“I’m here to talk about my dissertation,” Ned says. That sounds right. More professional. Though his mouth just keeps moving. “You’re two years younger than I am.”
Abbot turns back to the window. “I told you, I’m not available right now.”
“It’s your office hours.”
“I’m watching my sister.”
“Chris sent me.”
“You’ve mentioned.” Abbot straightens slightly. “Dogs shouldn’t be left unattended.”
Ned opens his mouth again. He shuts it. Dogs are fine. Ned can leave Baxter by himself, no problem. Hell, he’s alone right now. He’s—
Ned steps up behind Abbot and cranes to see past him. “That’s my dog.”
Abbot just looks at him. They’re standing too close. Way, way too close. Close enough that Ned can smell hints of aftershave and see the darker shade of stubble on Abbot’s thin cheek, where there’s already the brush of a five o’clock shadow on his pale skin.
Ned takes a step backward. “Sorry.”
“You shouldn’t leave your dog out there,” Abbot says.
That’s not what I was apologizing for, Ned thinks and steps back again. Abbot’s an attractive guy, Ned remembers all over again. An asshole, but a good-looking one, with that jawline and those eyes. “Chris said he sent you my dissertation.”
Abbot turns back to the window. “I haven’t read it yet.”
“Well, can you read it now?”
“No,” Abbot says, short and curt—and yep, there it is, the reason Abbot fills Ned with boiling ire rather than any simmer of interest.
He clears his throat loud enough for Abbot to hear. ”I’m trying to finish up edits this semester so I can graduate.”
“I have my sister,” Abbot says, his shoulder turned toward Ned.
Ned raises his eyebrows. He looks at the window, then back at Abbot.
“She’s down there,” Ned says.
“With a dog.”
My dog, Ned thinks, who is better behaved than some professors in the department.
“You can’t read it right now?” Ned asks.
“No, I can’t read a several hundred-page dissertation right now.”
“The chapter on my results is only fifty pages.”
Abbot’s eyebrow twitches. “How concise.”
Ned huffs out a breath. He can’t tell if Abbot’s joking.
No, he isn’t joking. Abbot’s probably not capable of joking. Though whether he means that chapter should be longer or shorter, Ned can’t tell.
“Well, can we go over the plan, then?” Ned asks.
“I have some work to finish,” Abbot says. “Perhaps afterward.”
Perhaps. What an ass. They all have work to finish. That’s the whole goddamn point.
“Chris said you’d help,” Ned says.
“Chris also has greatly reduced our working hours.”
Chris calls you Henry, Ned wants to say. You have a sister, and she has an octopus on her phone, and where along the way did she get that, while you got an enormous stick up your ass?
“I can go over my results with you now so you don’t have to read the entire thing,” Ned says. The least Abbot could do is bother to turn around. “Or I can go hang out with your sister, if that helps, and leave you in peace to read it now.”
“No, we’re leaving soon.”
“It’s your office hours,” Ned says again. He knows he sounds like a broken record.
“Which I’m unfortunately not available for.”
Because no one comes, Ned’s sure. It’s still no excuse. They’re here to help students. That’s their foremost job, to teach and to support students, and their research happens outside of that. It’s how Chris runs his department and how the deans run the college. And technically, Ned’s a student, and technically, Abbot’s the professor who is supposed to be working with him, so technically—
“Henry.”
Ned twists around. It’s that guy again. The one who already interrupted him once today in Chris’s office and now is doing the same in Abbot’s. Abbot finally turns, pockets his phone, and takes his jacket off the coatrack set next to his perfectly, painfully neatly organized bookshelf.
“Liesl is waiting for us downstairs,” Abbot says.
Ned wants to scoff. That’s a hell of a lie. She’s downstairs with Baxter laid across her lap. And Abbot’s just . . . Abbot’s just leaving Ned here. This is absurd. Their boss sent Ned here and Abbot’s abandoning his work because this guy wants him to, this guy who just showed up and—
—and is Abbot’s father.
They’ve got that same look to them, a face that could be handsome if it weren’t so pinched, dark hair and glasses and a haughtiness that’s apparently genetic. At least the sister got spared from that preternatural stiffness. Jump, the older Mr. Abbot could probably say, and Abbot would ask, How high? given how he’s already brushing Ned aside and shrugging into his coat.
The two of them are the same height, have the same lean, spare build and the same god-awful way of walking, like it’s imperative they get to where they’re going as stiffly and efficiently as possible. It’d be graceful on anyone else. On them—on Abbot especially—it just looks so damn stuffy.
So that’s where he gets his attitude, Ned thinks.
“Thanks for the help!” Ned calls after him. Abbot doesn’t turn around, and Ned just stands there watching the two of them walk down the stairs, twin footsteps echoing back toward him.
Chapter Three
The projector shines a blank blue light on the screen, and when Ned shifts in his seat, the wheel on his chair squeaks again. At least there’s no Abbot around to glare at him, and Ned rolls backward a couple inches, kicking his legs out beneath the conference room table.
“Turn your computer off and back on again,” Lee says.
“It worked yesterday.” Sameer leans over the projector, fiddling with the cord.
“It’s your computer, it can’t read that cord,” Ned says. He takes another bite of his salad and wakes up his laptop. This lunch talk is dragging, and that’s saying something considering how these typically go. He’s got a minute or two—more if he’s lucky—and he can get some work done.
Anticipated date of graduation, reads the job application on his screen, the Adams University logo staring back at him from the top of the webpage. Ned pulls the inside of his cheek between his teeth. Last spring, he’d once thought. And look at him now. December, he types. He deletes it. May, he writes and erases that too. If he defends his dissertation in October, he’ll be out of here this semester. December, he writes again and hits next.
Another page of questions loads. He sighs. All of this is on the résumé he’s already uploaded, and he’s now retyping it.
“Give your talk without the presentation,” Aliyah says.
Ned pushes his chair back from the table. Sameer worked all week on this presentation, crowding their small office by pacing back and forth, mumbling as he practiced, and Ned doesn’t really want to fill out yet another job application that he won’t hear back from.