Tales of the Otherworld (20 page)

So when there was no note, I kind of panicked. Then I saw that his books were still on the shelf. He might leave papers and old journals scattered all over the office when he finally did vacate it, but he’d never abandon his books.

I sat down and started to work. Less than ten minutes later, the door banged open.

“I hope that’s not your résumé you’re typing,” he said as he tossed a file folder onto the desk.

“Not without your permission.”

“Good, ’cause I don’t give it. You may not revise your résumé.”

“I meant I’d need your permission to use your computer and printer, not to write the résumé. That I don’t need.”

“And you need it to use my printer? Why? I might complain about you using up the ribbon? Hell, I have a box of them.” He dropped into his chair and spun it to face me. “But, back to the original subject, you do not have my permission to revise your résumé. I expressly forbid it.”

“Uh-huh. Well, that’s great, but I do need a job—”

“You have one.”

“
After
you leave.”

“Not leaving.”

“What?”

“Is that disappointment I hear?” He bounced off the chair and scooted his rear onto the desk, looming over me. “Too bad, ’cause I’m not leaving. The university likes the research paper we’re working on, and they want me to finish it here, so they can slap their name on it. Plus Dr. Fromme wants me to keep teaching his fourth-year class. Meaning you’re stuck with me until the end of the term.”

“Damn.”

“Damn?”

“Well, see, there’s this other job. Better working conditions. Less demanding boss—”

“You’d better be kidding, because I just went through a helluva lot of work to make sure you kept your job.”

“Oh, so you did it for
me.
”

“Of course. You need a job.” He jumped off the desk and headed for the door. “So get back to work and earn your keep. I have to meet with Fromme. It might take a while, but I’ll be back by lunch, so wait for me.” He threw a grin over his shoulder. “You’re buying, too. A token of appreciation for your continued employment.”

He zipped out the door before I could answer. I sat there, smiling, then turned back to the keyboard.

At ten, I decided to go grab a coffee. I was pushing the office door when it flew open, nearly sending me into the wall.

“Thanks a helluva—” I began, then stopped, cheeks heating.

In the doorway stood, not Clay, but one of his students. A guy about my age with short dreadlocks and an easy grin.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “Is Clay—Professor Danvers here? This is his office, right?” A glance over at the paper-littered desk and the grin returned. “Oh, yeah. This is definitely his office.”

“You must be in his fourth-year class,” I said. “I’m Elena, his TA.”

His brows arched. “TA?”

“Well, TA, receptionist, typist, research assistant. All-round girl Friday, pretty much.” I waved at the office. “Housekeeping not included.”

As he laughed, I unearthed a pen.

“Professor Danvers has office hours tomorrow, but you can leave a note for him, or I can pencil you in for an appointment.”

“Sure, you can pencil me in for an appointment, but will he
keep
the appointment? That is the question.”

I smiled. “Yes, he
does
keep them. I make sure of that. So can I schedule—?”

“Actually, I’m not a student. I’m a friend of his.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, Clayton has friends. Shocking, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“No?” He met my gaze, grinning. “Oh, come on. Admit it.
Friends
and
Clay
are not words that go together.”

“Okay, I was a little surprised. Not that I didn’t know he had friends. I just haven’t met any of them. And, now that you mention it, I’m going to hazard a guess that you’re Logan.”

The grin fell away. “Uh, yeah. He’s mentioned me?”

“Now you’re the one who sounds surprised.”

“I am. Not that I’m not perfectly mentionable, but Clay doesn’t usually talk about his personal life. Huh. Well—” He looked around. “So what kind of— Oh, wait, you were going somewhere when I rudely barged in, weren’t you?”

“Just to grab a coffee.”

“Perfect. I could use one…and I have no clue where to find it here. Mind if I tag along?”

“Sure. Or I could bring you back one—”

“I’ve just spent six hours in the car. Please don’t ask me to sit and wait.”

I smiled. “I won’t, then. Come on.”

After we got our coffees, Logan persuaded me to sit in the cafeteria. Normally, I would have pulled the “Gee, I’d love to, but I really have to get back to work” routine. I’m not antisocial, but neither do I go out of my way to have coffee with strangers. Yet Logan was one of those people with the gift for making you feel, almost from the first word, that you’ve known him for years. So we sat and talked, mostly about school. He was also in his third year, at Northwestern, which gave us plenty of common ground.

“You live on campus or off?” he asked halfway through our coffees.

“On. Though I’m hoping to change that next term.”

“Same here. And I bet I know the reason. DMFH, right?”

“Hmm?”

“DMFH. Dorm mate from hell. There’s gotta be a better acronym, but that’s the best I could come up with on the fly. So how bad’s yours?”

“Not too bad …”

“She has to be bad,” he said, “because that’s the rule.”

“The rule?”

“You’re a serious student, right? Obviously, if you’re a TA. You work your ass off because that’s what college is for—learning and getting a job, not an all-expense-paid party tour.”

“Sometimes I wish it was.”

“But it isn’t. Especially if you’re paying your own way. You are, I’ll bet. Otherwise, you sure as hell wouldn’t take a job with Clay.”

I smiled. “Yes, I’m paying my way.”

“Me, too. Well, someone’s helping me, but I have every intention of paying him back. Point is that we’ve paid for this education, and we’re damned well going to get the most out of it. So we’re guaranteed to get dorm mates who don’t give a shit, who stay up all night, expect us to get up quietly in the morning, blast music while we’re trying to study, give their friends the room key…. Happens to me every year.”

“Same here.”

“It can’t be by accident. I think it’s a baby-boomer conspiracy.”

I sputtered a laugh. “Baby boomers?”

“We’re studying to take their jobs, right? What better way to keep us out of the workforce than to make sure we have a rough time at college? They pair us up with the worst party animals and hope we fold.”

A flash of motion across the cafeteria caught my eye. I looked to see Clayton barreling toward us, eyes blazing, mouth set in a grim line.

“Looks like Clay got my note,” I said. “But I don’t think his meeting went very well.”

Logan glanced over and grimaced. “No, I do believe that scowl is intended for me.” He looked around. “Think it’s too late for a speedy escape?”

“’Fraid so.”

“Damn. Hold on, then. I’m about to get blasted.”

I
STOOD AT THE BACK OF THE CAFETERIA AND
watched Logan with Elena. He’d pulled his chair as close to the table as it could get, and was leaning forward. My hands clenched. There was a rule about Pack brothers visiting me when I was here. A rule
against
it. Jeremy’s rule. It was bad enough that Logan didn’t respect my authority. But to disobey Jeremy? That went too far.

Elena laughed at something Logan said and replied, hands moving. Her back was to me, but I could imagine her face, eyes sparkling with animation, her full attention on him. How long had it taken for me to see that spark, to get her to look me in the face every time? She’d known Logan for an hour. Probably less.

I started toward them, looping around the cafeteria. The moment I passed into Elena’s field of vision, she looked up, almost instinctively. I braced myself, expecting to see consternation. Instead, she grinned and lifted her hand in a wave.

My stride caught. I tried to smile back, but my lips didn’t move fast enough, and she saw my scowl. Her smile faded, eyes clouding. She turned and said something to Logan. He glanced up at me, eyes widening in feigned horror. My fury returned. It was bad enough he was here; I was damned if he was going to mock me, too.

I strode to the table.

“Clayton,” Logan said, smiling up at me. “About time you—”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Well, then, you’re in luck, because that’s what we were doing. Talking.” With his foot, he pushed out a chair—the one on the far side of the
table. “Elena and I were just about to swap roommate horror stories. Did you ever get a bad one?”

Elena grinned up at me. “Or were you the bad one?”

My anger started to fizzle under the blaze of that smile. A glance at Logan, and I rallied it back.

“I want to talk to you,” I said. “In private.”

Elena pushed her chair back. “You guys don’t need me hanging around. I should get back to work—”

“No,” I said, touching her elbow as she started standing. “You stay. Finish your coffee. I just want to talk to Logan for a minute.”

She hesitated. Logan shot me a “don’t be a jerk” look—one I’d seen often enough to recognize. As much as I wanted to snarl something back at him, I couldn’t help noticing Elena’s discomfort.

“Stay,” I said. “I can talk to Logan later.”

She hesitated another moment, studying my face, then sat down, and pulled out the chair beside hers. I took it.

We spent the next hour talking. Logan did most of it. Typical. More than once, I got the impression he was steering the discussion in directions he hoped I couldn’t follow. Yet Elena always managed to bring it back to a three-way conversation.

When Elena talked to Logan, I watched her expression. She seemed less guarded than she was with strangers, but not nearly as open as I’d envisioned, and I was pretty sure there was extra wattage in the smiles she tossed my way.

As for Logan, I knew him well enough to pick up his signs of interest. When Nick, Logan, and I went out, Nick never made the return trip home with me. Put him in a bar with more than one woman, and he could always find someone suitable. It took a lot more looking for Logan to find someone he liked, but when he did, it was obvious—and sitting at that table, watching him with Elena, I saw all the signs. I told myself it was just Logan being Logan, always finding a way under my skin, always challenging me. But I wasn’t sure that was it.

After the first half-hour, I started watching the clock. At 11:45, I cut Logan short.

“Elena? We have to get lunch or you’ll be late for your next class.
Logan? There’s food here, food out on Bloor Street just north of campus, and food back in my apartment. I’ll meet up with you at my office later.” I took my keys from my pocket. “You want these?”

Elena looked at me, brows knitting, and I knew I’d committed some social misdemeanor. I glanced at Logan for a clue, but he rubbed at a smile and avoided my gaze.

“I’m sure you want to eat with Logan,” Elena said.

“Not really.”

Logan choked on a laugh. “And you wonder why you’ve never met any of his friends before?”

I glared over at him. “If you’d called or otherwise told me you were coming, I’d have left lunch free. But I have plans. I’m buying Elena lunch to celebrate her continued employment.”

“I thought I had to buy lunch,” she said.

“I was kidding.”

“Good,” Logan said. “’Cause you’d put the poor girl in hock. Have you seen how much he eats?”

“I have,” she said. “Which is why I’d planned to take him to McDonald’s.”

“Well, consider yourself saved from that fate, ’cause I’m buying,” Logan said. “You’re the townie, Elena, so you pick the place. My mom sent me a check this week, which is how I could afford the gas money to get up here. Every few months she remembers she has a son and sends guilt money, some of which I promptly blow on the most frivolous, unnecessary expenses I can find. That way, neither of us feels guilty about it.”

Elena laughed. I shook my head. I never knew how Logan did that, tossing out the most private tidbits of his life as if they were nothing more intimate than his name.

“Shall we go?” he said, grabbing Elena’s empty coffee cup. “What time’s your class?”

“One-thirty.”

“Lots of time, then. Is it journalism?”

She nodded. “Advanced interviewing techniques.”

“Oooh, could use some of those in my prelaw course. I’ll sit in on it with you.”

“You can’t do that,” I said. “It’s against the rules.”

“Words we never thought we’d hear Clayton Danvers say,” Logan said. “Profs don’t care if you sit in—not if you ask them first and ask nicely. If I get in shit, I promise not to mention your name. Now come on. I have fifty bucks burning a hole in my pocket, and I intend to have it gone by one-thirty.”

After her class, Elena returned to finish her shift. Not that she got much work done, between answering Logan’s endless questions about our project and arguing with me over the interpretation of data. This was an ongoing debate—a spirited disagreement over two ways to interpret our research findings. Her interpretation was wrong, of course, but I liked challenging her about it, if only to see her temper flash.

I had no interest in renewing a personal debate in front of Logan, yet when she got to that part of the explanation, there was no way around mentioning our disagreement, if only in passing. Logan jumped on it and had to hear both our arguments. Then he promptly declared that Elena’s interpretation made more sense. This from a guy who has never taken an anthropology course in his life, has never read any of the articles we cited, and hadn’t even heard 10 percent of the facts.

I told myself he was only baiting me, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion he was trying to impress her. It didn’t work…or at least I didn’t think it did.

At five-thirty, Elena left for dinner. Logan tried to persuade her to join us, but she insisted she had enough homework to last her into the night, and besides, we must want time alone together. From the look on Logan’s face, this was the last thing he wanted.

He closed the door behind her, then slowly turned to me.