Return (Coming Home #1) (8 page)

Like my crush on him.
And his crush right back at me...
 

He ignore
s
J
im
and reache
s
out for me. My knee
i
s skinned and blood fill
s
in the mesh of my pant
y
hose. The back of my tight skirt
i
s split high. Not so high as to show my butt, but close.

“I said ‘hey!’” J
im
shout
s
.

“Heard you,” I grumble, leaning across his twitchy feet to grab my own shoe.
Jim k
nocked me off my feet and out
of my shoes. A giggle bubble
s
up again.

I suppress it.

Eric turns to J
im
and the two are inches from each other, faces burning with aggression.

My former a
n
thropology teaching assistant and what look
s
like a football player
a
re squaring off.

Over
me
.

Not me in a romantic sense. At least, not J
im
. Eric, though, is protecting my honor in so
m
e kind of sweet, macho way.

I don’t know what to
do.

A tiny crowd forms, and then triples in size as an orientation group walks by, the teen boys so geeky. They look like baby birds in a nest,
with
long, hairless necks and cheeks.

The girls stare at me. The boys stare at the cockfight that’s about to erupt.

One of J
im
’s friends lumbers over. “Don’t pick a fight with a professor, you douche. Wanna miss your chance at the draft?”

Eric snorts.
“The only draft he has a chance at is the breeze that blows when his date runs out the door after seeing his wee
little pecker
—”

I am standing now and grab Eric’s arm, hard. J
im
’s turned away and doesn’t hear, but his friend does. He shakes his head hard, like a dog with a wet face. Like he can’t believe a professor would—

Wait.
Professor
?

“You’re a professor here now?”

With one eye glaring
at J
im
, he spares the other to smile at me. “Yes. Assistant Professor Horner. Department of Latin American Studies.”

“No kidding.”

He brushes my shoulders. Grass floats off like it’s escaping. “No kidding.” His lip curls up at the expression.

“Congratulations,” I add. “Last time I saw you, you were headed to Mexico for archival and then field work.” I had been jealous then, an eager sophomore
ready to follow. Anthropology and archaeology were my passions. The past is so fascinating.

Especially when it’s not your own.

“There was an opening after Professor Michaelson died,” he says, shrugging. “I had six months to finish my dissertation and defend it, and I did it. Got the job. Here at Yates forever, if they’ll have me.” The grin he sho
o
t
s
toward the administration building look
s
a
little morbid.

’Til death do us part
, I th
ink
.

“What are you doing here?”
he asks.
We start to walk toward the main building, my right ankle a bit wobbly. By the end of the day, I can tell, my ankle will throb and scream. Right now it’s just whimpering.

“New job. Starting this morning,” I say, my voice a bit unsteady. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to run into people from
my time here, three years ago. So many ghosts.

“Job? What are you to do?” His homeland’s accent c
omes
through, the words rolling off his tongue l
i
ke a melody. I always loved to hear Eric talk in lecture class.

He loved to just be with me. I friend-zoned him, though, and he wouldn’t dare date a student.
T
he time we’d spent hanging out for a semester carried with it a weird air. Unrequited feelings
suck. They suck when you’re the one carrying a torch for someone else.

I think it’s even worse when you’re the object of
the
unwanted affection.

Eric’s look of anticipation makes my stomach flip, and not in a good way. He walk
s
up the small set of stairs to the main doors. I cut left, and he follows.

“This is the dean’s wing, Carrie. Are you working...” His voice fades out and his eyes grow
wide. “Aye, no. He didn’t.”

I stop. Acid runs through me, quick and edgy, making my blood boil and bubble. I feel my face flush.
M
y knee feels like pins are pricking it.

“He
what
?”

“Are you the new
program coordinator
in the dean’s office?” Eric whispers. His face spreads with ten different emotions in ten seconds. I react with a cold shutdown of every emotion I can.

I succeed, but barely.
Watching him, I pretend this is a
field study
. I’m just observing him. A watcher doesn’t react. A watcher just sees.

“It’s
Dean
Landau now, you know,” Eric says in a tight voice. He pulls the cuffs of his shirt down to poke out from under his jacket. Hs eyes have changed. Closed off. Gone dark.
H
e won’t catch my eye.

Uh-oh.

“I heard yesterday. I didn’t know until then,” I tell Eric.

He doesn’t
seem to know what to do with that information, his mouth opening and closing three times before he snaps it shut, like a trap door.

And then emotion flickers in his eyes. “Good luck, Carrie,” he says, turning to a small stairwell that leads up, I know, to the
Latin American Studies
department’s offices.

That emotion. I know it well.

It’s pity.

You see pity in enough eyes and you come to detect
it before your mind knows.

Shake it off
, I tell myself. Great. Now I’m using pop music to guide my inner emotional state.

It could be worse.

A
s
he walks up the stairs I search the hallway for a women’s room. Aha! There it is. I remember now. There’s one on every floor, to the right of the stairwell.

I go in, pushing the heavy, windowless oak door. A radiator hisses. In August? I chuckle.
Good old Yates. Dad always told me Facilities was the department that received the least funding and the most responsibility. The job never ended, which was good for him. He got plenty of work. I frown at the memory.

Fat lot of good it did him.

One look in the mirror and I groan. My hair is a tangled mess with grass in it. My knee looks like I got checked in roller derby by someone named Hellbrawna
Knockyersocksoff. A smudge of dirt rims my right eye socket, like a football player wearing under-eye grease.

And my skirt makes me look like a whore. One more inch and not only would people se
e
my panties, they’d be able to tell whether I waxed down there.

No time to head home. I check my phone. Hell. I’m late already! With the handful of things in my purse
that might help,
I scramble to look
presentable, washing off the dirt, blotting the worst of the blood up and ignoring the run on my
panty
hose.

On ever-wobbly ankles, I make my way to the dean’s office. With a trembling hand I open the outer door and walk up to an empty reception desk.

Mine. That’s where I will soon sit.

And then a woman stands from behind the counter and her eyes
meet mine.
 

Definitely not filled with pity.

“
No way,” Claudia Landau hisses as our eyes meet. In high school we called her The Claw, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead nine times over right now.
 

Her fingers
fist
in her hand, the bright-red nails curling in so hard her nickname r
i
ng
s
in my ears.
I’ve shed enough blood today. Don’t need any more, especially at
her
hands.
 

“You got the job?
You
?” She snorts and unfurls her
hand. Fingers reach up and she tucks a long strand of onyx hair behind one perfect ear. Claudia is beautiful. Stunning. Model perfect, with flawless porcelain skin.
Wide chocolate-brown eyes, broad, high cheekbones
.
Full lips.
 

And a personality as ugly as the outside is gorgeous.

“Carrie
Myerson
,” she says, circling me like I’m a piece of meat. Her eyes take in my skinned knee, my messy hair,
and suddenly my stoma
c
h goes cold. All the promises I made myself seconds ago fade.

It won’t be okay. Nothi
n
g will be okay here. Professor—no,
Dean
Landau will be hard enough to work for.

I’d forgotten about Claudia.

“You look like a piece of shit that’s been dragged around
attached to
the ass hair of a cat,” she murmurs. Her voice is like an icicle. Cold, and with a point that pierces.

Eloquent.
She always did have a flair for the dramatic. In middle school, she tormented me. Talked a friend into stealing my clothes once while we were in gym
class
. I had to wear my gym uniform the rest of the day. That’s social suicide when you’re in seventh grade.

Then in eighth grade, she got jealous when I won the choir competition.
I had t
he only solo in the spring concert. Somehow, she spread rumors
that
I
spread rumors that the football team captain had gotten the head cheerleader pregnant. And they aborted the baby. You can’t prove
that you
didn’t
spread rumors.
 

C
onvenient, huh? I was shunned. Booed at the concert. Mrs.
B
yers, the choir director, tried to control it, but you can’t stop the contagion of a queen bee
on the warpath
.

After that
, she’d just been a royal bitch to me and anyone
she didn’t suck up to for popularity points.
Some new, shiny object caught her attention. Her drama followed.
 

I see college hasn’t matured her at all.

“Nice,” she says, waving her hand dismissively, “suit. If you can call it that. The tear up the back is a great touch.” Sarcasm drips from her words like venom.

Please tell me she doesn’t work here.

A new wave of cold takes over. I fight not
to shiver. No way could she be my boss, right? I was told I report directly to the dean.

But if they created some job between us...

The doorway between the little reception room and the dean’s actual, private office fills with a
strong,
wide man with grey hair and stylish glasses. He’s looking down at a stack of papers and bumps into Claudia, who sneers at him. She yelps.

“Papa! You almost
made me break a heel!”

“I barely brushed against you,” Dean Landau sa
ys
. His voice is neutral. Controlled.

He’s used to dealing with her. I feel a pang of sympathy. Raising a daughter like The Claw must take a lot out of you.

The sympathy fades when he looks u
p
and sees me. Dark brown eyes catch mine.
T
here’s an intelligence there. It’s scanning me.
He’s
like a robot programmed to evaluate.

Then he smiles, and he’s charming. Really warm and welcoming, as he reaches his hand out and pumps mine hard.

“Carrie! So glad you’re here.”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was a nice guy. Like Brian. Or my dad. Or
M
ark—

Oh. Wait.
Nice guys don’t arrest your dad and testify against them.
 

A
nd they definitely don’t set your dad up for federal drug charges.

“I’m so pleased to work with
you,”
the dean
adds. I see. This is the game.

We pretend nothing ever happened. Before.

Before.

I can play, too. If life handed out degrees, mine would be a Bachelor’s degree in Pretending Nothing Happened.

Maybe a master’s
degree
.

Make it a Ph.D.

“Dean Landau,” I say, matching his grip. It’s strong, his skin impossibly smooth for a man. My dad and Brian have rough hands, the kind of palms
a man gets from twi
st
ing wrenches, holding roofing nail guns for hours, laying pipe.

Dean Landau uses his mind to earn his living, though. And never, ever his hands.

Wouldn’t want those to get dirty.

I know he leaves that to other people.

“Have you spoken with IT yet?” the dean asks, already looking back at his papers. Claudia watches us like a snake deciding which of two mice to eat.

“IT?”
I ask, feeling dumb.
He sounds like he’s saying
eye teeth
, which makes no sense.
 

He nods, not making eye contact, and begins to turn away. “You need to go to Information Technology, in the engineering building, to get your staff permissions, email, and such. Just come back when it’s done.”

And
just like that
he’s gone, the door to his office closing like a coffin lid.

Claudia’s eyes b
ur
n into
me. “You didn’t even know that?” She snorts.

Rage fills me. My face flushes, and I know I look like I’m twelve. Mark used to say emotions showed on my face like a neon sign.

“Why are you here? Other than to visit your father?” I ask, working hard to maintain a professional tone.

“I am here because I want to be,” she says, crossing her arms and leaning on a filing cabinet across from the main
reception desk.

My
desk.

If I pick a fight, this will be the worst ten minutes of any new job ever. I decide to try a new tack.

“Fine. If you’re here, maybe you can help me.” Asking her a question can’t hurt, right?

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she says loudly. “You want my help? You take the job I was supposed to get and now yo
u
want my help?”