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1. Monday
“Professor Crowley? I wanted to ask you about—oh, sorry, sir, I didn’t realize you were on the phone.”
Mairi ducked out of the open doorway and stood against the wall in the corridor, burying her face in her own phone in an honest-to-goodness attempt not to listen in on the tail end of her advisor’s call. But she couldn’t help it. The door was still open, after all. And his tone of voice was one she’d never heard before, not in over two years of being his student. She risked the tiniest glance over her shoulder. He was leaning back in his chair and spinning a pen between his fingers, and he had the soppiest smile on his face that she had ever seen.
“Nope, nope, no need to bother. There’s a Tesco right on my way to yours. Orange ones, right. Two of ‘em? No problem. Listen, angel, I’ve got to go. A student just came in with a question. OK. Five thirty. I’ll text when I’m on my way. See you soon. With the bell peppers, yes. Bye.”
Fortunately she had a few seconds to school her face into a more professional-looking expression while he rang off and, apparently, gazed happily into space for a moment before calling her into his office. They spent several productive minutes discussing her most likely options for applying for funding to attend an upcoming conference, and then she thanked him and hurried away. Once outside of the astronomy building, she stopped at the first bench she came to in the quad and practically dropped her phone in her eagerness to get it out of her purse. In moments, WhatsApp was open and she was texting her best friend.
Omg, Xin, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. Professor Crowley, just now, on the phone—he called someone ‘angel’ as he rang off!! Like, a pet name!! And he was grinning like a loon the whole convo, too. I think he’s finally seeing someone!!!
The return text was nearly instantaneous. WHAT?? R u serious?? Omg, FINALLY!! I’m so happy for him!! 😃🎉🥰 Know anything about them?!?
Not much, I’m afraid. They’re particular about their bell peppers. Prof’s going round to their place for supper & he’s got to pick up some orange ones on the way.
A serious cook, then. I just buy the green ones no matter what the recipe says, cos they’re cheapest. Anyway. So the betting pool continues.
I want my payout, small though it’ll be. Last I checked, Connor is the only one left who thinks he’s straight.
Speaking as a bisexual person, we do exist, you know. He could be one of us and still seeing a woman.
Very true. Sorry. Mairi grinned at her screen. Anyway, I’ll see what else I can find out!! See you at the pub tonight.
*
2. Still Monday
“—No, I’m telling you, Connor, he called them ‘angel’! I heard it with my own ears! And you should’ve seen his face; he was absolutely radiant the whole time he was on the phone—”
“And I’m merely asking you whether it couldn’t have been ‘Angela’, you know, like the name; could be a friend or a family member—“
She shook her head furiously. “Completely different stress pattern and number of syllables! A triplet versus two quavers. Not even remotely the same thing.”
“C’mon, Connor, you know Mairi’s been a chorister since she was seven, and she’s got her Grade 5 in theory. Singers notice things like that.” Xin set down her drink on the table, rolling her eyes. “And you really couldn’t—“
“Hey everyone! You’ll never believe it!” Arib was hurrying through the pub toward the table where Connor, Xin, and Mairi sat, doffing his Tesco apron as he went. A waitress approached their table with a menu, but he waved her off. “No need for a menu, thanks, Katie. Just bring me that NA lager you recommended last time, if you would.”
“What is it, man?” Connor took a sip of his cider, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Mairi here was just claiming to have overheard Professor Crowley on the phone calling someone ‘angel,’ as in the pet name. I’m not positive I buy it.”
“No, that’s exactly it. She very probably did. He came through my checkout line at work with two orange bell peppers and a bottle of wine, nothing else. Deeply engrossed in his phone; barely noticed me until I said hello. We chatted a bit, but it doesn’t take that long to ring up two bell peppers and a bottle of wine. Except then he tried to pay with his phone and it wasn’t scanning properly. We aren’t really supposed to handle customers’ phones because of the liability, but of course when it’s someone you know in real life, sometimes you make an exception. And what do you know, just as he handed it over, a text came through! It said, ‘Hello, sweetheart, how was your day?’ Sweetheart! I rest my case. And Mairi’s.” Arib’s drink arrived at that moment, and he took a long gulp before setting it down on its coaster with an air of triumph.
Xin leaned forward. “Ooh! ‘Sweetheart.’ I like that one for him. Did you see the person’s name?”
Mairi spoke at the same time. “What kind of wine was it? A kind that you’d take on a date? Cos the bell peppers were definitely dinner ingredients for the date, I overheard that much.”
Arib laughed. “How the heck do you expect me, as someone who doesn’t drink, to know the first thing about the quality of different wines?” He paused for a moment, thinking. “It was a red, I do remember that. Not the cheapest bottle we carry, but not the most expensive one, either. And no, I’m not sure of the person’s name. I was mainly focused on getting his payment to scan properly. It was short and started with an A, that’s all I know.”
Connor nodded. “So it could have been Ada. Or Anna.”
Xin raised an eyebrow at him. “Or Alf. Or Alan.”
“Any of those, yeah. I’ve got no idea, really.”
Connor stood, finishing off his drink as he did. “Well, folks, it’s been a pleasure, but I’ve got places to be. See you tomorrow!” He set down his empty glass, then made his way out of the pub.
Mairi shook her head. “Does he even actually think Professor Crowley is straight at this point? Or is he just taking the mickey out of us?”
Xin took a sip of her drink. “Can’t say I really care. Either way, that man was born to lose a fortune, Mairi.”
*
3. Tuesday
Dr. Beatrice L. Zeeb, Distinguished Professor of Exoplanetary Science, was kneeling on top of their desk, shoes long since kicked off onto the floor, trying to swat at a stubborn fly that was buzzing around their office. Every window was open, but the damn thing simply wouldn’t leave. They swung the flyswatter again, and missed again. Damn. Double damn. Fuck, in fact. Their article draft on the latest developments in analyzing Alpha Centauri’s atmosphere was due by midnight, and with this fly distracting them for the past several hours they’d simply not gotten enough work done this afternoon. They swung at it yet again, and it buzzed angrily up to the ceiling light fixture.
“Hey, Bea? Just wanted to—oh, shit, are you OK?
Anthony rushed forward to where his colleague had shrieked at the unexpected sound of his voice and toppled off the desk onto the floor. He helped them up and over to their chair, where they sat ruefully massaging their elbow. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Was trying to get that fucking fly up there, and you just scared me, that’s all. What did you need?”
“Nothing. Just letting you know I’m taking off a bit early and making sure you’re all set with the slides for tomorrow, or is there anything I can do? Only, I’ve got opera tickets tonight…”
“You? Opera tickets? Who are you and what have you done with Anthony?” They chuckled at their own joke, then paused and narrowed their eyes. “Wait. Tickets plural? Your mum in town or something?”
“No, no, we’re still not speaking. And she’s more of a rugby fan anyway. If you must know, I—well, my, erm, my date picked it out. He wants to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn, I believe. And I enjoy Shakespeare in the original, so I thought it might be fun to try.” His face had flooded bright red.
They pumped a fist in the air and whooped, face splitting into a huge grin. “Your date?! At fucking last, Anthony meets a man and actually gets a date with him! About time! What’s his name, how old is he, what’s he do, is he cute, and have you fucked him yet?”
Anthony’s face got, if possible, even redder, and he buried it in his hands for a moment. “Asa. Forty-six. Former secondary English teacher and current used-book seller. Yes, extremely cute. You wouldn’t believe his bow ties, let alone his smile. And as for the last question, none of your damn business. God, what a question to ask at work. I can’t believe you!” But he couldn’t hide his own grin, either.
“Ah, well, can’t blame a person for trying. Nosey, me. You’ll bring him to the department Christmas party, right? We’ll all be dying to meet him!”
“Bea! That’s two months away! Anything could happen by then! And you know I’m not out to the students—“
“And as I’ve told you before, I don’t understand why not! It’s 2026, for fuck’s sake! I’m out, and it’s completely fine! Your third-year seminar has a fucking betting pool on you, Anthony, and the current odds’re heavily in favor of you being queer; you’re not actually all that subtle—“
“You know perfectly well why that is. The whole brouhaha back at the University of Sussex, when I was doing my postdoctoral work. With Nevens threatening to upend any chance I had at professional advancement so that he didn’t look like someone who’d accidentally hired a f—well, a you-know-what—for his lab. Plus I never wanted the students here trying to set me up with people if they knew.“
“Yes, I do know, and I’m sorry you had to deal with that. But Sussex was twenty years ago, Anthony. Times have changed. Well, not entirely. Not for everyone. But they’ve changed on this campus, anyway. And as to your second concern, you’ve got a boyfriend now. So setups won’t be a problem anymore, will they?”
“We’ll see. I don’t think he’s my boyfriend yet. Only our fourth date, tonight.”
“A straight man would say he’s in a relationship by the fourth date. Lesbians, half that time.”
“And as we’ve established, Bea, I’m very much not a straight man. Or a lesbian.” He grinned at his colleague and swatted at them playfully. “Anyway, Asa and I are taking it slow. Neither of us have had very many relationships in adulthood, so we’re going one day at a time.”
“That’s a ‘no’ on the fucking, then. Well, I’ll stop by Boots, pick you up some condoms and lube on my way home. Leave ‘em right in the center of your desk tomorrow morning. Plain sight from the corridor. Lights on. I’ll make sure the brand names’re fully visible, too. So you two’re all set whenever it happens. You do know how to do it, right? Or do you need me to send you some links? Copy of It’s Perfectly Normal? GAAH!”
This time Anthony had grabbed the back of their chair and deliberately tipped them onto the floor. They looked up at him, grinning, and he helped them back up, also smiling but his face even more crimson than before. “You wouldn’t dare! And on that lovely note, I truly do have to leave now. Operas wait for no man.”
They chuckled. “Or cute booksellers. All right, my friend. Have fun. Tell me all about it tomorrow. Slides’re all done, by the way. See you in the morning for that meeting.”
*
4. Thursday
Anthony taught a night class on Wednesdays, and then he’d stayed quite late after that to set up a dataset to process overnight, so he didn’t arrive to work on Thursday until nearly noon. No matter. His seminar wasn’t until two, and he didn’t have any scheduled meetings or calls the rest of the day. Juggling his large coffee and his phone in one hand while digging in his pocket for his office key with the other, he rounded the corner to find a gaggle of students gathered in the corridor around his door, whispering and pointing.
Shit. It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Not Friday? I didn’t miss my 10 a.m. Friday class, did I? Or—God, Bea didn’t actually buy—no, they couldn’t have; they were definitely joking—
But when the students saw him they fell into silence and parted like the waters of the Red Sea, and he got a view of his desk through the little window on the door and stopped cold.
A magnificent bouquet of flowers, professionally arranged and cascading up from its vase in a riot of reds and purples and yellows and greens, stood in the center of his desk. There was a card, but it was buried among the petals and, he was relieved to see, wasn’t legible from outside the door. He couldn’t suppress a grin. Trust Asa to pull a stunt like this! After a dreamy and romantic Tuesday evening of holding hands all the way through a beautiful operatic setting of Anthony’s favorite Shakespeare play, they’d shared a sweet and gentle kiss—their third, not that he was counting, no, certainly not—on his doorstep when Asa had dropped him off at home. By now, due to their respective work schedules, they hadn’t seen one another in over twenty-four hours, and it seemed Asa already missed him. Well, fair enough. He missed Asa, too. He’d never thought he could miss a person he’d known for less than a month. But it felt like it had been so much more than a month. Centuries, perhaps. Eons, even.
He’d kept silent for too long, and Xin took it as an opening to be a bloody nosey-parker. “Professor? We noticed you weren’t in yet, and we thought they might like some water—“
Anthony tried to bury his grin and become stern, but it was a struggle to keep the smile off his face and he had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t very successful. “Why would they bloody well need water, lass? You see the vase, don’t you? ‘S got water in it already, a smart arrangement like this, done by a professional florist. About your business, please, everyone. I’ll see you all in class in a couple of hours.”
They scattered, whispering and giggling and typing busily on their phones, and he turned his attention to his key, to setting down his coffee properly—and to closing the door behind him.
The card, once opened, proved to contain only two things: Asa’s name in the “from” section, and a Project Gutenberg URL. An old book—of course, Anthony thought, chuckling fondly to himself. Actually, I’m a bit surprised it’s not a catalogue number for a physical volume from the public library instead! Nevertheless, he got out his phone and typed it in, and he soon found himself on a Victorian dictionary devoted to the language of flowers. He sat down in his chair and squinted up at the pristine blossoms in front of him.
Asa hadn’t beaten around the bush. Fern, for fascination. Heliotrope, for devotion. Ranunculus, “You are radiant with charms.” And red tulips and roses, for a declaration of love.
Grinning hugely, he set the vase on the windowsill to the right of his desk, where he could admire the bouquet in the autumn sunlight. For the next two hours he got very little work done, and when he arose at 1:45 to head over to his classroom, there was a crick in his neck.
*
5. Still Thursday
“Right, then, good work today, everyone. Don’t forget your problem sets’re due Monday. I’ll see you—“
“Professor? Sir? We just wanted to say—”
He paused in the act of packing away his laptop, and turned a wary eye to where his entire third-year seminar hadn’t stirred a muscle out of their seats. Unlike them, that. They got along quite well, but they usually all had places to rush off to after class. “Yes, Connor?”
“Well, sir, not to pry, but—the flowers—we’re all just really happy for you, whoever she is. And we wanted you to know that. We weren’t trying to be disrespectful.”
“That would be prying, Connor. Definitely prying.” His face was red, and he buried it in his hands as he flopped back down in the chair he’d just vacated. “Fine. Just…fine. I’m never going to hear the end of it if I don’t tell you, am I? Don’t get me fired for this, please. Yes, I’ve recently started seeing someone, and he sent me the flowers this morning. Yes, he’s a man. Yes, I’m out to my close friends on the faculty but not generally to anyone else, including the students until now. No offense. There were, there were, well, problems when I was doing my postdoc. Prejudice, you know. From the department chair. None of you are old enough to remember what 2004 was like, but it wasn’t pleasant. And I don’t want to talk about it.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Anyway. My, my—well. That is. The man I’m seeing. What you wanted to know about him. His name’s Asa, he’s around my age, and he’s a former secondary school English teacher who now sells used books for a living. And I like him very much.”
He risked a peek between his fingers to find them trading triumphant glances and grins or bouncing excitedly in their chairs like little kids, so he relaxed a bit.
Arib spoke up. “How did you meet him, sir? On the apps?”
“No, I certainly did not. Wouldn’t’ve been possible, in fact. His skills with using a mobile are—and please understand, I say this fondly—barely sufficient for conducting normal adult life in this century. And I, as you’ve likely surmised, don’t date much, so I’ve never bothered to download ‘em myself. Not that that’s any of your business. I met him entirely by accident when I went into his bookshop to buy something. A book, in fact, if you can believe it. We hit it off, he asked me out, and now here we are. Are you happy now? Only I’m going to leave now so you can settle up your—your little betting pool—“
“You aren’t supposed to know about the betting pool, sir.” It was Mairi. She was smiling.
“‘S a bloody forty-seven person department, innit? Why wouldn’t I know about it? Anyway, Professor Zeeb told me all about it on Tuesday. Connor, let me know if you need any help with the bus fare to get yourself here tomorrow, what with how much money you’ll be paying out today. I appreciate your willingness to take a risk, but I haven’t fancied a woman since I was nine years old—and the woman in question was Carrie Fisher, which I’m sure you’ll agree was understandable. Problem sets Monday, all!”
He swept out of the room, but not in time to miss Connor’s chuckle. “Well, shows what I know. I’m just glad the old man’s met someone at last; he deserves it. But fair’s fair—toss us that marker, Mairi, and I’ll put my Venmo on the board. Send me your requests. Twenty quid apiece!”
The last sound he heard as he rounded the corner was his students’ delighted laughter.
*
+1 Monday again
Mairi put down her completed problem set on top of the small stack in the open file folder sitting on the table next to Professor Crowley’s vacant seat. She breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t been an easy one, and last night she & Julia had spent much more time working on it and much less time hooking up than they’d originally planned. Well, done was good. Plenty of time later to—anyway. She took a seat between Julia & Xin, and started pulling out her laptop.
“Morning, folks! I see we’ve gotten the problem sets turned in, and we’re ready to go. Any trouble with them?”
A chorus of groans echoed around the table as Professor Crowley bounced, far too energetically for a Monday morning, into the room.
“That bad, eh? No matter. We’ll work through ’em later. In the meantime let’s get started on—yes?”
There had been a knock at the classroom door, and everyone’s head automatically swiveled toward the sound.
A man none of the students had ever seen before in their lives stood in the doorframe. He was middle-aged and of medium height with wavy blond hair, and he wore a deep yellow waistcoat over a button-down shirt with a bow tie, khakis, and loafers. In one hand he clutched a black insulated lunch bag, and in the other, a vintage tartan Thermos. Just a perfectly ordinary stranger—but one glance back at their professor showed that the latter had gone entirely goopy-eyed and besotted. A murmur ran around the classroom just as the stranger spoke.
“Anthony, my dear? You left your lunch sitting on my kitchen counter when you left for work this morning, and I know you were particularly looking forward to the leftover pasta from last night. And I’d wanted to make another pot of the jasmine tea you’d so enjoyed, too. So I thought I’d just pop them both by, and they told me I could find you here—“
Xin’s voice was, mercifully, just a whisper in Mairi’s ear. “He stayed over? Eeee!!”
Professor Crowley’s face was burning red again. “Thanks, angel, I appreciate it. Oh, God, you lot are incorrigible. Let’s get this over with. Everyone, this is my—all right, fine, my boyfriend. Mr. Fell to all of you, if you please. Asa, this is my third-year seminar. Julia, Mairi, Xin, Promise, Will, Arib, Jeffrey, Connor, and Hridhaan. They’re the ones who’ve been gossiping about us all week. God, this is embarrassing.”
But he was smiling, even as his face reddened further. Asa murmured a few basic pleasantries and bowed to the whole class, then handed over the lunch bag & thermos and took his leave of Professor Crowley with an incredibly flirtatious glance and a promise to see him later. The professor rose to shut the door behind him, then returned to his seat to face nine enormous grins.
“What kind of pasta is it, sir?” Julia spoke.
“Black truffle in cream. All homemade, including the pasta itself. With a side of roasted green beans with shallots in a balsamic reduction. And before you ask, we had homemade chocolate torte for dessert.”
Low whistles from those in the class who knew their way around a kitchen. “No wonder you stayed over with him last night, sir!” Xin, this time, always to be trusted to say aloud what everyone was thinking.
“You caught that bit? Oh God. Thank heaven you’re all adults this year, no child prodigies about. Still. I’m going to die of humiliation, right here and now. Just, just, have me cremated, please. No church funeral. Scatter me in the South Downs National Park. God, you absolute nosey parkers!”
Everyone fell about laughing.
“Sir?” Mairi raised her hand when the merriment had finally died down. Their professor peeked out from behind fingers he’d laced across his burning face, squinting at her. She stood and crossed over to him, then dropped something small onto the table in front of him. It clinked. He stared down at it for a moment, then swallowed and held it up.
It was a tiny enamel lapel pin in the shape of a Pride flag, the bright rainbow stripes and the pastel-and-neutral triangle cutting across them forever waving in an imaginary breeze. Mairi smiled at him as she explained. “I had it left over from Pride this summer, sir. You don’t have to wear it in public if you aren’t comfortable being out at work. Everyone’s got to make their own choice about that, and I can see why you’d still be nervous after what happened to you in the past. But I’d like you to have it anyway, because you should know we, in this room, we’ve got your back. Even Connor. He can be an idiot sometimes—” she stuck out her tongue at him—“but he’ll learn. Because these days we’ve all got to stick together. Be on our own side, you know. I think I speak for all of us in this class when I say that we’re just glad you and Professor Zeeb are here. We value you both as part of our campus queer community—which includes about fifty percent of this class, by the way—and we value you both for your amazing work learning more about what makes the universe tick. We’re proud that we’ll get to be your colleagues someday. And as far as we’re concerned Mr. Fell’s welcome here at any time, too, for as long as he keeps making you this happy.”
Professor Crowley swallowed again, turning the pin over in his fingers. “Folks—I—I never thought—“ He was silent for a moment, and then looked up, tears in his eyes and a tender smile on his face. “Yes, of course I’ll wear it.” He unclipped the back, and within moments it was a single, shining spot of color against his black jumper.
His students looked at one another, and then, as one, broke into a round of applause.