On his way to his office a few days later, Misha paused in the open doorway of his TA’s office. Kayden’s L-shaped desk was directly ahead, facing Damien’s which was currently empty. Standing bent over the desk with her curls hiding her face, she had loose stacks of papers haphazardly strewn over the surface and seemed to be trying to organize them. He wasn’t sure how much of it was her personal work and how much was Justina’s.

After resisting a glance at her shapely thighs in those stretchy jeans—sure she was gorgeous, but there was no reason to stare at a student—he perched a forearm on the frame just at eye level and shifted his weight to the opposite leg. “You look frazzled.”

A small startled gasp escaped her as she jerked upright and whipped her head around. Her eyes were just slightly wider than normal, but those red cheeks made it hard to tell if she was blushing. “Oh! Do I?” She began trying to smooth down her hair.

He grinned. “I didn’t mean by your appearance.” He gestured to her desk. “I meant by the state of your workspace.”

“Oh,” she exhaled with a weak smile and stared at her mess. “Paperwork is not one of my strong suits, so…here I am.”

“I know it’s not quite over yet, but how was your first week?”

She placed the packet in her hand onto her university-loaned laptop keyboard. “It was pretty good. I think I’ve overloaded my schedule, though. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She laughed airily.

“You can always drop a course. There’s no shame in it.”

She waved a hand without looking at him. “No, no, it’s fine. I thrive on chaos.”

That wasn’t very convincing. He removed the hand from the doorframe and planted it on his hip with an eyebrow raised. “Do you?”

Her bottom lip disappeared under her teeth. She grimaced but with upturned lips, trying to give a playful smile. “Mm…maybe?”

He frowned disapprovingly. “A little balance is much healthier.”

“I can worry about that later.”

“Mmhmm. Well aside of packing your schedule tight, how are you feeling about being a teaching assistant outside your major?”

“Well, I decided to ‘fake it till I make it’, so to speak, and walked around like I owned the place, and nobody looked at me like I shouldn’t be a TA.” She smiled at him and shrugged. “So, I guess I feel fine.”

He returned the smile in kind. “See?” He pointed at her. “Commanding respect. Good work.” With a wink he headed back to his office.

Leaving the door slightly ajar, he settled into his seat and undid his second shirt button, fanning himself with the loosened fabric. He couldn’t wait for autumn.

Before he could get comfortable, his cell phone screen lit up as it vibrated. The contact read “birther”. He sighed in aggravation, wondering if he should bother answering this time. It kept ringing. She can leave me a message.

Just then the call ceased and the screen went black. He blinked, surprised. She gave up awful quickly.

Then it rang again.

He rubbed his temple. Great.  Accepting defeat, he brought the phone to his ear. “Yes, Mother?”

“Oh good. I suspected you would be on lunch.”

“I have yet to eat.”

“I will be brief. I have another suitress for you.”

A deep sigh, almost a growl, rolled out from his throat as he pressed his hand to his brow bone, resting his elbow on the desk. “I’m really not in the mood.”

“Refrain from being ungrateful, dear. She lives in Provo, so you can easily meet her on the weekends.”

“I definitely will not be doing that.”

 “Her name is Allison, and I have already passed your contact information on to her.”

“Don’t you tire of this, Mother?”

“Absolutely I do. But I am more persistent than you.”

He snorted. “Clearly not.”

“You have had plenty of time to indulge your frivolity, now it’s time to do what’s required of you.”

Misha sighed. “This is exhausting. We have the same conversation every single time.”

“Then maybe it’s time you play a different tune.”

“I can say the same for you.” Nothing had changed in thirty years. He was beginning to lose patience with her inability to grow as a person.

“Expect a message from her later today. She is just your type.”

He scoffed. “Rich of you to assume you know anything about my type.”

“Well, she is gorgeous and smart. And she has green eyes.”

He clenched his jaw, irritated. Green eyes were a feature his mother, not he, cared about. And she cared just a little too much. “And how old is she, Daria?”

The silence on the other line told him he effectively irritated her, which made him smirk. Before speaking again, she took a deep breath, undoubtedly resisting the urge to reprimand him for using her first name. “She is eighteen.”

Disgusted, he nearly threw the phone across the room, but instead gripped it tightly with a low grumble. “You are repugnant.”

She scoffed angrily. “That is how old I was.”

“Yes, too young. Look what it did to you.”

“That’s the same age gap your father and I have.”

“And you want me to be just like him.”

“Of course I do. He is an honorable and successful man, who follows duty earnestly. You would be lucky to be compared to him, and Allison would be lucky to belong to a man like that.”

His jaw had been clenched so hard the muscles began to ache and his stomach churned at the word “belong”. He wiped his hand down his face with a deep inhale. “Which division is she from?”

There was hesitation. “…the Evangelical one.”

He exhaled. “So, not at all my type. As I suspected.” Typical. Daria would never consider an option outside of the precious Network.

“Well when you rejected everyone else I sent your way, I had to branch out!”

“Or you could’ve given up. I assume this Allison was brought up to be a dutiful wife and bear a litter of children without any regard to what she might want in life. How exactly does that sound like a person I want to marry?”

“I don’t care what kind of person you want to marry. I know who you need to marry, and that’s someone who will enthusiastically give you children.”

“How exactly would we raise these children, Mother? I’m an atheist. Do you think you could’ve married my father if you were an Evangelical raised to put your god first?”

She almost growled. “The core values of family and duty still would have been a match. Core values are crucial.”

“And how exactly would my atheist core values line up with her fervently Evangelical, god-centered values?”

“Religion is irrelevant. Good genetics are more important. Her mind can be molded.”

“Of course it can, because she is fresh out of high school, raised in a closed-minded culture with very little real world experience, and taught that her husband is in charge and to always obey him. We would have nothing in common except whatever I tell her to like. It’s despicable.”

“Well we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you would actually make an attempt at finding a wife.”

 “I date, and you know it.”

“Entertaining little sluts does not count.”

“Just because my type is someone you wouldn’t respect doesn’t mean you get the right to call them sluts. No one you ever send my way will be my type, because you refuse to listen to what I tell you I need in a partner.”

“I know what you need in a partner.”

“Verfickte scheisse!” he swore not quietly enough. At least his door wasn’t wide open, but even someone who didn’t speak German could tell he was swearing. When he glanced to the receptionist desk, Alice simply looked away. He gritted his teeth, lowering his voice again. “No, you do not, because you don’t care what I have in mind for my future.  You don’t care about what I want. You refuse to accept that I am my own person.”

“You—“

“I will talk to Allison because she doesn’t deserve to be caught up in this shitshow, but I’m not going to court her. I beg of you: stop setting me up with anyone.” Without waiting for a response, he poked the ‘end’ button and let gravity take his phone down to the desk.

I could really use a smoke. He patted the e-cigarette in his front slacks pocket and peeked out the window into the common area. No one was paying attention. No one would notice if he snuck a long puff.

So he did. The fruity nicotine hit took the edge off his nerves before he quickly slipped it back in its hideaway. With a deep sigh he headed to the break room for lunch, stealing a glance to Kayden who, thankfully, hadn’t seemed to overhear his side of the conversation through his open door.

He usually was much better about keeping his private and ludicrous life separate from his workplace. Even Justina didn’t know the whole story. He certainly didn’t want to broadcast it around the office. Next time his mother harassed him, he vowed, he would actually shut the door.