Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,3

don’t. Edwin Markle developed the six-point rubric in 1959, and it’s just as good in 2009.”

“Or 2014,” Theo said.

“I’m very well aware of what year it is, Mr. Stratford. I was waxing poetic.”

That wasn’t all he was waxing.

Ok, I kind of cheated, Cart texted. I already knew you were ticklish.

Bastard.

Can’t help it. You’re just too cute when you laugh.

That one sentence was evidence of how very far things had shifted between them.

“Mr. Stratford, there is something that I think we need to discuss.”

“Yes?”

“I understand that in the past you were found to be having inappropriate relationships with students.”

Theo tried as hard as he could to keep his face smooth. His first year as a graduate student at Wroxall, the evening of the department’s welcoming social, he had watched Dr. Wagner pursue Grace round and round the cheese table. Finally Grace had retreated to the bathroom. Dr. Wagner had followed. Theo had pushed open the door, rapping loudly, asking if anyone was in there. Dr. Wagner had stumbled out, his cheeks almost as red as his nose, smelling like he’d been swimming in a distillery. He’d mumbled something about getting turned around. Grace had been holding a can of pepper gel, so she would have been fine, but Theo hadn’t forgotten.

Now, looking at those cloudy eyes, the glint in them, he realized Dr. Wagner hadn’t forgotten either.

“No,” Theo said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said no. That’s not true. I had a relationship with an undergraduate student who had been my student previously. There was never any suggestion that the relationship had taken place while we were teacher and student.” Theo struggled for a smile. “And relationship is really too strong of a word. We tried something, and it didn’t work.”

Wagner huffed. “Well, that’s certainly not how I heard it.”

“You’re hearing it right now. From me.”

“Yes. Well.”

“And I’m sure you understand how appearances can be misleading.”

Wagner huffed some more. “I certainly hope there won’t be any further misunderstandings, Mr. Stratford. No more misleading appearances. As instructors, we have a sacred trust to shape young minds. We are responsible for their wellbeing. I hope I make myself perfectly clear when I say that nothing less will be tolerated.”

Gin, Theo thought. He couldn’t be sure, because all he was getting was the reek of alcohol, but Theo would have put money on gin being the drink of choice.

“Of course,” Theo said.

“I think that will be all, then.”

Dismissed, Theo limped out of the office, collecting his cane as he went. His knee was much better, and he had been consistent with his exercises even after physical therapy ended. He carried the cane, though, because his knee stiffened after he sat too long, and it still gave out at the weirdest times. And, if he were honest, because he found the cane comforting. You could really mess somebody up with a cane if you needed to.

He was unlocking the door to the office he shared with Grace and Dawson, a cubbyhole of a room at the far end of Liversedge Hall, when his phone buzzed again. He fanned the door back and forth to clear the toxic musk of weed (Dawson) and chai (Grace) from the closed-up room. Another message from Cart.

Have you talked to him?

Just got out of the old fuck’s office.

Theo was just settling in at his desk, cane propped against the window, when the phone buzzed again.

You know that’s not what I meant.

Theo looked at the message for almost a full minute. Then he closed the phone, put it in his pocket, and started up the ancient desktop computer. It was none of Cart’s fucking business if Theo had talked to Auggie yet.

3

Auggie ran into Orlando, literally, on his second day in the Sigma Sigma house. Auggie was naked except for a towel around his waist, and he was rushing because he’d overslept and they were having a house meeting in half an hour. He yanked open his door, charged into the hallway, and crashed straight into his roommate from freshman year. They both went down in a tumble.

“Oh my God,” Orlando said, “I’m so sorry—Augs?”

Auggie grabbed the towel, which had ripped free in the fall, and covered himself awkwardly as he stood. Orlando picked himself up too. He’d been carrying a box, and now it lay on its side, spilling sneakers and tie-dyed jockstraps across the carpet squares. Auggie forced his eyes up, away from the jocks, to meet Orlando’s eyes.

His former roommate hadn’t changed much: the same thick eyebrows, the same heavy scruff, the