Page 24 of Wicked Ends
Kenna hurried down the steps toward me, trailing two men in her wake. Both handsome, a little older than me, or a lot older, I had no idea. I was clearly terrible at judging ages.
One sported a novelty tie with music notes scrolling down the middle. The other had a sweater wrapped around his shoulders and glasses perched on his nose, looking for all the world like he’d come from a casting call for a debonair professor in a Hallmark movie.
The one with the musical note tie jogged down the stairs, grabbed the trash can from the corner, and crouched beside me.
“Here, be careful not to cut yourself. We musicians need our hands,” he said and smiled at me.
“Yeah, let Bill clean it up. You need your fingers.” Kenna leaned a hip on my desk. “Oh, this is Bill, he teaches composition, and this is Wade, he’s English Lit.”
Bill was on his haunches next to me, one hand stacked with mug shards, the other held out to me, despite mine being dirty with coffee.
I tentatively shook it. “I’m Anna.”
“So I’ve heard. I’ll have you know that you’re usurping my position as the youngest faculty member. Very rude, you know,” Bill said with a mock seriousness.
It had me questioning his friendliness, until he winked at me.
“Kidding, we need new blood in here, and according to Kenna, you’re quite the piano prodigy.”
“What! No, not at all,” I blurted, horrified at the idea that Kenna was going around and talking me up. The last thing I wanted wasattention, especially now that I had a wild card like Marcus in my class, holding my fate in his hands.
“Oh, take the compliment. What is the fashion with women refusing compliments these days? You know, in the medieval courts of Europe, knights and troubadours would lavish flowery praise on noblewomen, to the point of nearly competing for the most flattering comments, and the women encouraged it.” The other man, the one with model good looks, and who certainly knew it, approached us as he finished talking and watched us pick up the broken mug.
“If it became a competition, then surely it was more about demonstrating their wit and performative refined masculinity.” Bill turned a shit-eating grin on the man. Wade, Kenna had said his name was.
The other teacher frowned at him, clearly annoyed by the pushback.
“Is that right? Read much medieval romance literature, have you? Perhaps Chrétien de Troyes?”
Bill stood and dusted off his hands, walking across the room and returning the trash can to the corner. “Not lately, butDon Giovannidemonstrates my point perfectly, if you fancy getting your nose out of a book and listening to an opera now and then to broaden your horizons.”
Wade stared at his friend pointedly, then smiled at me. He held out his hand.
“I’m Wade Straiton. I teach English Literature, as Kenna mentioned. We talked Kenna into going to the dining hall with us, and she insisted we had to get you first.” Wade’s hand lingered a beat too long on mine. “I’m glad she did.”
I blinked at him, stumped for words.
Kenna appeared at his side and elbowed him sharply.
“Wade can’t help hitting on the opposite sex. Don’t worry about his feelings, and turn him down quickly, it’s kinder that way.” She linked her arm through mine. “You’re going to come to lunch with us, right?”
“I-I am going, I will go, but you don’t have to wait for me,” I said quickly. Staying in my classroom felt safer than wandering around and potentially running into Marcus.
“Of course we do,” Bill insisted. “Without a buffer, all we do is argue, as you can probably tell for yourself by now. Besides, you can’t go to the dining hall on your own on the first day.” His eyes widened comically.
“I can’t?”
Kenna laughed and shook her head. “They’ll eat you alive in there. Come on, get your things. We’re going.”
HHU was a huge campus and as such had more than one dining hall. We went to the one closest to the music department, and it was packed. I grabbed a tray, and we skipped the line, apparently a perk of being a professor. I apologetically picked out a few things, feeling awkward and new. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I also felt as if I had a great big flashing neon sign over my head that read “Student Fucker.”
After paying, I followed Wade and Bill to a table and sat.
“What are you having? Don’t tell me you’re the healthy type?” Bill complained as he took in my tray.
In my panic of not wanting to rub the line-skipping in anyone’s face, I’d opted for the closest things to the register, which turned out to be a dry green salad, without dressing, a plain chicken breast, and a small fruit salad. My hunger faded at the sight of it, but there was no way I was going back into that line.
“Not really. This is pretty healthy for cafeteria food. My college usually rotated fries, nuggets, and pizza, and that was about it.”
