Monday put him back on campus with a grade problem and Ryan already ahead of him.
The email was waiting in the union. Academic standing. Economics. Professor Ward, eleven. If he skipped it, the review went to Veronica’s house. Under it, a text from Ryan.
Ward’s office copies guardians. My father likes paper. You should have stayed a boy with a tray.
Ethan did not answer. He crossed the quad with the missed work in his bag and the text sitting there like a match.
Madison caught him at the library steps and sent Chloe inside.
"You left me on read. Ryan put my name in it, and now Ward wants you. If you vanish after this, I am done asking where you went."
"I am going there now."
"Then go. And do not look at me like I am the one who told him." She was angry, and under it she was worried, which she hated. "Thursday. If you are still enrolled."
Ward’s door was open. She shut it halfway when she saw him, not all the way. Gray blouse, glasses on a stack of exams, an orange she had not finished. The look stayed on his face too long.
"Sterling. Sit. I have a noon class, and I already do not like how this file reads."
The scores were in front of her.
"Two missed sets. A sixty-one. I was soft on the graphs. I copy a guardian when the next one is going to be worse. That copy may already be moving. I did not send it to a donor. If someone else did, that is not a thing I can pull back."
"Veronica Cole. And Ryan Mitchell’s father, if Ryan is doing what I think he is doing."
Ward went still. "David Mitchell is not on your file. If he has this, a student handed it to him. I will not be in that. I will also not pretend I did not hear you say it."
She took the glasses off. The office felt smaller.
"You are not slow. You are absent. Friday’s set, passed, and two meetings. Thursday, four o’clock. Door open, because if I close it today I am going to make a worse decision than a letter." Her eyes dropped to his mouth and came back up angry. "You do the work, I hold the review. You come in here to be looked at, I mail her tonight."
"Thursday at four. I will bring the sets."
"Bring a pen." She put the glasses on like armor. "Out. Before I stop meaning that."
He bought the skill in the stairwell, business tab, no hovering.
[Quick Think — 500 CP]
You think a little faster. Useful on a problem set, in a meeting, or when someone asks you a question. You are not smarter. You just waste less time getting to the answer.
[Purchase confirmed: Quick Think]
[CP: 5,150]
[Helen Ward, 41.]
Sophia had a suite, not the lobby. She knew before he sat.
"Mitchell’s office asked me if my walker was on academic warning. I told them to send their questions in writing. You are going to tell me if that is true."
"Ward has the scores. Ryan has them too. Veronica may already."
"Then you are expensive in a way I did not order." She signed the retainer anyway. Eight hundred a week. Two percent. Four weeks. "This still goes out. Caroline wants the thin wall, not the notes. Tomorrow, without me. If you make that a story, I will cut the week before it starts."
She looked at the door, then at him, and turned the lock.
"Twenty minutes. I am angry, and I am not spending it in a lobby."
She kissed him hard. He got the blouse open and his mouth on her. Wicked Fingers under the lace. She swore, then gave up covering it. His hand under the skirt found her wet. She pushed into his palm.
"Couch."
He got her underwear down, skirt at her waist, mouth on her. She held his hair.
"There." ~mh
He stayed through the first and the second, ~ah into the cushion when Second Wave hit, his mouth not leaving her until she dragged him up. She was tight and hot and still shaking when he pushed in. She bit his shoulder.
"Right there." ~ah
She came around him, ~mh against his neck. He finished in her. She had locked the door. She did not tell him to pull out.
"That changes nothing with Mitchell," she said, blouse half buttoned, voice worse than her hands. "Tomorrow you see the wall. Thursday you pass. If Veronica calls me, I will not lie for you."
[Repeat: Sophia Bennett]
[Reward: 900 CP]
[Reward: $400]
[CP: 6,050]
[Cash: $3,950]
Veronica had the page on the table. Isabella looked like she had already lost the argument.
"Ward copied me. Ryan’s father copied his lawyer, who copied me, because he thinks this house is hiding a problem. Missed work. A sixty-one. You do not get to tell me campus was fine."
"I found out this morning. Thursday she holds it if the set passes."
"She holds it. David Mitchell does not." Veronica’s voice stayed low. "You will tell me what is going on with that family, and you will tell me before dinner Thursday. If I hear it from his office again, you can find another address for the next letter."
Isabella did not speak until Veronica was gone.
"He did not just leak a job this time. He put Mom on a page with his father. I cannot joke that back."
Caroline’s text was already there. Tomorrow, ten, the thin wall. No Sophia. No notes.
Ryan had wanted a boy in Veronica’s house.
He had the paper now. Ethan had the wall, the office, and a woman who had told him to get out before she stopped meaning it.