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can sneak in my research and reading where my schedule has holes.”
    “And sleep?”
    He looks dumbly into space. “Knew I was forgetting something.”
    Hawk offers to walk me out. As he opens the door for us, I feel his hand on the small of my back to guide me out. The movement is so modest, so small, I don’t dare make anything of it. At the same time, I’m certainly not going to call him on it. When we get to the bike racks, he waits by my side as I undo my lock chain and strap on my helmet.
    “Thanks for the coaching session,” I say, offering out my hand.
    He only looks at my fingers, but makes no motion to return the gesture in kind. “You want to come again tomorrow night? We can do a mock run of your presentation. I’ll play the part of all the bad boys in the class.”
    “I hope you’re a good actor, too, because it’s really hard for me to picture you being the bad boy,” I tease.
    His expression shifts so suddenly and intriguingly, I’m certain at first I’ve insulted him. It takes me a moment to recognize the look as what it really is: temptation.
    His tongue flicks out to wet his bottom lip. “I can be a bad boy. Especially for a good girl.”
    I’m not sure why that phrase haunts me the entire bike ride home, but I hear it repeated in a loop in my mind, along with the way it made a quiver pass through my gut. In such a simple manner, Hawk’s convinced me of that much: he can be a bad boy. The question is, do I want to be a good girl?

V=VX

    “Hey, I don’t have my sunglasses with me, so can you stop beaming over there?”
    I lean far over to the side, but Betsy’s still staring at her monitor. “Excuse me?”
    “I’d be exposed to less ultraviolet if I was sunbathing on the Amalfi coast,” she says, picking at her keyboard. “What has you so bubbly anyway?”
    “Are we actually having a casual conversation?”
    So far, the extent of our exchanges hasn’t gone beyond diplomatic negotiation that allows us to both use the office without war. Not that I haven’t tried to talk to Betsy. I learned pretty early on, however, that her lack of regard for matching clothes and her habit of keeping earbuds in all hours of the day weren’t an exaggeration. She really has no interest in being friends. Or, sometimes it seems, human.
    “You’re like a nuclear power plant over there,” she bats back, her tone annoyed but also having a bit of jest. “And you’ve been working toward a meltdown all day. I was wondering how long it would take you to hook up with someone.”
    Heat tinges my cheeks. “I’m not hooking up with anyone!”
    “You know, your mouth says no, but your rapid-response denial suggests you merely haven’t hooked up with someone yet. Not that I really give a damn who you derive functions with. But if you want to tell me, I’ll tell you if they’re worth the effort.”
    “Because you would know?”
    She shrugs. “Maybe not through personal experience, but I have a knack for picking up on the gossip that goes on around here.”
    I can’t help my curiosity. “How? You don’t talk with anyone.”
    “You think I’m listening to music all day?” Her eyes finally meet mine, and humor sparkles in her features. “People have a habit of presuming a lot of things based on appearances. They also think because I don’t have any friends, that I don’t have any interest in what everyone’s saying about everyone else. You’d be surprised some of the things I’ve heard when people didn’t think I was listening.”
    I can’t decide if I should tell her she should be ashamed, or if I should ask her for pointers. Then I remind myself that I’m on a social diet and why she asked me the question to begin with.
    “I’m not trying to hook up with anyone,” I reassure her. For reasons I can’t explain, perhaps because I can’t imagine what she’d do with the information or who she would tell, I find myself wanting to confide. “Okay, yes, there’s a guy. I don’t want a