“I am.” I smile, mainly to annoy Todd.
Todd glares at me, then at Charles—the venom leaking out, since Charles has a lot of power on campus—then turns and storms off.
Finally, peace. Sort of. I paste on a neutral politeness. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about what you said.”
Damn it. He wants to rehash the research center funding. I cling to my polite mask. Barely. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“Are you doing anything special for Sierra’s birthday?”
“I hadn’t really given it much thought. Her birthday isn’t until next year.”
“What?” He frowns and gives me an odd look. “It’s in three weeks.”
Fucking Todd.He doesn’t even know his ex-wife’s birthday. I should’ve known better than to ask him.
“And luckily, this year it happens to fall on a Saturday.” Charles beams. “I presume a party of some sort will be in order and that invitations will be going out soon.”
He’s actually researched this.“Like I said, we don’t know what we’re doing yet.” There’s no way I’m having a party and inviting Charles so he can hassle Sierra to fund the research center.
“Hmm. You’ll want to do something special, since it’s the first time you’ll be celebrating it together,” Charles muses.
“Exactly.”
“Well, I suppose that’s understandable. Then perhaps you can bring her to the faculty cocktail and dinner? All the spouses and girlfriends are invited.”
Now it’s my turn to frown. “Are you talking about the department social we have at the beginning of the semester? We already had that.”
He gives me a fond smile, which creeps me out. My parents gift me with the exact same smile every time they want to spring some bullshit.
“This will be a special event,” Charles says. “At my place. To promote tighter cohesion among the faculty. It’s a tradition I’ve always wanted to start.”
“I see.” And you waited until this year to start. How convenient. “I’ll ask and see if she’ll be free.” A lie to get Charles out of my office. I’m not subjecting her to hours of bullshit.
“Excellent. It’ll be on Friday four weeks from now,” he says. “I’ll be sending out formal invitations soon.”
“Great.”
Charles leaves, satisfied for the moment. I glare at my calendar, irritated that he’s roping me into another departmental social event where I have to act like I’m thrilled to be there. Once a semester is plenty.
When I offered to stay with Sierra, I expected things to be simple. Just live there for a few weeks and let my sheer presence be a deterrent to Todd. But now it’s becoming complicated. My fault, I suppose, for not realizing that people would have expectations of their own.
Perhaps I should have chosen a different career. Being a kickboxer would have been just as good as being a professor of economics. Better in some ways—nobody mouths off to you or asks you to attend idiotic social events.
I shake my head, take a moment to clear the recent social distractions from it and then turn to the latest set of data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.