Plenty of time for breakfast in the morning. “Looks like I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice, Cheyenne.” Mattie raised an eyebrow. “This is just the only good one.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll do it.”
Hersh slapped his hands on the table and pushed out of the chair. “Thank God that went quickly.”
Cheyenne and most of her teachers frowned at the man as he sped past the conference table and headed through the door without another word.
“We’re very glad to hear it,” Beckwith added. “And I, for one, am confident in your ability to switch gears like this. Good luck.” He stood too, and Beckwith followed him out with a small nod at the grad student-turned-student teacher.
“Professor Bergmann will fill you in on all the details and help you get set up. You start Monday.” LePlant held out her hand, and Cheyenne slowly reached up to take it. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do.”
“You and me both.” Sighing, the halfling turned her chair to watch the woman step out of the room, then spun quickly toward Mattie. “You’re gonna fill me in on the details, huh?”
“Don’t I always?” Mattie slung a medium-sized tote over her shoulder. “You can thank me later, kid. Right now, I’m thanking you.”
“I mean, it’s my master’s on the line, apparently.”
“Well, yeah. And you can do whatever you want with it. Not my place to judge. You also just picked up my Advanced Programming class, and whew! I feel a million pounds lighter.”
“Wait, what?” Cheyenne stood, picked up her backpack, and followed the woman into the hall. “Your class?”
“Yes. I can’t stand undergrad classes. They bore me to tears.”
The halfling scoffed. “How is a class that bores you gonna help me learn anything?”
The Nightstalker college professor turned and wiggled her eyebrows. “Why do you think the specified subject matter is so vague?” She chuckled. “LePlant doesn’t appreciate the way I plan my courses. Especially the ones I just… Ugh.”
“Wow.”
“Oh, come on, kid. Do you know how many grad students get this kind of opportunity?”
“You’re gonna tell me, aren’t you?”
“None of them. This is a one-of-a-kind thing just for you, which is why it fits. Because you don’t, and we both know that.” Mattie looked quickly away and fought down a laugh. “That’s also why I pushed the rest of your professors into accepting my proposal and coming to this meeting.”
“This was your idea.”
“I have a spot of brilliance from time to time.”
Cheyenne stopped in the middle of the hall and stared at the back of Mattie’s long, wavy black hair. “This is because I stopped coming to your office hours, isn’t it?”
“Very funny, kid. Feel free to stop by whenever you like. Door’s always open. And look for an email from me coming atcha tomorrow. Now go enjoy your weekend. That’s still a thing.” Just like that, Professor Mattie Bergmann disappeared around the corner, leaving the drow halfling alone in a closed-up building fifteen minutes after she’d arrived.
Guess I’ll pull this off like everything else. Four and a half hours a week, though?
Cheyenne cocked her head and started down the hall toward the front doors of the Computer Sciences building. “Not bad.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
“Wait, wait, wait. They want you—” Ember barked a laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head. “Sorry. They want you to teach a class?” The laughter returned as soon as she got the question out.
“Yuck it up, Em. You’re looking at VCU’s newest and worst student-teacher.”
“Oh, you won’t be that bad.” Ember bit her lip and managed to hold back another fit of laughter for maybe five seconds. “No, no. This is good. Take you out of your comfort zone. You just need to brush up a little on your people skills.”
“I have people skills. I just choose not to use them as frequently as others might want me to.”
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna have to put on that Summerlin charm in the classroom three days a week.”
Cheyenne shook her head. “If I don’t, I might get every student to drop out of the class. Then I’m free.”
The fae shot her a pointed look and folded her arms.
“Kidding. Just a joke. Doesn’t mean I can’t wish for a particular outcome.”
“Come on, Cheyenne. You were sailing through your classes. It’s the showing-up part that got you into this.”
“Can you blame me?”
Ember nudged the paper towel holder across the island toward her friend and waited for Cheyenne to wipe the marinara sauce off her chin. “I can’t blame you for anything. Kinda self-explanatory at this point. Except for maybe eating that spaghetti like you’ve never used a fork before.”
“I’m starving, okay? One weird orange-flavored thing of O’gúleesh meat on a stick isn’t enough to keep me running at full capacity.” Cheyenne twirled up another forkful and shoveled it into her mouth. “Thanks for ordering a whole second box of this, by the way.”
“I learned not to share meals with you, like, two weeks after we met.”
The halfling chuckled and had to wipe more sauce off. “Yeah, I kinda lost it on you, huh?”
“Well, it wasn’t full-drow-mode losing it, but a tiny part of me thought you were gonna stab my eye out with those chopsticks.”
“See? This is a way better conversation.”
Ember grabbed the water bottle out of her lap and gulped half of it in one breath. “But I still didn’t make my point, which is that you really don’t have an excuse not to show up for an hour-and-half class three days a week. Are you kidding?”
“But it’s not a class. It’s teaching.” Cheyenne swallowed. “A class.”
“Yeah, a class you get to build from scratch. Listen, I got shot and still didn’t get that kind of offer.”
The halfling slowly looked up from her food and smiled when she saw Ember fighting back another laugh. “You’re getting good at that. I actually thought you
