Deja wasn’t nervous so much as freaking the absolute fuck out as she and Alejandro walked across campus to Founders Hall. Together. If it weren’t for Jerome talking her ear off and giving her something to focus on, her legs might have just stopped moving. They’d been…doing something for a few weeks, and she was too nervous to name it even in her own brain, but she knew that just being near him made her heart race. Under normal circumstances — i.e., not on the campus of the university where they worked or in the college town where they lived alongside their colleagues and students — kind of dating a man who made her heart race would be a great thing, but it wasn’t. Every time she saw him, she had to bury the urge to touch him the way she wanted or even look at him for too long just in case someone else might see desire written all over her face. Or maybe it was that Deja’s fatalistic personality wouldn’t let dating Alejandro be a great thing because she couldn’t let herself be happy, as Toni had suggested. Either way, Deja felt like every eye on the University Oval was on her as they walked to Founders, and it was nerve-wracking.

Thank god for Jerome.

“So, what if I did a double major in Sociology and Statistics and a minor in Communications?” he asked her after a very long preamble that she hadn’t heard this time but assumed was the same as the other major-minor configurations he’d presented to her for comment. Lots of sophomores struggled with their academic path, and Deja’s job was to help gently guide them toward a decision and then to the administrative building to submit the paperwork. Usually, she wanted to tear her hair out when confronted with students who hadn’t given their majors or minors much thought and just expected her to tell them what to do with the rest of their college careers and sometimes their lives. That wasn’t her job, and she didn’t want that kind of responsibility ever.