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Parking his ass, he steepled his fingers and watched her

’Cuz that’s what bodyguards did, right?

But he also kept an eye on everything else, too Withouthis head, he constantly scanned where they were, tracking the movements of the few-and-far-between students andered around like zombies, all hollow-eyed and worn out A skeleton crew of staff were on duty, too, and he ID’d theraphic and the fact that they didn’t look like they’d been living off of coffee and vending-h Troy and Elise spoke softly, he heard their convo just fine Lot of discussion about passages in the final papers Debates about certain students’ trajectories at the university Questions about whether soiarized or properly cited

Whatever that meant

Man, Elise was so smart, he was intinize the way a pro tennis player covered a Grand Slam volley And then it came to her desertion … distillation … dissertation?--and everything was ratcheted up even higher on the IQ scale

Her thesaurus … theory? … thesis? … was about bipolar treatment in adolescents and whether or not kids could appropriately be diagnosed with thepuberty Whatever that was And how they should be treated, both phar, and in ter stuff, and Troy was clearly impressed

When Axe checked his watch a little later, he was surprised to find that three hours had passed and the pair of theot to his feet and stretched, but kept his distance because he wanted to show her that he wasn’t a wild ani, anyway

And yup, he knew Troy was getting ready for so over at Axe, his eyes ju around like he was a kid about to put his hand in the cookie jar

Axe glanced at Elise The female had looked over in his direction a number of times, and he had to adht, it had clearly been because she ondering whether he was going to fuck off the new-leaf routine and pounce on her little hu else entirely

Which again, ood ol’ Troy

When there was an aard pause, Axe s you want to say to her can be said in front of ive Axe credit He’d not only backed off, he’d functioned with perfect professionalish so that if anyone approached the table or tried to do soave her a lot of hope

What was difficult? Hell, nearly impossible?

The feel of those eyes of his on her For some reason, his yellow starewith sensation even though he wasn’t touching her, the urge to check and see if he was still looking at her a constant, underground buzz in her head

"So …" Troy glanced back at Axe "Ah …"

Of course, Axe telling the man he was free to speak had helped override the aard sooooooo much

Not

"Yes?" she prompted Troy "I mean, if this is about Christmas, I told you, I’m totally fine to work We’ll just have to lance at Axe--as standing right there, a little s how antsy Troy was "I think we’re done with the finals, though And your dissertation is about ready"