Page 46 of My Cosplay Escape
Girlfriend?! My mouth is gaping open. Shock much?
“Oh, yeah. The Comic-Con princess—”
Oh my fudging goldfish. Adam told Brenda that I was his girlfriend? I’ve heard enough. “Hey,” I say, knocking pointedly on the office door.
Adam and Brenda both look up like the guilty little monsters they are. Brenda slouches down in her office chair. It’s her turn to go red, and it doesn’t go well with all the black. Adam, who was slumped against the office wall, straightens and pulls his hand out of his hair. He must have been grabbing fistfuls of it while he was stomping back and forth, because it is sticking straight up.
“Brenda, I’m glad I caught you.” She said she’d be in the lab, but here she is in the graduate students’ office. With Adam. Yelling about me. “I have my course work you said you wanted redone.”
“You could have emailed it to me.” Brenda stares at her computer screen, which she then turns on.
I try hard to remain civil. “I’ll remember that from now on.”
“I’m going to have to mark this as late.” Brenda glances up with an arched eyebrow. “The assignments were due last week and the week before, respectively.”
She has to be kidding, but when her lips purse with extra bitchiness, something fuses hard and fast inside me. “Hmm. Well, obviously, that is something the two of you need to discuss, as well as the nature of your”—I gesture between them—“relationship. I wonder if you’ve been in yet to see Professor Burnbalm. He seems preoccupied lately with the idea that everyone in the Econ Department is being strictly professional.”
I slam my folder of essays and rewritten homework questions on the closest desk. “Or maybe I should give him a call now, and we can hash this all out together.” Brenda looks like she might be physically ill. I’m too mad to hazard a glance at Adam. “Brenda, Adam.” I sound like my mom chiding naughty schoolchildren. “Can you please leave me out of your Shirley Temples the next time you want a go at each other?”
“Sarah,” Adam calls as I turn to leave.
I turn around and stare him into silence. I then round on Brenda. “If you for one minute think you’re going to screw me with a B grade, you’ve got another thing coming, Brenda. You’re going to have every single one of your fudge brownie TAs give me a blind score on my essays from here on out to make sure that no bias is creeping into my grade or throwing off the sanctity of your beloved curve. Have fun explaining that one.”
I snap my bag closed and head back up the basement stairs.
Outside, the dry Santa Ana winds catch my skirt, whip my hair back, and feel good for once.
“Sarah!” Adam jogs toward me, breathless, face flushed. Goldfish, he looks good. I mean… if I was looking.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you. And I’m not about to rewrite another essay on Adam Smith.”
“I just—”
I hold up a hand. “Why don’t you not and save me some trouble?” I slip on my sunglasses and walk away. Okay. Maybe I saunter just a little.
Chapter Fourteen
“Tony,” I say in the nicest, most respectful voice I can muster. “I have a favor to ask.”
“As long as it’s not a scheduling favor.” He doesn’t look up from his computer.
Shirley Temples. I should have asked Gwen if they were on again or off again before I attempted to ask for another two scheduling miracles.
“I had to change my econ class to Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”
Tony groans.
“My Wednesdays are free. All of them. Every last bit of them. I can swap someone a Wednesday for a Tuesday, right?”
“Sure.” Tony pulls up the schedule with feigned patience.
“That just leaves the question of a Thursday shift, yeah?”
“Let’s just see who I can switch you with. You want to take Kate’s Saturday night shift?”
I press my lips together. “Is there anything else?”
His patience is wearing. I can tell by how tightly he grips his mouse. “How about Henry’s Friday night?”
