes lifted and met his. Another Faculty Senate meeting, another instance of Alejandro catching Deja watching him like a hawk.

She sighed to herself. His lips quirked at the corners like he was fighting a smile.

On instinct, Deja sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down hard against the rising lust in her body, but she didn’t look away. She’d convinced herself that Alejandro couldn’t know about her crush, but there was no way he could have missed how she’d just been looking at him. Right?

She watched as his smile faded and his eyes warmed into a banked fire, and even if she’d wanted to look away, now she couldn’t. They stared at each other for so long that the rest of the room disappeared. Deja didn’t hear any more of the boring report or Marie’s annoying mutterings because the sound of her own racing pulse had filled her ears.

But then Robert King, Marketing, cut into their moment.

“So, let me get this straight,” Robert said, projecting his voice across the auditorium. “ITS has time to update the website to do things no one needs, but can’t figure out why the campus Wi-Fi loads like dial-up? Or why we keep getting all these scam emails? Is this a joke?”

And just like that, the bored, distracted silence erupted into outraged whispers and amused chuckles.

“I’m glad someone finally said it,” Toni said, loud enough to be heard by everyone in their small pocket of the auditorium.

Deja and Marie nodded.

Deja stole a look across the auditorium and saw Alejandro and Mike laughing with one another.