Page 39 of My Cosplay Escape
She adds an emoji with a single tear.
On my run home after my shift at the gym, I am able to get a grip on the situation. Yeah, Adam being my TA is a speed bump, but I am not going to stop attending class because of him. I’ll keep going. We don’t know each other outside of Superhero Escapes. Pretty face aside—and goldfish yes, he has one—he is just a guy paying for school like everyone else. Everyone TAs at some point. He happens to be mine. It’s no big deal. I’ve got this. I’m not messing around.
Chapter Eleven
I remember enough of my previous college career to know that the labs are not optional but essential. My other classmates bemoan the early lab hours, but I am there that first Friday at seven a.m., ready with a draft of my essay and two of my homework problems that made absolutely no sense.
Adam is there, too, maybe not quite as ready as I am. Honestly, he looks like he just climbed out of bed. His eyes have that soft focus to them, and goldfish, they’re a pretty shade—like the ocean on a gray morning. “Hey, Hoodie,” Adam says, punching in the code to the lab door.
“Good morning, Adam.”
A smile twitches up a corner of his mouth. Is he pleased that I remembered his name? “Just rolled out of bed in time for lab hours?” he asks.
“I’ve been up since four, thanks.”
He chokes slightly on his coffee. “What on earth have you been doing since four a.m.?”
“HIIT. Sprints, mostly. I like to run when I can’t sleep. Did you roll out of bed just in time for lab hours?”
He stops sipping his coffee. “You don’t strike me as a runner.”
I bristle and drop my book bag to the floor with a thud. “What the fudge is that supposed to mean?”
“Whoa, calm down. You want to talk economics?”
“I want you to read my essay.” I pull out my copy.
“I don’t proofread essays,” Adam says. And he’s cockier in real life than when I see him at the escape room. Is that because of stress? But how is TAing more stressful than running a business? Unless…
“Why? No one else is here yet.” It’s just me, Adam, and the fluorescent lights down here in the econ lab.
“Fine.” He grabs my essay and manages to dribble coffee on the first page. Yeah, we’re off to a great TA-student start. “This reads like an email.”
“Can you give me some actionable feedback?”
He reads on. He reads the entire essay before handing it back to me. “It’s good. Your tone strikes me as being”—he seems to be sifting through his thoughts for just the right word—“informal. I mean, it makes it all very accessible.” He looks at me over the top of his coffee cup again. His gaze wavers. “But that’s not always the idea in academia.”
“You want me to change my tone?” More formal. Okay, that’s fair feedback. Maybe this will work, him being my TA. I decide to dial it down. Nobody’s their best first thing in the morning, right? I scribble a note in my magenta-sparkled notebook. It has a unicorn and the wordsBelieve in your dreamson the front. It was a gift from Gwen, and I use it ironically.
“Yes. No. If you want.” Adam sighs. “It’s a solid essay.” He rubs the back of his neck. “High-intensity interval training, huh?”
“Clears the mind,” I say.
“You wrote this essay afterward?”
“I revised it.”
He swallows, and I swear the negative space between us radiates for a moment with stippling. “Do you have any other questions?”
“Plenty,” I say.
He does a double take.
I stare back at him. Goldfish, his eyes. And a white T-shirt again. Yum. I feel like I am actively resisting a magnetic field. I’ve been this close to Adam before, but not in my real skin. There’s always been my Catstrike outfit between us. Without a mask on… I don’t know. It feels oddly intimate. Just him, me, and the hum of the fluorescent lights.
Another student walks into the lab, and the spell breaks. Not that there was any magic in the first place.
Adam rises—well, he digs his knee into the table, winces, and then hobbles upright. “Cool. Brenda will be in soon. She’s great with, erm, questions.”
