4

Nico

“No,” Nico said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“But why not?”

It was a typical Maya question: smart, logical, ruthlessly practical. As they approached Eldridge Hall, where the seminar was being held, she checked her sectioned Afro in the door’s glass. Then she looked at Nico.

“Because he’s a cop.”

Maya didn’t snort, but the cool non-response sounded like one anyway.

“And I don’t date cops. Not anymore.”

“Not after big, bad, and brooding, you mean.”

“Not after Emery. Exactly.”

“That’s not a reason. Why not?”

Nico scowled and yanked the door open for her. They’d been friends since their first year in grad school together, and while Maya had, since then, finished her master’s degree and started a Ph.D. program at Notre Dame, they’d stayed close. It helped that their overlapping research interests brought them together—there weren’t that many people working on Christian existentialism.

The downside was that she’d known Nico long enough to have seen some of his less desirable phases. And, of course, that she could call him on his bullshit.

“Because,” Nico said, lowering his voice as he followed her inside, “I’m busy. Did you think about that?”

“Oh my God.”

They followed the hall, checking room numbers as they went. Like the rest of the campus, the old neogothic building was chilly even with the heat (theoretically) on, and their steps rang out on the ancient flagstone floor. It even smelled cold, if that was a thing—which Nico was pretty sure it was.

“I’m serious. I’ve got to finish this degree; I can’t keep dicking around forever.”

“He said.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” She offered a saccharine smile. “Go on.”

“I’ve got to finish my paper for the seminar.”

That stopped her.

“I mean—” Nico tried.

“You haven’t finished your paper?”

“I wrote—”

“For this seminar? The one that we’re at? Right now?”

“See—”

“Where you’re going to have a chance to submit said paper to be included in a collection edited by some of the top scholars in our field?”

“Yes, but—”

“But only, Nicolás, after you present said paper in seminar and have it ruthlessly ripped to shreds. In a loving and constructive way. That paper?”

Nico’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah, that paper.”

“You’re self-sabotaging. That’s always been the problem.” And she whirled away.

“I’m not self-sabotaging,” Nico said as he trailed after her. “I’m almost done. It’s, like, ninety percent done. Ninety-five. And it’s good. I mean, I know it’s still going to get ripped apart, but it’s good, Maya.”

“He’s an adult,” Maya said when Nico caught up to her.

Nico groaned.

“He wears real clothes, and he’s got a real job.”

“We’re not doing this.”

“He’s not a barista. He’s not a server. He’s not a bartender.”

“Those are real jobs. It’s classist of you to say those aren’t real jobs.” Maya shot him a look, and Nico raised his hands in surrender. “I’m saying the guys I’ve gone out with—”

“Exclusively, Nico. You exclusively go out with guys like that. Because at the beginning, they’re easy, and they’re uncomplicated, and they want to fool around, and their lives aren’t going anywhere. I know those are real jobs, Nico. But it’s not a real job when Chase’s life plan is to ‘open his own gay bar’ when his dad still does his taxes and he spends all his tips on clothes, and it’s not a real job when Marcus wants to get high and go out and has nothing lined up on the horizon. This guy is gorgeous—”

“He’s not that handsome.”

“I saw him, Nicolás, with my own two eyes. In the coffee equivalent of a wet T-shirt contest. And he’s totally into you.”

“He’s not—”

“Did you see how he was looking at you? Because I did. It was like a puppy that got hit in the head.”

“Actually, we did hit our heads—”

She stopped at the door they’d been looking for. “What are the red flags? What am I missing?”

“He ghosted me. Stopped texting me, totally. Out of the blue, Maya. I mean, things were going, or I thought they were, and then…nothing.”

Maya’s face softened for a moment. Then it hardened again. “Did you ask him why?”

Nico felt his jaw go weak. “Why should I—”

“You are unbelievable,” she said and pushed into the room.

The classroom that had been given over for the seminar was large, with desks rising in tiers toward leaded glass windows at the back. Cloud-colored light traced the patterns of the cames on the worn carpet squares. A Bunn coffee urn sat on a cart near the door, and Nico caught an acrid whiff as he passed it.

Three other grad students were already there, and because Nico had seen their emails and stalked them, he recognized each of them. Ridson was Black, with an oval face and his hair in short twists. Kaylee was white, her chestnut hair in a long side part, her eyes and mouth quick and expressive. Giovanni (Gio, who posted almost exclusively videos of himself doing yoga in nothing but a pair of tiny bike shorts) looked like Daniel Radcliffe meets Frankenstein. (A voice that sounded a little too much like Emery’s corrected, Frankenstein’s monster). Skinny, with glasses, his complexion the color of ceiling paint, he’d sent everyone an email inviting them to read “my latest piece in the New Yorker” before the seminar. Nico, channeling earth-shattering levels of pettiness, had checked—latest piece, it turned out, was only technically correct because it was also Gio’s only piece.

After murmured hellos, Maya continued in a whisper, “You are going to talk to him, Nico.”

“Will you knock it off? He’s cute, fine. He’s obviously not into me—”

Maya gave him laser eyes.

Nico stammered through the rest of it. “—and I’ve got to focus. I need to make a good impression, okay? I need to get into a doctoral program. I need publications, and letters of rec, and, you know, a reputation. I don’t need a random hookup.”

“Oh,” a familiar voice said. “Hookups. Nico, do tell.”

“What,” he managed in a strangled whisper, “the fuck is going on? Is this the fucking ghosts of hookups past?”

Maya smiled, even though she was clearly trying to look sympathetic. Then she said, “Hi, Clark.”

Nico forced himself to turn around. Clark Beaumont was white-bread money: movie-star hair, A-lister scruff, and he wore cardigans the way God had intended. He wasn’t handsome, not really, but he had an appeal. Nico remembered, his face heating, that the little cleft in Clark’s chin was eminently kissable.

“Why are you here?”

A tiny smile darted across Clark’s face as he sat at the desk with Nico and Maya. “Hello, Nicolás. Good to see you too. I thought maybe you’d be doing a shoot.”

Nico glanced around to see if anyone had heard, but no one seemed to be paying attention. He stared daggers at Clark.

“Oops,” he said.

“You weren’t on the email chain. I would have seen your name.”

“I found out about the seminar late.” The smile was more of a smirk now. “Thank God Dr. Perry and Dr. Meza are friends. I would have hated to miss out on this opportunity.”

Branches scraped the leaded glass window. The silence in the room—particularly from the other three students—had dialed in on Clark.

“You mean you didn’t even apply?” Maya asked.

“I found out too late,” Clark said. Nico remembered that too-smooth tone. “I would have applied, of course, if I’d known.”

Across the room, Kaylee blurted, “That’s so unfair.”

Ridson shook his head.

“It’s the way the world works,” Gio said. “I didn’t know anyone at the New Yorker when I submitted my latest piece—”

“Was that Karl Jaspers thing yours?” Clark said. “That was cute.”

Say one thing for Clark Beaumont, Nico thought. He’s good at putting people in their place.

While Gio apparently died a slow death by humiliation, Clark turned back to Nico and Maya. He set his hand on the back of Nico’s chair—just casual enough that it could be taken for friendliness, but the way his thumb traced Nico’s shoulder blade, anything but. “Don’t tell me you’re fucking him, please. I’ve seen his videos; you can do better.”

“Not that it’s any of your business—” Nico began.

There was the smirk again. The spark of suggestion in Clark’s blue eyes. His thumb moved again, millimeters, and Nico remembered what it had felt like when Clark had bit down on his collarbone.

“—but no. I was telling Maya that I don’t think it’s smart or appropriate or professional to do that kind of thing at conferences.” And he added a long, warning look for Clark.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” Clark said. “Obviously you should be circumspect. But what you do on your own time, well, it’s your business. Personally, I think conferences are great opportunities to meet people. I mean, we’re all so specialized, and we’re in this intellectual hothouse, and how often do we get to spend time around people who share our interests—” His thumb scritched at Nico’s shoulder blade again. The corner of his mouth quirked. “—and passions?”

“And how much do you want to be labeled,” Maya asked drily, “in not so many words, as a poser fuckboy who’s wasting everyone’s time?”

“I’m not saying—”

“I know what you’re saying. And did you ever think about the fact that there are a lot of double standards in place? It’s fine for a straight white man. It’s probably even fine for a gay white man. But if you’re a person of color? Or if you’re a woman? All you’re doing is throwing fuel on the fire that a lot of these bigots already have burning. You’re speaking from a position of privilege, and you don’t even know it.”

A hint of color came into Clark’s cheeks. He shifted in his seat, his body squared up with Maya’s now. “Nothing’s going to change if we all keep pretending things are okay and do whatever they expect us to do. There’s nothing wrong with meeting someone at a professional event and, at an appropriate time, pursuing that relationship. We should be pushing back on anyone who says otherwise.”

“Great point, Clark,” Nico said. “That’ll be my subversive agenda: get plowed at every possible work event.”

“Excuse me?”

The voice belonged to an old man with dandelion-fluff hair. Nico recognized, from his publicity photos, Dr. Chapman. Behind him was Dr. Young, dressed in a butterfly-patterned muumuu, and Dr. Meza, fiftyish and practically throbbing with silver fox energy. Meza gave Nico a tiny, crooked smile before he rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry—” Nico stammered. “We were—I was—”

“I don’t believe,” Dr. Chapman piped as he moved into the room, “I should have to explain to a roomful of rising scholars the kind of behavior—and discourse—that’s appropriate for serious professionals.”