Gravity (Greenford #2) - Romeo Alexander Page 0,1

pretty standard as far as he could tell, but he also knew that Lucas had been up to his eyeballs in a lot of cases. Spring Break had come and gone, and with the arrival of the end of the semester coming up, most of the alcohol-related incidents were beginning to build up in the courts.

By the time he’d done a few passes through the brief and made suggestions, the last of the test takers had left. It left him with only fifteen minutes of class time, and he packed everything up to return to his office. Of course, once he got there, he simply unpacked everything once more to resume what he was doing, albeit with his office door open for anyone to walk in if they wanted help or had questions.

No sooner had he sat down than his phone began buzzing. With a grunt, he pulled the device out and answered the call. Almost immediately, two screens popped up, one showing Lucas, looking a little beleaguered, and another showing his own face.

“Ugh, a video call?” Samuel complained, hand immediately going to his hair to adjust it.

“You look fine,” Lucas chided him.

Probably, but that was only because Lucas was used to his appearance. Samuel’s dark hair never behaved itself, not unless he kept it extremely short or held down with enough hair product to glue it to his skull. As it was, it was only lunchtime and it had already flown in several different directions, some of it hanging down to brush against his brow over his dark eyes.

“Thanks, Mom,” Samuel grunted, running a hand over his jaw. The five o’clock shadow was already coming in heavily. Not that he minded, he thought it accented his jaw, giving it a more angled look to what he felt were slightly too round features. “What’s with the video anyway?”

“Mis-push, we’ll live,” Lucas said, as quick to the point as usual. “I wanted to call to ask if you were busy this weekend.”

“Uh, not as far as I’m aware,” Samuel told him.

“Good, I was hoping I could catch you for lunch or dinner on Saturday. I recently realized that with all of these cases that have been heaping up, we haven’t touched base in quite a while,” Lucas said, shuffling with something off-screen.

Samuel shrugged. “I’m sure I can clear out my extremely busy schedule for my friend.”

Lucas smirked. “Yes, we wouldn’t want to take you away from hiding in your house or office at all hours.”

He rolled his eyes. “Got a place in mind?”

Lucas stopped fussing, frowned and sighed. “I’ve heard that Nations is good.”

Samuel had heard the same, though he hadn’t quite found the motivation to go. It had opened up only a few months ago, and in a quiet town like Greenford, a new place to eat and drink tended to be big news, especially among college students.

“If that’s the case,” Samuel told him. “Then we should aim for dinner. I hear their cocktails are worth forking money over for.”

“After the past month, I could use a stiff one,” Lucas said. Almost immediately he turned a glare toward the screen. “And do not make the obvious joke there.”

“I would never dare to make a dick joke to my very heterosexual friend,” Samuel said with absolutely zero sincerity.

A knock brought his head up and he turned to find his formerly missing student standing in the doorway.

“Uh, Lucas, I’m going to have to let you go,” Samuel said, holding a hand up for Tyler to wait a moment as the young man shuffled awkwardly in the doorway.

“Good, Saturday it is then. Say, six?”

“Make it eight, so we can at least pretend like we’re going out for drinks and relaxation instead of two professionals wishing they were back in school,” Samuel chuckled.

“Deal. Talk to you later.”

Samuel ended the call, shaking his head as he set the device down and turned to the student.

“Tyler,” Samuel said slowly. “We missed you today.”

“Kind of surprised you remember me,” Tyler mumbled, looking down at his feet.

“I have a good memory for people,” Samuel said, which was only partially true.

“Uh, I heard we had a test today,” Tyler said.

Samuel pushed his laptop away, locking the screen. “We did. Not a very big one though, finals are just around the corner so I wasn’t trying to overload anyone.”

“Would there be any chance that I could still take it?” Tyler asked, still not pulling his eyes from the floor.

“If,” Samuel said, leaning back in his seat to watch his student