Page 6 of Lethal Kiss

Said it like it was nothing. Stunned, I flopped into my seat and told a little white lie. “Yeah, me too. Wanna go together after this?”

After that, we were buds. Not quite friends, it’s not like we hung out outside of Preston, but it was nice.

She still hasn’t answered. Punctual as she is, she’s never missed a study date.

My knee jiggles under the table, and the action fills me with resolve. I can finish my syllabus later. I close my notebook and stand, checking the watch face on the inside of my wrist while tugging at my houndstooth skirt. Dean Shea still has office hours for another thirty-five minutes. I’ve got to talk to him about this.

The November wind is biting. I pull my camel hair coat tight. Perkins Library is beautiful, even as the leaves brown and fall, coating the bluestone walkways with a dangerously slippery scrim. At 4:35, the sun is nearly down already, but the dregs of its rays paint the damp paths gold.

I’ve always considered myself so lucky to be here, to get to work here. I tip my head back and inhale the rot-sweet air, the breath of winter. Wasps buzz in the brittle grass, their wings fluttering leaves.

Dean Shea’s office is in Lowell, off Lowell Quad. I take a shortcut across the grass, ducking under a Frisbee, my golden hair catching the wind. My hand flies to my loosening crimson bow, resettling it as I push through the heavy wooden door.

Lowell is quiet at the end of office hours. I climb the staircase, fingers grasping the wrought iron bannisters as I make my way to the third floor.

By the time I reach the top, I’m breathing hard. Man, I need to start working out again, but who can find the time in academics? Resetting my shoulders and checking that my skirt isn’t twisted, I walk down the hall as calmly as I can. My resolve is slipping as I do. What if Laurel simply got stuck somewhere, or forgot? No way, my mind whispers. Okay, well what if all the people who quit simply couldn’t take it? Sure, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, and Georgetown assistant professors definitely just decided they can’t take it.

Fuck.

I stop short of Dean Shea’s office. Laughter, low and suggestive. Dean Shea’s voice, a rumbling baritone as he chuckles through his words.

Oh, god, gross. Dean Shea has a reputation around these parts for … being not entirely aboveboard with his undergrads. Maybe I should go in, break it up.

Yeah, that’s what I need to do.

I knock on the door and the laughter stops abruptly.

“Come in,” Dean Shea says, his voice grave and disappointed.

I open the door and stutter to a stop.

That’s no undergrad.

She’s perched on the front of the dean’s desk. Sheer black tights with a red back seam, a thigh-skimming charcoal skirt and a white button-down neatly tucked in, the top three buttons open to just wink at the black lace bra beneath. Her full lips are painted oxblood, her eyes deftly flicked with cat eye liner. Her glossy black hair spills down her back.

She takes me in, smiles.

“And who is this?”

Her voice sends a ripple through me, and I realize that the dark laughter, husky and sweet, had to have been hers.

Dean Shea clears his throat. “Lacie, please do come in and take a seat. This is Marcella. Marcella, Lacie. She has been doing groundbreaking research on Volsungasaga here at Preston.”

Marcella’s smile widens as she puts out a clawed hand, her nails a glossy, pointed black. “Charmed. I work on Nordics myself.”

I take her hand, still speechless. My throat is dry as corn husk, brain as empty as a grave. “I—I—” I give myself what I hope is an imperceptible shake. “So good to meet you. Are you, uh, joining Classics at Preston?”

“Marcella just arrived today.”

“I was being considered for tenure at the University of Seattle, but thought the environment here would be”—she draws her hand away and purses her lips—“more conducive to my studies. Preston has the finest rare book room in the country, second only to the Cloisters, perhaps.”

Dean Shea beams. “Tenure’s on the table here too, now. Lacie hails from Columbia herself. Now, Lacie, what can I do for you?”

I look between the two of them. This is not the right time. “Well, perhaps I’ll come back. Later. At your next office hours. I don’t want to intrude.”

The more I look at Marcella’s loose posture, her unbuttoned shirt, her painted lips, the more I want to scream. I don’t want to assume anything—I’m sure she’s very credentialed, went to great schools, blah, blah—but … she’s sitting on his desk, for Christ’s sake! The door was closed!

And more to the fucking point: how is it possible she could already be tenure track at Preston? She hasn’t taught a single class! I’ve been scrambling to the top of this ladder for more than a year and she’s scaled it in an easy jump.