Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
TORI
Finals week is hell. It’s the week before Christmas break, students are feral, professors are cranky, and the copy machine is on its third nervous breakdown of the morning.
The room smells like scorched toner and hot plastic, the kind of air that roughs up your throat.
Someone left a half full coffee mug cooling into bitterness beside the paper cutter.
I am one jammed paper tray away from committing a felony.
And to top it off? I’ve spent every day this week proctoring exams, babysitting grown ass adults with graphing calculators, and running errands for Dr. Johnson like I’m his personal assistant instead of the faculty secretary for this entire pod.
So yeah. I’m over this week. It’s Thursday, but it should be Friday.
I’m once again in the copy room, feeding a thirty-page exam into the machine, when I feel him enter.
Leo Euler doesn’t knock. He doesn’t clear his throat.
He doesn’t even pretend to give me warning.
He just shuts the door, locks it (why though?), and suddenly the room feels about three sizes smaller.
The lock clicks like a period at the end of a sentence I didn’t agree to.
My shoulders clock his proximity before my brain does—skin prickling, heat sliding between my shoulder blades (and thighs, no lies), pulse ticking in the soft spot under my jaw.
His palms land on either side of me, bracketing me against the copier, heat rolling off him like I somehow forgot what it feels like to be near him.
“Good morning, Tote,” he growls into my ear, voice low and smug and entirely too aware of itself.
I close my eyes. Inhale. His cologne is spice, pine, and something darker, and it’s not fair.
I can’t remember the last time a scent has pulled me under like this—dragged me straight back to that trail, to that kiss, to the Thanksgiving kitchen where he leaned too close and we shared stolen glances like foreplay.
Sun on my eyelids. His mouth opening against mine.
The stupid, perfect sound he made when I pulled him closer.
It’s all there, tucked behind my ribs like contraband.
I exhale, praying my voice doesn’t crack. “Dr. Euler. Can I help you with something?”
He chuckles, soft and lethal. And, because the universe hates me, my nipples pebble against my satin blouse like I’m starring in an HR complaint. Thin lace bra = zero protection. Fantastic. Truly an inspired day to wear fabric with the structural integrity of a dandelion.
Nope. Absolutely not. I swat his hand and circle to the other side of the machine to gather Dr. Johnson’s copies.
“If there’s nothing you need, I don’t know why you’re in here. Don’t you have exams to prep? Papers to grade? Other people to irritate?”
He shrugs. Completely unconcerned. “Probably. But this seemed more fun.”
Cocky bastard. Sweet bastard. Fuck-hot bastard. DAMMIT, TORI.
I reach for the stapler, too fast, the copies in my hand knocking it straight to the floor. Perfect. Excellent. Ten out of ten execution.
Leo crouches, scoops it up, but instead of handing it back like a civilized adult, he presses it against his chest.
I reach for it, but he doesn’t move. Suddenly I’m not grabbing a stapler, I’m grabbing his hand, holding a stapler, against his chest. His heart is right there under my fingers, steady and solid, and then he steps closer.
The filing cabinet presses into my back. No escape. Not that I want one.
I can barely breathe. Is he going to kiss me? Do I want him to kiss me? That’s a stupid question.
He doesn’t kiss me. Instead, that infuriating, adorable, oh-so-kissable half smile crests his face, and then stupid, stupid words fall from his lips.
“You always this clumsy with your variables,” he says, voice like silk, “or am I just the X you can’t solve for?”
Sweet Jesus. I cannot with him. “I don’t do equations with unreliable inputs.”
“Then let’s simplify.” His grin sharpens. “No distractions. Just you, me, and some hands-on calculus.”
“When are you going to realize that this isn’t calculus.”
“It is now.” His nose traces my jaw, deliberate, slow. When he reaches my ear, he whispers, “Because Tote… I’m about to find every curve on your graph.”
And I—snort. I actually, fucking, snort. The sound is undignified and exactly what I need—like popping a balloon in a too-warm room.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t worry.” He tips his head, lips close enough to graze. “I’ll start slow. Run a derivative. See where the slope’s steepest.”
“Oh my God.” My laugh bubbles up, half mortification, half arousal. “You’re so bad at this.” But also, like, why is this so fucking hot?
“Maybe. But I’m converging. And unless you want this function to go undefined—you might want to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” I whisper.
“Like you want a little chaos.”
“Fat chance.”
But he doesn’t back off. His chest brushes mine. His eyes burn into me. Every nerve ending in my body screams Yes. God, yes.
“You know what I think?” he murmurs.
“What?” My voice barely makes it out.
“I think what you really want is some nonlinear dynamics.”
NOPE. STOP THAT. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.
Not today, horny mathemetician!
I duck, shove past him, and yank the door open before I can make the worst decision of my life. Thank God for push locks that pop open when you turn the handle.
The office air blasts my face, and for two seconds, it almost works to calm my racing pulse.
I don’t turn back. I don’t need to. I know exactly what he looks like right now—smirk cocked, smug as hell, knowing full well I’m not immune to him. He’s probably watching me walk away, adjusting the start of an erection in his slacks—good God, woman, don’t think about that.
“Get back to work, Professor!” I call, chin high, even as my pulse tries to punch out of my throat.
My legs are jelly and my spine is steel; apparently both things can be true. I march because marching feels like backbone, and backbone is the only thing I’m willing to show him right now.
I grab my phone off my desk as I pass, clutching it like a lifeline, and march straight toward Dr. Johnson’s class with the stack of exams balanced like an offering.
He never asked me to proctor—I’m fairly certain he’s scheduled one of his grad students for this one—but I suddenly find myself in need of a morning activity.
I need the walk. I need the air. I need the space.
Because the truth is, Leo is not the problem. I am.
And I want him. Like, right now.
I tell myself I’m professional and composed and that the fact I flushed halfway to my ears is just the price of being a functioning adult. I tell myself this as I walk straight out of the pod, phone in one hand and thirty exams in the other.
The hallway hums with fluorescent light and sneaker squeaks.
A student laughs too loudly for 9 a.m. and a passing professor shushes him.
It’s finals week, after all, and every one of the classrooms in this building is filled with testing students.
The building exhales heat in uneven bursts, old radiators clanking like they’re in a fight with winter.
I pass Dr. Wallace’s open classroom door—he’s teaching Intro to Differential Equations this semester, which is quieter than everything else on campus, probably because half the students are asleep.
When I nod, he nods back in that literal, slightly panicked way he always does, like he’s not sure how humans work.
Poor, awkward turtle of a man. I keep walking.
Dr. Johnson’s room is a tiny shoebox of polyester and lecture chairs with fold-down desks. His grad student looks hung over and desperately in need of sleep, and is halfway out the door before I even finish saying, “I’ve got this.”
The students file in—hoodies up, earbuds tucked away, faces set like they’re heading into battle…
most of them unarmed. I stand at the front, drop the stack of exams on the desk, and start passing them out myself because otherwise they’ll end up crumpled and coffee-stained before the first page is even read.
Once everyone has a packet, I lay down the rules in my dry, non-negotiable voice, then settle at the little wooden desk in the corner like an executioner waiting for heads to roll.
I plant the proctor stare—the one that says ‘I can spot a hidden phone from orbit and I will end you with a whisper.’ It works. Mostly. Maybe. Probably not.
It’s a strange kind of silence, the hush that settles once twenty-something undergrads have an exam in front of them.
Not reverent silence, not focused silence—more like the quiet hum of collective dread.
Papers rustle, pencils scratch, someone clicks a mechanical one like it’s a fidget spinner. Good lord that clicking is annoying.
The kid in the front row chews on the end of his hoodie string.
Gross. Another keeps tapping her sneaker against the tile like Morse code.
I wonder if she’s communicating anything.
Like she’s an undercover spy, sent to Middle Peak University by some black ops organization to communicate secret messages to Russia through Dr. Johnson’s Linear Algebra II finals.
I huff a laugh at the absurdity of my thoughts, trying my best not to draw attention to myself.
I cross my legs and pretend to check my phone, but really, I’m people-watching.
Exams bring out the weirdest survival instincts.
One girl has three sharpened pencils lined up like weapons.
A guy in the back pulled out a bag of baby carrots, crunching away with his mouth open—again, gross—not a care in the world for the noise he’s making.
I half expect someone to start stress-knitting.
But no matter how interesting a distraction these students prove to be—despite the very reason I came in here in the first place—my brain drifts straight back to Leo.
Leo, with his smug growl in the copy room.
Leo, with his mouth so close to my ear I nearly lost my balance.