Chapter 118: 118. The Professor and The Football Captain’s Girlfriend! (Getting Interesting)

Cody pulled a packet from the bag and offered it sideways to Jay without looking at him. Jay took one without looking at Cody.

This was the kind of exchange that only happens between people who have been spending time together long enough that the small logistics have gone entirely automatic.

"What did you perform at fourteen?" Mike said to Tobin.

Tobin grinned. "I was a confident idiot. It worked very well for me."

"Honestly, I’m still using it." He tilted his head. "What about you?"

"I was quiet," Mike said. "People fill in quiet with whatever they want to see. It’s efficient."

Tobin looked at him for a moment. "That’s not a performance. That’s a strategy."

"Most performances are," Mike said.

Jay glanced up from his phone briefly at this, not long enough to say anything, but long enough that Mike noted it.

Cody, who had been quiet until now, stated, "I was the funny one and still am."

He delivered this without any sense of pride or self-deprecation, simply as a matter of fact. "The issue with being the funny one is that people stop expecting anything else from you, and eventually, you stop expecting it from yourself."

There was a beat of quiet that was slightly more weighted than the ones before it. Tobin looked at Cody and didn’t make a joke, which Mike suspected was a specific courtesy between them.

"What about women?" Mike said. It was a casual interruption, the kind that redirects rather than cuts off. "Who’s worth knowing about on this campus?"

Tobin grinned. This was a subject he apparently had opinions about. "Define ’worth knowing about.’"

"Interesting," Mike replied. "It’s complicated and not immediately obvious."

"That’s a more specific question than people usually ask," Tobin said, in a tone that suggested he appreciated the specificity.

He looked up at the sky briefly, thinking about it in the organized way that suggested he actually had a list and was sorting it. "There’s a girl in the international law faculty, third year; her name is Priya something."

"She’s been publishing op-eds in two different outlets since she was eighteen, and she writes the way someone talks when they’ve already decided they’re right and just need to demonstrate it to you."

"This could lead to different outcomes in terms of personality, but she is interesting."

"You’ve met her," Mike said.

"Once. At a faculty panel."

’She asked a question from the floor that made the professor on the panel visibly uncomfortable, and then she sat down and did not look pleased with herself about it, which is the rarer thing. " He paused. "She had a boyfriend at the time."

"I don’t know if she still has a boyfriend."

"She does," Cody replied. "He’s studying engineering. He’s tall and quiet, and they’ve been together since their first year."

"You know them," Jay said.

"I know everyone," Cody said. "That’s what happens when you don’t spend your social energy on a single fixed group."

"You spend it on everyone and go home tired," Jay said.

"I go home informed," Cody said. "It’s different."

"Cody has a professor," Jay said, without looking up from his phone.

Cody’s response was immediate and physical: a flat-handed hit to Jay’s shoulder that Jay absorbed with the patience of someone who had been hit by the same person many times.

Mike looked at Cody with genuine curiosity. "A professor."

"It’s not," Cody said, and then stopped, because whatever he intended to follow that with apparently didn’t satisfy him. "She’s not my professor this semester. She was last year."

"Right," Jay said.

"That’s technically different."

"Which department?" Mike said.

Cody glanced between Mike and Jay, weighing the potential consequences of continuing the conversation. Ultimately, he seemed to determine it was a low-risk decision. "Economics faculty. Junior lecturer."

"She completed her postgrad in Berlin and returned here to teach about eighteen months ago." His tone shifted slightly, becoming more deliberate as he shared the details. "She teaches International Trade Policy and is twenty-nine years old." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"And you find her interesting," Mike said.

"I find her," Cody began, pausing as individuals often do when searching for a word that captures their thoughts accurately without over-explaining. "Difficult to read."

"That’s different from most people."

Tobin, exercising self-control by not addressing the matter directly, turned to Mike and said, "In Cody’s world, most people can be read in about thirty seconds."

"When someone proves more elusive, he tends to take it personally."

"I don’t take it personally," Cody said.

"You’ve brought her up four times in the past two months without being asked," Jay said.

"That’s not taking it personally."

"That’s taking it very personally," Tobin said, without any particular unkindness.

Mike looked at Cody. "What’s her name?"

"Dr. Sabrina," Cody said. Then, because Mike held the look, "Sabrina. Dr. Sabrina Beaumont."

"If you’re asking if it counts," Tobin said to Mike helpfully, "yes, it counts."

Mike filed it and thought. ’Fuck yes... some professor I could actually go for.’

’Cody is acting suspicious about the situation right now... I really need to stalk him... to see if he’s close to Sabrina or not.’

"And apart from Cody’s complicated situation."

Tobin thought about it. "There’s a girl named Bella."

"She is in the media arts program, but she is also very active socially, being one of those people who seems to exist in many different spaces."

"Notably, she is somehow in a relationship with Joseph Hayden."

"Joseph Hayden...?" Mike kept his expression easy. "You mean the football captain?"

"You know him?"

"We’ve met."

"Then you know the rule," Tobin said, quoting an old policy. "No relationships while you’re in the club."

"It’s one of those old institutional things that the previous captains kept, and nobody could figure out how to remove it without causing a situation." He paused. "Joseph being captain now means he’s the one who’s supposed to enforce it, which is—"

"Complicated," Mike said.

"The previous captain before Joseph was somebody named Denton," Tobin said, settling into the subject the way he did when a topic had more layers than the surface version suggested. "Denton enforced it absolutely."

"Two guys got cut from the squad in his first year because of it, and thereafter, nobody tested it."

"Everyone knew where the line was." He looked at the campus below. "Joseph takes over, and suddenly the rule remains officially in place, but the person responsible for enforcing it is also the first individual who would be subject to it."

"That’s a particular kind of situation."

"Has anyone noticed?" Mike said.

"A few people," Jay said, without looking up. "Nobody is speaking up because Joseph is generally liked and is also the reason the club’s record improved this season, which has led to some people looking at the ceiling."

He paused. "But it only takes one person who doesn’t like him or one person who got cut under the old rule and has been waiting for an equivalent situation, and then it’s not just a relationship problem; it’s a leadership problem."

"You’ve thought about this," Mike said.

Jay glanced up briefly. "I think about things."

Tobin made a small sound that suggested agreement, though it was not a full endorsement. "Jay’s the one who figured out what was happening before anyone else did."

"He noticed them at a gallery opening in District 3 three weeks ago. Bella had her hair down differently, and she’d borrowed someone else’s jacket, and they came in ten minutes apart." He looked at Jay. "You didn’t tell anyone."

"Not my business," Jay said.

"That’s surprisingly decent of you," Cody said.

Jay absorbed this without visible reaction. "I don’t snitch on people for being human."