Page 19 of Tenure

He’s wearing faded jeans, a heather-grey T-shirt, and . . . black-rimmed glasses?

I swallow hard, again, because he looks—Fuck, I really wish I had underwear on right now.

He doesn’t acknowledge me as I sit down, doesn’t look up, just reaches out with his right hand and shoves a mug of coffee at me.

I wrap both hands around it and pick it up, watching him warily, sipping it.

I suppress a moan.Fuck, this tastes good.

The silence is tense but notentirelyuncomfortable. I think he’s distracted, his forehead wrinkled, and his mouth drawn down as he flips the page.

“What are you reading about?” I ask, taking another sip.

“Math.”

I poke the side of my cheek with my tongue. He’s spoken six words to me this morning and I’m already annoyed.Cool.

“Whatarticleare you reading?”

He glances up at me over his glasses and my stomach clenches. I hide half my face behind the mug, grateful he can’t see my lip quivering from nerves.

“The Efficient Numerical Method for Solving a Quadratic Riccati Differential Equation.”

I take another sup of my coffee and try to picture the photo that went along with that article.

“By Yirga?” I ask.

His eyes widen, and he leans back in his chair a little, studying me.

“Yes,” he says shortly.

I frown. “I didn’t understand that one.”

He stares at me, like I’m a problem he still hasn’t puzzled out. Just like when we met.

“Where did he lose you?”

“Somewhere around the Runge-Kutta method.”

His mouth twitches. “That’s because I haven’t taught that to you yet.”

“You haven’t taught anything to me yet. The textbook has.”

“I wrote the textbook.”

“I thought youco-wroteit.”

I sip my coffee loudly. He lookspissed.Pissed enough to throw something. Or possibly spank me. My stomach clenches not altogether unpleasantly at the idea. Instead he slides the journal forwards, scooching his chair closer, and grabbing a blank notebook and a pencil from behind him on the counter.

“Show me where you can solve to.”

He holds it out, and I can’t tell if it’s a peace offering or a threat, but I take it anyway and glance at the formula, trying to shake off the last of the haze from the night before and remember how to use my brain like a functioning adult again.

I scratch out the general form as a differential equation, and then start breaking down the intervals into subinterval mesh.

I pause again, sucking on the end of the pencil, trying to work it out, but the practical application ofyas a free parameter evades me.

I glance up to tell him this is where I’m stuck and find his eyesgluedto my mouth. I pop the pencil out and he jumps, eyes sliding up to mine, a hint of somethingalmostsheepish on his face.

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