Three days passed. Nike saw her in every hallway, a flash of burgundy or a cloud of dark curls disappearing around a corner. He heard her voice—that low, husky sound that had teased him about being a "Semiotic Boulder"—answering a question in his colleague's literature seminar next door. Each time, it was a physical jolt, a short-circuit in his central nervous system.
She never looked at him. In his lectures, she sat in the same seat, halfway up the left side, a study in perfect, petrified attention. She took meticulous notes, her head perpetually bowed. She was a ghost of the girl from the bar, a brilliant echo contained within the rigid lines of a student.
It was unbearable.
The two hair clips—the one from the bar, the one from the lecture hall—sat side-by-side in the locked top drawer of his desk at home. A matched set of evidence. On the fourth day, a Friday, he could stand the silent, screaming tension no longer. He had to… what? Apologize? Explain? Warn her?
He was a strategist. This was a tactical problem of catastrophic proportions. The only move was to confront it. To define its borders.
At the end of his 10 AM lecture, as the students shuffled out, he spoke, his voice cutting through the noise.
"Ms. Bayan. A word in my office, please."
The entire back half of the class seemed to freeze for a second. Bayan. He'd looked her up. Bayan A. Second-year. Literature major. Exceptional marks.
She, who had been packing her bag with frantic speed, went utterly still. He saw the back of her neck flush that familiar, mortified pink. She didn't look at him, just gave a tiny, stiff nod.
He left first, walking the familiar, echoing corridors to his office fortress, his heart pounding a strange, erratic rhythm against his ribs. He unlocked the door, left it open the regulation three inches, and went to stand behind his desk, his back to the window. A position of power. A defensive position.
He didn't have to wait long. A soft knock on the doorframe.
"Come in."
She entered, closing the door behind her with a quiet, definitive click. She did not leave it ajar. It was a small, profound act of rebellion—or perhaps of shared complicity.
The office felt shrunk by her presence. She was so small in the vastness of the room, dwarfed by the shelves of books, diminished by the high ceiling. She stood just inside the door, clutching her bag to her chest like a shield, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere near his feet. She was wearing a simple black dress, making her look even younger, more vulnerable.
"Sit, Banna." He used the name from the bar. It felt dangerous, a wire tripped.
She flinched at the sound of it, but obeyed, perching on the very edge of the leather chair. The distance between them—the expanse of polished oak desk—felt like a canyon.
Silence stretched, thick and suffocating. He could hear the rapid, shallow sound of her breathing.
"Look at me," he said, his voice softer than he intended.
Slowly, with immense effort, she lifted her gaze. Her eyes were the same warm umber, but now they were swimming with a turmoil of emotions: shame, fear, a flicker of defiant anger. They met his storm-grey ones and held.
The connection was immediate and electric, just as it had been in the bar. But now it was laced with high-voltage peril.
"This is…" he began, then stopped, uncharacteristically at a loss. He gestured vaguely between them, encompassing the desk, the books, their titles. "...an untenable situation."
"I didn't know," she whispered, her voice raw. "I swear to God, I didn't know who you were."
"I believe you." He did. The horror on her face in the lecture hall had been too genuine. "But knowing changes nothing. It only makes it worse."
She swallowed, her throat working. "Are you going to… report it? Have me removed from the class?"
The question was pragmatic, but the fear behind it was visceral. He saw the scholar in her, calculating the ruin of her academic career. He saw the girl from the bar, facing the annihilation of something that had felt, for one hour, profoundly real.
"No," he said, the word leaving him with a force that surprised them both. "That would be… disproportionate. And it would draw attention we cannot afford."
The 'we' hung in the air, heavy with implication. He had just aligned himself with her. Against the rules.
A tiny spark of hope, terrifying in its fragility, lit in her eyes. "Then… what?"
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the desk. The move was unconscious, but it made him loom larger, his broad shoulders blocking the light from the window. He saw her eyes track the movement, not with fear of the predator, but with a kind of mesmerizing awe. She was remembering his size, his solidity. The mountain that had strolled over.
"We establish parameters," he said, his mind clicking into its familiar, analytical mode. This was a system to be designed. A containment protocol. "In this room, during office hours, we are professor and student. The bar… did not happen. 'Nike' does not exist here."
She nodded, quick, eager. "Of course. Absolutely."
"You will not seek me out. You will not attempt to…" He faltered, the memory of her kiss—the soft press, the taste of wine—exploding behind his eyes. "...to reference our previous encounter."
"I wouldn't," she said, her voice gaining a little strength, a touch of her old fire. "Do you think I'm an idiot?"
A ghost of a smile, utterly inappropriate, touched his lips. "The evidence is contradictory."
She almost smiled back. Then caught herself, looking down at her hands twisting in her lap.
The silence returned, but it had changed. The panic had receded, replaced by a dense, humming awareness. The parameters were set, but they felt paper-thin, incapable of containing the raw energy in the room.
He should dismiss her. The meeting was over. The move was made.
He didn't.
He studied her. The delicate line of her jaw, the frantic pulse at the base of her throat, the way a single curl had escaped and clung to the damp skin of her neck. He was the professor. She was the student. It was a chasm.
And yet, he was also the man who had pocketed her hair clip. Who had replayed her laugh for four days. Who was now, despite every rational fiber of his being, imagining what it would be like to cross the space around his desk, to cup her flushed cheek in his hand, to see if her skin was as warm as he remembered.
The thought was a seismic event within him. It must have shown on his face—some minute crack in the granite—because her eyes widened slightly, her lips parting on a soft, indrawn breath.
He saw her gaze drop to his mouth. Just for a heartbeat.
It was the most dangerous look he had ever received.
He straightened up abruptly, breaking the spell. "That will be all, Ms. Bayan." His voice was rough, graveled. "You may go."
She blinked, as if waking from a trance. For a second, she looked almost… disappointed. Then the student mask slid back into place. She stood, shouldering her bag. "Thank you, Professor Thorne."
She turned and walked to the door, her steps quieter this time. Her hand rested on the knob.
Then she paused. She didn't look back.
"For the record," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper meant to carry only across the space between them. "The bar did happen."
And then she was gone, leaving the door to swing shut behind her, sealing him into the silent, charged ruin of his own fortress.
Nike stood rooted behind his desk for a long time. The parameters were set. The rules were clear.
And with six whispered words, she had declared them utterly, magnificently irrelevant.