Compliments Read Online Free PDF Page B

evening, I’m surprised to find it locked. My inner geek girl mocks me, What did you expect? You really believed that hot of a guy was going to come to work early just to help you be less socially awkward in front of a bunch of kids? The voice silences when I hear movement inside. A moment later, the handle turns under my grip and bright blue eyes are looking at me through the crack.
    “Sorry, last drop’s already gone out,” he says. Suddenly, his formality cedes as he recognizes me. “Oh, Robin. I thought maybe you’d decided not to come.”
    I twist my wrist to steal a glance at my watch. “We said six. It’s six-oh-one right now.”
    “Six-oh-two by the clock in here.”
    My mind goes buzzing with the possibility that maybe Hawk’s secret is intermittent, acute OCD. I’ve never thought of a two-minute wait as anything significant. Then I start to think maybe he’s changed his mind and he’s using such an extreme technicality to get out of our agreement.
    “If you’re busy, I can go,” I offer.
    He opens the door further, and I can see how he’s dressed. It’s the perfect medium between his janitorial uniform from the first time we met, to the casual business suit he wore in front of his class. His faded jeans have a rip across one thigh. He’s wearing a flannel shirt that’s open halfway down, a gray T-shirt clinging to his muscular chest. I see just enough definition through the fabric to tell me Hawk has a body that wouldn’t be entirely unpleasant to explore.
    His eyes go wide as he throws back the door. “No, of course we can meet. I just worried that you … but you’re here, so please,” he steps back and measures the space with a wide sweep of his arms, “come into my laboratory.”
    When I enter, he closes the door behind me. This time I’m cautious about the rug, and manage to step over the folded-over section without going horizontal. Last time I was in this room, I was too focused on first the floor—and Hawk—to take too much note of it. It’s not unlike what one might expect. A large scale and gray, industrial shelves filled with shipping supplies are at the far end. In the opposite corner, a small lounge area includes a worn, brown leather sofa crisscrossed at the edges with silver duct tape, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a coffee table. On the far end of the room I see another door marked JANITOR, and I understand why he hangs out in this room even though he has nothing to do with shipping. The top of the coffee table hosts a smorgasbord of papers and books, all sedimentary layers of Hawk’s lessons.
    “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Have you been here long?”
    “Got here about a half hour ago. Water?” Hawk asks, holding up a plastic cup he’s just grabbed from a dispenser on the side of a water cooler.
    Nodding, I make my way over to the sofa and find a spot. “The door was locked this time.”
    “It usually is. The other night I had just come in for lunch and I guess I forgot to relock it. You found it open just by blind luck.”
    “Given my epic fall, the blind part might be right, but there’s no such thing as luck. There’s only probability and the twisting of numbers,” I remind him. “Every mathematician knows that.”
    He hands me the water just in time to say something that knocks the breath out of my chest and dries my mouth. “I don’t know about that. I think I was pretty lucky to have met you.”
    I feel my cheeks stain red. The discomfort lasts only a moment since he takes his seat next to me and shifts into mentor mode. He begins by explaining to me that the biggest mistake college students—or anyone, really—makes when addressing an audience is assuming that just because they lack the knowledge the speaker has, that makes them inferior. Inferiority will lead me to talk down to the students, despite my best and most conscious efforts, he states. People made to feel inferior will either cower or act out in an attempt to regain power. Hawk