Chapter Text
Jack Abbot is many things: the crown jewel of the School of Public Health, for one, whose hotness score on Rate My Professor might be singularly responsible for the record enrollment in the Conflict Epidemiology program this year. He is uncompromising where it counts, and intensely discerning, and is, therefore, a natural at organically weeding out the students who registered for his classes solely for the aforementioned chili peppers. But for those who truly want to learn, he is thorough and patient and fair, a born educator and leader.
What he isn’t is a mind reader.
“You know, you do actually have to ask me the question in order for me to answer it, Mohan.”
Only after he’s deadpanned the words does he drag his gaze from the Moleskine on his desk to where she’s standing in the doorway to his office, just in time to catch the playful glare she levels him with in response.
Samira pushes off the doorjamb and crosses to where he’s seated, dropping unceremoniously into one of the upholstered chairs in front of him. Her chair, his mind instantly supplies; she curls up there often enough when they’re both up to their ears in grading. Most such nights result in their fingers tipped in pizza grease courtesy of Marco’s one block away. It’s a miracle if their students’ papers escape unstained.
“I was getting there,” she says defensively, but there’s a glint in her eyes and it makes him grin.
“What’s up?”
She side-steps the question easily. Nods to the stack of assignments he is steadfastly ignoring. “Classes going well today?”
“So far, so good,” he says, and tips back in his chair just enough for the rays of late afternoon sun filtering in through his blinds to catch the latent red in his salt and pepper curls, “though I have my moral injury seminar tonight, which is always a hell of a way to end the day. You?”
“Oh, livin’ the dream.”
He snorts at her droll delivery. For as dedicated she is to her students, he knows assistant teaching is her least favorite part of her PhD program. She’d much rather be devoting her time to her research, a shared love they bonded over early and kindled by exchanging journals manuscript drafts: him, a section from the book on mass casualty incidents he was writing in his sparse downtime, and her, a chapter of her dissertation on racial disparities in Medicaid payment acceptance in Pennsylvania.
“Speaking of dreams,” she finally says, “in the sense that a nightmare technically qualifies as a dream—I have a favor to ask you.”
With that glowing introduction?
“Shoot.”
Samira has rehearsed her request a hundred times over at this point, but her stomach still does a traitorous twist as she sits up straighter and says, “Okay. Well. My mom is going to be in town this weekend, and at her insistence, I am having her over for dinner. I suggested a restaurant—you know, someplace public where the presence of an audience might reasonably dissuade me from matricide—but she played the ‘there’s no need to make a fuss’ card, which in amma-speak means that she wants an excuse to study my apartment and use it as a litmus test for just how much intervention she needs to do in the coming months.”
There isn’t anything even remotely resembling a question in there, but she stops short and looks at him expectantly, and when he meets her beseeching gaze in turn, she—
Blushes.
Huh.
The choice of a degree that requires a dissertation does not, in fact, necessarily translate to an aptitude for writing—he has sat on enough committees to know that one firsthand—but it does in Samira’s case, and one result of her propensity for storytelling is that he has heard enough about her mother and their relationship to be able to guess the next words out of her mouth. There is, after all, really only one reason that makes sense of that context, and Samira’s initial reticence, and the apples of her cheeks, still visibly warm.
There is a non-zero chance that he is wrong, of course. It’s the reason he hasn’t acted on his attraction, hasn’t actually kissed her instead of merely imagining doing so every time she comes bounding in, dimples and all, on an adrenaline high that only a productive meeting with her advisor could inspire. Risk assessment is a foundational practice of their field, and here at least, the risk-benefit analysis is simple: he likes what they have too much to chance ruining it in an attempt at something more.
But in the event that he’s right, and she came to him for this—
“Intervention?” he prompts, his voice even.
“Of a very particular sort.” She scrubs a hand through her hair, unintentionally mussing her curls. “It, um, usually looks like her setting me up with some auntie’s son.”
(There was Sagar, for example, who was nice enough but hadn’t read anything not by Malcolm Gladwell since undergrad and was never going to love a woman more than he loved his Tesla. At least Ajay’s Goodreads had more range, but he had been so genuinely taken aback by the length of her program and had so presumptuously mentioned moving to San Francisco in a year’s time that Samira didn’t even allow herself to sleep with him before encouraging him to lose her number.)
“Anyway, I get enough backhanded commentary from my mom about becoming Dr. Mohan by way of public health instead of med school, I don’t need some MBA doing the same. But amma is about as subtle as a crowbar—as inflexible, too—so I know she’s just going to try again.” She tilts her head to the side, appraising. “Unless.”
Unless. The single conjunction has never been more load-bearing than it is now, with Samira looking at him like that. She makes quite the arresting sight. She always does; hers is the kind of effortless beauty that makes her usual ensemble of a Pitt crewneck and dark wash denim look like she’s just stepped off the runway. But now, with her brown eyes a little wide, a little plaintive, he’d say yes to anything she asked of him.
Only she still hasn’t asked him anything at all.
His reward for pointing the latter out is a sound that’s half groan, half whine, wholly endearing. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me say it explicitly.”
Really, he should put the poor girl out of her misery, but he’s still stuck on just how catastrophic things would be if he’s somehow misread this whole thing. Says accordingly, “Use your words, Mohan.”
Damn him, really.
The instruction isn’t so different from the rest of the casual flirtation that has undergirded their friendship for the past year, but his smile is new, easy and lopsided, and it has her pulse skittering as she asks in a single breath, “Would you be willing to have dinner with my mom and me and pretend to be my boyfriend so she’ll get off my back?”
Unless, he thinks again. His new favorite word.
“Of course.”