The end of the semester grind is an old adversary for Dell. She’s been in college for almost a decade. She has her tendencies and her rituals; any deviation threatens to throw the whole thing crashing down on her head. From the type of coffee she drinks through the day to the specific times she goes to sleep, her days are planned.

She’d managed well enough last year, her first as a post-grad. Now, though, when the only thing looming over her head is an entire fucking chapter in seven days . . . she feels washed out. Empty. It’s ten AM on a Friday morning. Normally by now she’d be enjoying her day off and wrecking some havoc on the Xbox but today she is sitting in front of her computer. Just staring at it, as though the fierceness of her glare will produce words.

It has been an ineffective strategy so far because she just can’t concentrate. Every time she closes her eyes to collect her thoughts she sees Mike’s face. He smiles at her across his bed, his hair everywhere and his expression soft. He’s pushing her against his kitchen counter playfully nipping at her ear. He’s giving her a final kiss before he leaves her at home. Mike is everywhere she isn’t looking.

This was the worst possible time for Dell to get involved with anyone. Because her habits with new relationships are as all-consuming as her prep for a week of tests. She gets in over her head way too quick. She gets feelings and has thoughts and starts liking the people she sleeps with immediately.

She should have never let him kiss her outside the restaurant. She should have watched her step and let him take her home and then given him a hug and her thanks for the sushi.

Dell can’t really regret anything that’d happened though. Sex with Mike was like the most amazing discovery in the field: overwhelming at first then building to a ridiculous frenzy as the impact and importance was revealed. He was inside her, physically and mentally. She feels exhausted and it has nothing to do with a lack of sleep.

Andrew knocks gently on her door and she looks up from her computer screen to accept a fresh cup of coffee. He’d been at work when she’d arrived yesterday so she’d been spared the minimal walk of shame but as soon as she’d come home from her meetings yesterday he was all questions. Even with her bad mood, the afterglow of her new most favorite defender in the history of ever had lingered.

“What do you want for lunch? I brought home some of that pesto chicken pizza you like.”

She smiles gratefully at him. “Sounds good. Thanks, buddy.”

Andrew rubs at her hair, thoroughly fucking up her ponytail, and goes off to be the mighty urban forager he is. Dell rubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands. She needs to focus. If she can get a rough outline done today then tomorrow she should be able to swing by the lab at school to recheck a few data points that had come up as errors. Why Anders couldn’t have talked to her about this Wednesday, she will never know.

She feels like she’s getting some progress made when Andrew appears with a couple of slices. It fills her room with the rich, herb smell she loves so very much and she thanks him again. She settles in, vowing to at least twelve pages on this outline before dinner.

At three she takes a short bathroom break and she makes the mistake of checking her phone while she’s padding back to her computer. It’s been on Do Not Disturb since she woke up this morning and in the hours since she’s received four texts. One is from her sister, reminding her that she’ll be in town next week. Dell kind of wants to call up Ruth and tell her not to bother because she’s so busy but Ruth’ll just bitch and moan until she caves. The second text is from her mother, asking about Christmas plans.

The last two are from Mike. The first is time stamped around noon and asks her if she’d like to get lunch. Apparently that really great Italian joint he’d been trying to take her to the first day they met is still open and still delicious. The second text is only a half hour old. He tells her he’s sorry she’s so busy and to call him later, if she gets the chance.

Dell wonders if Mike is as distracted as she is, doing whatever it is that professional hockey players get up to when there’s no hockey. He’d been a little vague when he’d described his schedule as of late. Practice, she knows. Wandering around museums and picking up shovel bums who look like real bums she supposes. She still can’t believe her audacity at bringing him back to the excavations lab. She’s always been one to grab opportunity when she can, though, and an afternoon talking him up had been pleasant.

She knows she really likes Mike. Really really likes him. It’s not just the hockey, although it doesn’t hurt in the slightest. It’s his little smiles when he’s amused but mostly humoring her. It’s the look he gets when she laughs. He looks at her like she’s the missing crud ware data from India ca. 300 BCE. Like she is an object to be carefully analyzed and treasured.

Josh used to look at her like that too, right when they first got engaged. Before the ring they’d been fucking, mostly. But one day he’d asked and she’d said yes and he must have realized that he was lucky. Really fucking lucky because she was going somewhere. She was a smart and a little naïve but sharp. By the time all the thank you cards had been mailed off, post wedding, he’d been showing his true, useless colors. She has no idea how she didn’t see through his bull shit much sooner.

Dell violently shakes off the thoughts about Josh and gently sets the ones of Mike aside. She does not have time for this shit. She has a chapter to write.

She does get her outline done before dinner and in celebration she takes a half hour to dick around on the Xbox. Just a quick match-up between her team, The Boasian Franks, and the Coyotes. They usually give her a surprising amount of trouble, even though her fucking roster is stacked. Her little created pro (yes, her pro is a girl and yes she’s got a +204 because she’s awesome like that) is paired with Mike in game and Dell starts giggling.

How fitting. She hasn’t played since she met him. She thinks the video game designers didn’t do his avatar justice. Not only that but Mike is way more sure on his feet than the in-game version. She enjoys the match though and when she’s done she has to call him.

She’s still got a laugh in her voice when he picks up. He sounds out of breath and the first thing she thinks to ask is, “Are you okay?”

He lets out a huff. “Yeah. I was on the treadmill. Hey, hi.” She can hear the smile in his voice. When she closes her eyes now she sees Mike, leaning over her and deep in concentration with his hair plastered to his sweaty forehead.

“Hey yourself. How was the game last night?” She already knows the score but she hasn’t seen any high lights.

“It was good. A little one-sided but Nicky got an assist and Ovie got a goal. It was a good night out.” Mike sounds a little wistful when he talks about his teammates.

“You miss them a lot, don’t you?”

“Of course. Yeah, for sure. You live and work with guys for half a decade and suddenly they’re all overseas . . . it’s weird.” Dell can almost understand. At the end of every school year the whole crowd changes and she’s constantly turning in class to share a joke with someone who isn’t there anymore.

“I’m really sorry.”

He humms her apology away. “How’s the writing going?” He’s less out of breath; she thinks she can hear him drinking.

“It’s going. Slow but sure now that I’ve gotten in the groove. I just took a short break. Our team kicked the ever loving shit out of Yotes. 12-3. Teams come to our arena to watch their save percentage die. You put Yandle through the glass too. That was most excellent.”

“You talking about the video game, right?”

She nods, even though he can see her and she fiddles with the NHL13 menu. “Figured I’d be able to accurately judge your rating now that I’ve seen you in action in person.” He must have still been drinking because he holds the phone away from him and coughs. Dell has to laugh.

“And how do I measure up?”

She’s feeling good and she’s less stressed about her deadline so she turns on the charm. “Although I’ve never met them I’m pretty sure you blow Ovie and Datsyuk’s game ratings out of the water. Just saying. You’ve got some moves on you . . . “ She leaves it open ended, knowing he’ll pick up on her meaning.

He sure does, if his groan is any indication. “The first thing I thought when I woke up this morning what how much it was going to suck having to get out of bed knowing you weren’t wandering around in my t-shirt without panties on.”

She groans now, thinking of yesterday morning’s activities. “Soon enough, young padawan. First, the Master must hone her craft.”

“What does that even mean?”

She throws every cautionary thought from her head. Fuck it. This chapter will get written and she will be a successful doctorate student and she will spend as much time as possible between Mike Green’s sheets. “It means that if I finish this paper early, I’m locking myself in your bedroom until I can’t walk anymore.”

“That is so not fair. Not fair at all.” She can hear a hitch in his voice and it heats her blood. Holy fucking shit this guy is sex on a stick. “Can you come out tomorrow? I know you’re busy but there’s another match. Finland and Sweden are playing.” It is such a tempting offer but Dell knows she has to turn it down.

“I’m stuck here or on campus until this is done. I’m really sorry. And, I should get back to work.” She’s already blown an hour between the video game and talking to Mike. It makes her feel guilty; she hates feeling guilty especially about school work.

“Yeah no problem.” He has disappointment written all over his statement. Dell feels even guiltier. “Call, I guess. When you get a chance.”

“You got it.” She says a quick good-bye and hangs up, not trusting herself to wait for his in reply. She’d talk to him all night. His hair does crazy things to her brain and his voice is almost just as bad. She secretly thinks his accent is the hottest fucking thing about him, especially when he’s whispering ridiculously filthy things in her ear. Like telling her he’s going to fuck her right on the kitchen counter. Dell shudders at the memory.

It’s only been three days.

She is so fucked.

Friday night bleeds into Saturday morning with a flurry of typing and copious amounts of coffee. She calls it quit at three and then is up again by eight. Her outline gets polished and she makes the walk down to campus with a hitch in her step.

Her data points are in fact off and they are completely throwing her datum into disorder. Whoever had been running the GPS station had fucked up, and good. She’s on her phone, calling the fifth person that had excavated with her over the summer, when the field school advisor walks in. Rich is a great guy, total genius. He looks abut as pissed as she feels though.

Over the course of the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon they find the error and correct it. She has a whole host of things to put back in the data base to get everything up to date and he asks her to grab a bite to eat when they’re on the way out.

She’s an easy sell, mostly because she knows he’ll buy and she can afford one more hour before sitting down to endless data entry. There’s a pizza joint off campus, the Victory, that the grad kids love going to. She’s a fan because it doubles as a sports bar after nine and she’s watched tons of hockey games on their huge screens. Rich grabs them a seat while she slides through the crowd to get to the bathroom. It is packed. Saturday night, though, she’s not all that surprised that she has to wait five minutes to use a stall.

Rich orders himself a beer and there’s an iced tea waiting for her when she gets back to the table and Dell thanks him. He knows her well enough, having spent two months living together with fifteen other people. Field school builds pretty strong relationships, if the crew is legit. Summer in Maine had been one of the best so far.

“How’s the fellowship going?”

Dell shrugs and drinks some tea. “You know, stuff. They’ve got me working on an archaic down in South Carolina right now. If I never have to see another piece of debitage I’ll be over the moon.”

Rich scoffs at her and rolls his eyes. He’s, like, a decade older than her and he constantly gives her shit for the unrealistic expectations she has about their work. Someone, somewhere, had told her that being an archaeologist was glamorous. Sometimes she still wants to believe that but it’s not glamorous. There’s no worldly acclaim and huge check waiting for her down the road but she’s come to love the riddle of mystery she solves instead. Rich helped teach her that.

“You could be doing CRM like Santos. I heard he ended up in Illinois.”

They both wince at the thought. CRM equates to shit pay and back breaking excavations with no possible chance at analysis. Nightmare. “Yeah, well, the experience is good and once I really get this dissertation off the ground-“ Dell is glancing around the room, casually about to take a sip of iced tea when her eyes land on a group of large men at the bar. One in particular. Tall. Built. Long, thick black hair. Her mouth goes dry and she sets the glass back down.

Mike is here. Right now. She’s forgotten how good he looks. She’s forgotten, not even two full days removed. And he’s standing with his back to her, staring a TV screen.

“Dell?” She blinks back at Rich. He’s giving her an expectant look but she just ignores him and turns back to Mike. One of the guys next to him, it has to be a teammate, catches her eye and actually winks. She frowns. What the fuck is the protocol here? She doesn’t want to be rude but they have had sex. She should be able to just say hi, right?

The teammate slaps Mike on the shoulder and Dell sucks in a breath when he turns to glare at his friend. She’s forgotten. Oh God. She squirms because, really, she would have given almost anything to have spent all day in bed with him. Anything. Mike talks to his friend quietly and then he’s turning farther, looking behind him and across the room, right at her.

She feels caught in his gaze, thinking of all the things they’ve done and still have yet to do. He fills her vision; Rich calls her name again and puts his hand over hers. She must look dumb struck and she smiles if only to let him know everything is fine. Just a little wobbly. She smiles back at Mike too because he is a sight for sore, overworked eyes.

Mike isn’t smiling back though. Mike is staring her down before looking at the guy in the booth next to her. His brow furrows. He’s upset. Why is he upset? Dell gets up from her seat. What’s wrong? Mike tenses when she starts walking over and rather than waiting for her he practically bolts from the bar. Well, fuck shit. Dell takes off after him.

It’s dark already and the rain earlier in the week has cooled DC off considerably. She’s shivering before she makes up the block Mike has put between them. He ignores her when she calls his name and he doesn’t stop until she’s got an arm on his bicep, pleading with him to slow up.

Mike whirls and his expression is thunderous. She takes a step back. “Hey, what’s going on? Why did you run out of there?” Mike is almost growling in irritation. What the fuck is happening here?

“You have to stay home, eh? You have a paper to write? You should have just told me that you had a date tonight. I wouldn’t have wasted all day thinking about you.” He sounds so bitter, words dripping with venom. She actually winces and takes a step back, completely unprepared for this.

“We were in the lab and he offered dinner; it’s been a shit long day and I never turn down a free meal. Broke student, remember?” She points at her chest. “I’m sure I’ll be back to the grind when I get home.” He’s pissed she’s out and about, not working. That’s gotta be it.

Mike heaves out a sigh that is still full of anger. “I feel like a fool, Dell. I really do. How long have you been seeing that- that- guy?”

Ooooohhh, she thinks. Rich. Okay, so he was pissed about Rich. Understandable. That’s a totally socially acceptable response to seeing the girl you’re banging with another dude. That possibility is laughable though. Rich is gay. “I’m not dating Rich. He was the advisor for the dig I was on this summer. Seriously.”

“Sure. You totally look like buds, table that small and sitting so close. You know what, never mind. Clearly I read way more into this, us, than you did. I’m getting out of here.”

Wait. What the actual fuck. “Stop! Don’t walk away from me. Mike! There’s nothing going on between me and Rich. What the fuck, dude?”

Mike ignores her, leaves her shivering in the cold DC night and wondering what’s just happened.