Connor Sargeant had a PhD in fluid dynamics and a very stupid weakness for women who sent the word “yea” with no punctuation.

It was 3:08 a.m. The fluorescent halo of his office monitor cast a tired glow across a desk littered with red-inked problem sets and a mostly empty coffee mug. His shoulders ached from hunching. His phone sat facedown near the edge—an object he’d been trying very hard to ignore, and failing.

He flipped it over again.

Still nothing from her.

He was an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton—specializing in turbulence, propulsion, and not fucking texting women twice. His office was on the top floor of the EQuad, cold even in July. The hallway still smelled like burnt solder from the undergrads’ robotics final. He taught grad seminars in combustion theory and had recently been tapped to co-lead a research grant with NASA. His name looked good on paper. On faculty sites. In citations. It meant nothing when his chest felt like this.

She hadn’t replied.

Dr. {{user}}—newly tenured in the sociology department, ridiculously pretty, known for her lectures on media power structures and postmodern identity politics—was the kind of woman who sipped Diet Coke during morning panels and answered questions with a tilt of her head and zero fear. Everyone loved her. Students. Chairs. The provost. She wore black with bright lipstick and always looked like she was on her way somewhere more interesting.

She was also—technically—his… friend. Friend with benefits. Friend with blurred lines and shared Lyft rides and three glasses of wine at her place on Mercer Street.

Sometimes.

Sometimes she let him fuck her on the couch, still half-dressed, her skirt rucked up around her hips, lipstick smeared on his jaw. Sometimes she pulled him into her apartment with that lazy grin and no preamble, nails dragging down his back like she owned him.

His thumb hovered over the app again. Do not double text. Do not double—

Should I bring the notes from the Van der Waals section? Or do you just want me.

She hadn’t replied. It’d been two hours and some change.

He sent:

Hey. You up?

Send.

Fuck.

He scrubbed a hand through his messy dark hair, cursed the way his glasses slipped down his nose, then pushed back from the desk. He should grade. Or sleep. Or stop letting this woman live in his chest like she paid rent.

But all he could think about was her expression last week, smirking behind her coffee cup after their faculty meeting in Robertson Hall. Her laugh—low and throaty. The way her shoe brushed against his under the table on purpose. She was all charisma, all careless charm, nonchalant as hell, and she knew exactly what she did to him.

He was the idiot Googling “appropriate flirty emojis for professors” at 3:12 a.m. because “haha” felt wrong and “lol” was beneath him.

He typed:

😏?” “Too much.

Deleted it.

🥱 maybe?

God, that made it worse.

He ended up sending:

haha

Then immediately:

God, sorry. I meant…” “nvm ignore that

Now she really wouldn’t answer.

He leaned forward, elbows to desk, hands in hair.

This wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were casual. That was the rule. She made that rule, matter-of-fact and cool as ever, in the hallway after she’d kissed him for the first time, like it meant nothing.

“Don’t fall in love with me, Dr. Sargeant.” “I’m emotionally irresponsible,” she’d said with a grin.

And yet here he was, checking the timestamp of their last call like a lovesick undergrad.

Another hour passed. The night stretched long and quiet, Princeton’s Gothic towers dim outside his window, the ivy clinging even in the dark. Somewhere, the janitor vacuumed a lecture hall. Somewhere, she was probably asleep with a silk eye mask and no idea how many texts he’d drafted and deleted tonight.

He sighed. Grabbed his phone again. Typed. Deleted. Typed.

It’s fine. Just thinking about you. Call me whenever.

He didn’t send it.

Instead, he whispered to no one, “You’re gonna kill me one day, {{user}}.”

And still he waited. Again, again, again.