Running "New" on You

I hired a hot stranger at a bar to do my calculus homework.

Then, to his face, I called our new TA a total psycho who'd flunk me on sight.

I did not know he was our new TA.

The next morning, there he was in a pressed shirt and a lanyard, and I read the badge clipped to his chest.

Ashford University. PhD candidate. Teaching Assistant.

Him. The bar guy. My TA.

Cause of death: me.

Rewind. Last night.

Five drinks deep, one problem set from a full breakdown, and there he was across the room. Glasses. Sharp jaw. A badge I didn't bother to read.

I walked over. Swayed over, technically.

"You down?"

He leaned back into the couch and looked at me like he was deciding whether I was a prank.

I dropped a wad of cash and a calculus workbook on the table.

"Calc. Do it."

He laughed, low and quiet, and picked up the pen.

Never touched the money.

Should've been my first clue.

Chapter 1

I stuffed calculus in my pocket. Calculus stuffed me in a ditch.

That's the only way to explain how I ended up drunk in a bar at midnight, still grinding through a problem set, close enough to a breakdown that I could've pulled my own hair out by the root.

Then, salvation. Off to my left: a guy in glasses, and a badge that read Ashford PhD candidate.

A genius. An actual genius, sitting right there.

Something unhinged rose up in me. I got up and swayed toward him.

I ignored the flicker of confusion on his face, pointed at the math on the couch behind me, and cut straight to it.

"Can you do this?"

The air went still.

He blinked. Almost smiled. Sat up and tilted his head, studying me like a problem he hadn't decided to solve.

His friends leaned in, hollering. "Oh, she's brave. Somebody's actually hitting on Professor Vale."

My head was full of bees. All I could think about was the deadline, so I rushed it before he could say no. "I can pay."

More whooping.

He frowned and shot his friends a look that killed the noise. "She's drunk. Don't."

I wasn't kidding, though.

He didn't believe me, so I lunged for my homework and slapped it on the table. "You down or not?"

The music cut out, right on cue. The silence was deafening.

Every face at that table looked like it had seen a ghost.

The one they'd been calling Professor Vale raised an eyebrow, glanced at my textbook, and went thoughtful. "You go to Ashford?"

I nodded.

He was wavering. I pressed. "I swear I only need the setup."

"Our new TA is a total psycho. Miss the deadline and I'm dead."

His brow climbed higher, like some coincidence had just landed on him. "A psycho?"

Then, fighting a laugh: "What's your name?"

Obviously I couldn't give him my real one. I sniffled and said, "Chad."

Half his friends stopped breathing. The other half slid off the couch laughing.

"The little lady says you're a psycho, huh?"

The music was loud. I missed most of it.

But I wore him down, and Professor-whoever-Vale finally picked up the pen and started to write.

I almost dropped to my knees in gratitude.

The lights stuttered across the side of his face. I swallowed. The equation was gorgeous and he looked impossible.

When he was nearly done, I went digging in my bag for his money.

Except the bag was wrong. Pockets in the wrong places, nothing where I'd left it, and I couldn't find my cash to save my life.

"Side pocket." That lazy voice, warm against my ear again. "The money's in the side pocket."

Oh. Side pocket. I dug in, and there it was, a fat wad of bills. I shoved it at him. "How did you even know my money was in there?"

We were close enough that I caught the light ringing gold around his eyes. The whole man was lit up.

Geniuses really are built different. Not only can he do the problem, he knows where my cash lives.

He looked at the crumpled ball I'd mashed into his palm, and the corner of his mouth curved.

"Because it's my bag."

The table detonated.

"Paying for homework you assigned yourself. Professor Vale, you can dine out on this for the rest of your life."

I scowled, wounded. "I'll pay you back."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and steered me toward the door, going along with it. "Sure. Owe me. You'll get plenty of chances to pay it back."

After that, nothing. I woke up in my dorm with no memory of the walk home.

Two blank seconds. Then I grabbed my phone and found last night's assignment, photographed, already submitted.

I exhaled. Silently saluted the genius.

I'd gotten away with it.

I really thought I'd gotten away with it.

Chapter 2

I was mid-replay of my genius bar encounter when my roommate turned, her whole face lit with gossip. "So what's the deal with you and the TA?"

What TA? What did the TA have to do with anything?

She caught my blank look and gaped. "Our TA drove you home last night."

A beat. Then, delighted: "You had a fistful of his shirt. Wouldn't let go. Kept telling him to keep doing your homework."

Something in my skull went crunch. The sound of my brain cells leaving.

I skated past the part of her tone I didn't want to examine and asked, wobbling, "Our TA. His last name's Vale?"

She looked at me like I'd forgotten my own species. "Adrian Vale. Campus legend, a face like that, and you don't know his name?"

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

I'd thought he was some random PhD student. It never once crossed my mind that he was the TA. The actual TA.

I'd called him a psycho.

She was still talking when his message lit up my screen, bright and merciless.

Him: [Chad.]

A pause.

Him: [My office. Room 303.]

Great. Fantastic. The world had officially lost its mind, and I was going down with it.

I crept into the office, and there he was, my kindly professor, laughing with a good-looking guy about something on the screen.

The good-looking guy was familiar. I started to shake.

Adrian Vale. No question.

Nothing like the lazy version from last night's bar light. In daylight he ran cold, sun cutting through the blinds and laying across him, holding you at arm's length without trying.

They both looked up when I came in. The professor's smile dropped into something stern. "Wren. When did you change your name?"

He tipped his head at the grading window on the screen. "Distinctive choice."

There, in the name field, in enormous letters: Chad.

I died last night. They buried me this morning.

The professor clapped Adrian on the shoulder, caught between furious and laughing. "So this is the student who paid you to do her homework at a bar?"

Adrian turned a pen over in his long fingers, slow, and said nothing at all. Didn't confirm it. Didn't deny it.

The professor lit into me, gentle and relentless, walking me through exactly how badly I'd embarrassed myself, in full sentences.

I apologized until my ears burned, guilt rotting me from the inside out.

Adrian stayed calm, though his face went serious. "Redo the assignment. You can look at what I wrote."

"But it has to be your own understanding."

That's when it landed: the document he'd sent wasn't answers at all. It was the method. The steps. Worked out so I could actually learn it.

The shame doubled. Last night I'd cornered him with a whole audience watching, left him no way out but to write, and still he hadn't burned me. He'd handed me a lesson instead of a cheat sheet.

I could have sobbed.

I bury the man alive and he tutors me on the way down.

I ducked my head to thank him, and that's when I noticed his lower leg.

It didn't move like ours.

I froze all over.

If I was reading it right, the part of his calf showing past the rolled cuff was a prosthetic.

My mind went white. I snapped my eyes up before he could catch the look on my face.

Too late. His gaze was already there, watching me.

Oh no. Busted?

Everything hit at once and I lost the ability to form words.

Adrian stayed easy, teasing like it was nothing. "Am I that scary?"

I shook my head hard. "No. You're a good person, honestly."

For once I wasn't lying. I'd thought he was just strict. After all this, he'd gone and turned into someone ten feet tall.

Something warmed in his eyes.

"Yeah?"

Chapter 3

I was about to nod.

His eyes crinkled, the smile widening, pointed. "Though I hear I'm a psycho."

Was he seriously dredging that up again.

I mumbled a goodbye and fled the office, and just like that his joke smoothed the whole humiliating thing over.

Final verdict of my one-woman tribunal: rewrite the assignment.

The entire walk back to the dorm, all I could think about was the faint sadness that had slipped across his face when our eyes caught.

I pushed through the door and my roommate detonated. "Oh my GOD. The one reason to show up to that class is gone. Our hot TA is bailing."

Wait. Bailing?

Adrian was leaving?

She pulled up the group chat, crushed. "Ugh. He only got dragged in to cover as a favor. Guy's grinding through a PhD, research load through the roof. Makes sense he'd go."

I frowned, lost. "He actually does a PhD in our department?"

She stared at me. "Sweetie. My WiFi keeps up better than you do."

"Adrian Vale. Comp-sci prodigy, blitzed straight through every degree, back from a research stint abroad last year."

By the time she finished reciting his rsum, it was my turn to hit the floor.

The gifted really are gifted at everything. Writes code, does math, and somehow still has a full head of hair.

Unlike me. All I do is lose hair and gain nothing.

She scrolled a thread of his greatest hits, snorting. "Huh. Who's out here claiming he's sick or something."

Something pulled tight under my ribs. That cold prosthetic flashed back. Was it actually a rumor?

She reached the last post and summed it up. "Campus legend. Not one dating rumor. Ever."

Then she stopped. Turned. Looked at me like fresh meat. "You're the first."

Fantastic. Loved that for me.

That night was an accident. A one-time accident.

Under the full wolfpack stare of my roommates, I caved and spilled the whole thing.

She howled, then got scared on my behalf. "You went to a bar ALONE? The nerve. What, you think your family owns the place?!"

I blinked. Nodded. "Uh. My sister does, actually."

She short-circuited for a second, then made a sound only dogs should hear.

"That chain has locations everywhere. There's been an heiress in our room this whole time."

That night the entire dorm hauled me to one of my family's bars to cash in.

On my tab.

And that is how I came into my brand-new title.

Big Sis Chad.

Chapter 4

They crowned me their one and only Big Sis and never let the Chad bit die.

Great. I'd never make eye contact in that dorm again.

Class came around and, sure enough, we had a new TA. I drifted, until I remembered that packed-full page of worked solutions and forced myself back in.

Then I sat down to actually do the homework and could not find my resource book anywhere.

I was still tearing the room apart when my sister called.

Clearly mid-chaos, she yelled over the noise. "Friday night. Some kid needs a coding lesson and I'm out of town. Cover for me."

Me?!

Me, teach a child? Was this a joke.

I opened my mouth to refuse. She barreled on.

"I'll pay. A grand a session. In or out?"

Rage flared. I flared right back. "Make it two."

Look, my coding's solid. But kids rattled me.

So I pulled it together, got to the address, plastered on a friendly smile, and rang the bell.

The door opened and the smile froze on my face.

Because Adrian Vale stood there in his loungewear, staring back with the exact same horror.

My stomach bottomed out.

He seemed to be reaching for my name. "Wren? Are you looking for me?"

My language functions had left the building.

I stammered, "I'm here to tutor a kid."

Then backpedaled instantly. "Sorry. Wrong place."

And moved to bolt.

Adrian's pupils flared. Something clicked, then something else clicked behind it, and he called out, "Don't run."

I stopped dead and looked at him.

He pressed two fingers to his brow. "The bar owner. Who is she to you?"

Still dazed, I answered honestly. "My sister."

He said it half to himself. "No wonder the front-desk girl shadowed us out that night."

It landed for me too. My eyes went huge. "You KNOW my sister?"

He nodded. I opened my mouth for the next question, but he'd already stepped aside to make room. "Come in. It's cold out."

I swear I never saw a coincidence this vicious coming.

After a lot of back-and-forth, we landed on the facts.

Adrian and my sister were friends from studying abroad. She'd invited them to the bar that night, and I'd wandered in mid-meltdown and made it everyone's problem.

Now, watching him pour me a glass of water, all I could think was that the world was way too small.

My sister had agreed to tutor his little sister. Then handed the job to me.

Great. A perfect, cursed little loop. My brain cells had clocked out entirely.

He set the water in front of me and nodded for me to warm up.

I turned it over for a while, then couldn't help myself. "You're supposed to be a genius. Why do you need my sister to teach her?"

The man was a comp-sci god. Department-certified.

He sank onto the couch, faintly pained. "The kid never listens to me."

Fair. I remembered my sister trying to teach me math once. I'd made her stomp.

He paused, then added, "You don't have to be so tense. Skip 'sir.' Just use my name."

Oh. Right. Still a grad student. Couldn't be much older than me.

I was about to say something else when the door flew open. A kid in a school uniform bounced in, all energy, until she spotted Adrian. The grin stalled. She went shy. "Hi, Adrian."

We did quick introductions. Her name was Nova. Then we headed upstairs for the lesson.

The whole thing was easy. This girl and her brother were night and day.

Bright to a ridiculous degree. Started out calling me Ms. Ellis, then just switched to sis.

Nobody gets what that word is worth to me. I've been the baby sister my entire life. I used to lie awake dreaming about being someone's big sister.

Chapter 5

What I did not expect was Adrian, still on the couch with a book. Still here. He hadn't left.

He looked up as we came down, and I didn't pull my eyes back fast enough. We caught.

In loungewear he looked lived-in, the usual distance sanded off him. Almost gentle.

He came over and handed me a glass of water. "Good work."

Talking to him still made me jumpy. I couldn't quite look at him, so I took the water and drank in small sips.

He checked the time and stood. "Come on. It's late. I'll take you back to campus."

Nova tilted her head. "How are you even home right now? No lab check-in tonight?"

Adrian went quiet a beat. Then: "It's on the way. I waited."

Was he waiting for me?

Something in my chest went warm. For a man this buttoned-up, he ran warmer than advertised.

Nova had decided we were friends and insisted on coming to drop me off, so the three of us piled into Adrian's car.

The whole way, Nova and I chattered while Adrian stayed silent, offering a word or two only when we dragged him into it.

No wonder the kid was scared of him. This was arctic.

We were mid-laugh when Nova went still, then flicked on her phone light and aimed it at the gap beside her seat.

I leaned over to look too.

A book. Wedged into the crack at a deeply unnatural angle.

Nova was thrilled. "Bro! Why'd you stash a book down here?"

Honestly, same question. My roommate had told me Adrian loved books like air and kept everything spotless. No way he'd manhandle one like this.

He looked puzzled too, but he was driving and didn't turn around. "Pull it out. See what it is."

Cleared to proceed, we wrestled it free.

We flipped the cover over, Nova's light caught it, and I turned to stone.

She sounded out the title, slow. "Real Analysis Problem Sets. Is this a college book?"

If memory served, that chicken-scratch handwriting was mine.

Adrian caught up in the same instant. Something clicked, and his voice went warm at the edges. "Mm. College."

Nova was baffled. "Whose is it? Looks like they hated this book."

Sweet girl. Stop asking. Big sis is already sweating through her shirt.

The memories I'd killed and buried came clawing back out to attack.

Chapter 6

That night, when he'd driven me home and started in on the whole study-harder speech, I'd shoved the workbook into the seat gap. Purely to make it stop existing.

Which explained the days I'd spent unable to find it.

Adrian lost the fight against a small laugh. "Yeah. You clearly loathe this course."

Enough. Stop talking.

I loathed it in the moment. I've since reformed. Model citizen, right here.

Nova reached to flip through more, and I snatched it back before she could hit my name, explaining fast, "I think I know whoever this belongs to. I'll get it back to them."

She wasn't buying it. Sharp kid. "You know them? Then why's it in my brother's car?"

New problem: children cannot be fooled anymore.

The story was seconds from collapse, so I braced and went with, "Because my brother knows them too."

Then I shot Adrian a save-me look, and my mouth just followed Nova's lead. "Right, Adrian?"

His fingers drummed an uneven beat on the wheel. He said nothing.

I was terrified he wouldn't cover for me and opened my mouth again.

He cleared his throat. His voice came out stiff. "Right. I know them."

I could've dropped to my knees. Bless him for saving my life.

Nova tipped her head, chewing on it, still catching a wrong note somewhere.

And of course, right then, the photo I'd taken that night, the one wedged in the book, slid free like it couldn't take the pressure.

Nova snatched it midair, studied it a long moment, then looked between us like she'd caught us hiding state secrets.

She found the loose thread and lit up. "Adrian! Is this my future sister-in-law's book?"

I nearly launched out of my seat, both hands flying. "Absolutely not!"

Adrian, visibly stunned by the wiring of a child's brain, went a little awkward, but his voice stayed level. "No."

Nova clocked how hard we both jumped, made a face like she got it, and let it drop.

Whatever she said after that, I barely heard. My eyes kept drifting to the back of Adrian's head as he drove, and I couldn't tell if I was imagining it, but his ears looked red.

Mercifully, we made it to the school gate, and I had never loved that gate more.

I yanked the door open, threw a goodbye over my shoulder, and fled.

I circled the track for a long time and only drifted back to the dorm once I'd cooled off.

My roommate was mid-gossip about Adrian, all lit up. "Hey. Your genius. Something was off with him in the lab just now."

I played it casual. I was, in fact, already eavesdropping. She saw through me and let it slide. "Kept botching his code. Whole screen full of red."

So much for cooled off.

Chapter 7

I don't know what my problem was. My face went hot right along with the story.

My roommate studied me for a while, puzzled. "Huh. Who wrote error codes all over your face? You're glowing."

Stop. I'm dying.

I blamed the cold, mumbled something, and speed-ran my way into bed.

My head was full of one image: Adrian at his desk, staring at a screen bleeding red, gone somewhere else.

I'd lost it. Genuinely.

It took a full week to get my head back, and then Friday rolled around again, and I hovered outside his door, suddenly scared.

What if I ran into him again?

After last time, I had no idea how to be normal around him.

I was muttering to myself when the familiar voice landed behind me.

"Why aren't you going in?"

I spun. Adrian stood a few feet back, no telling how long he'd been there.

I was already a wreck, and the question tipped me straight into nonsense. "Because I don't have a key."

Oh my god what am I saying, have I lost my mind?!

The answer stumped him for a second, then apparently checked out as reasonable, and he came over and unlocked the door. "I do. Now go in."

Warm air poured out and my glasses fogged over on the spot.

I trailed after him, squinting, trying to resolve the blur in front of me into furniture.

Out of nowhere my foot caught, I pitched forward, and my hand shot out for anything solid.

When the world steadied, I found myself clamped onto Adrian's arm, dragging him off balance with me.

"Careful."

Low, right against my ear. I looked up.

His arm was still locked under both my hands, and the heat of him soaked straight through the sleeve into my palms. I forgot how to breathe.

The fog thinned off my lenses and Adrian surfaced like an oil painting coming into color, brushstroke by brushstroke, until I hit his eyes, clear and still as water. For one held second neither of us moved. We were close enough that I felt the breath go out of him.

My heart went off like something breaking loose.

"Sorry."

I let go of his arm and jumped clear.

Then it hit me that the yank might have wrenched his leg, and before my brain caught up my hands were already reaching to steady him.

Adrian watched me, something close to amused.

What am I doing?

You don't just grab a person like that. And now letting go would be even weirder.

I was still frozen in the math of it when Nova pushed the door open, and from where she stood, it looked exactly like I was holding Adrian's hand.

Chapter 8