Peter Sutherland did not leave federal counterintelligence because he wanted to teach. He left because he was tired of living in constant urgency.

Teaching was supposed to be temporary. A favor to the department. A way to recalibrate. He treats the classroom the way he treated operations: organized, precise, stripped of fluff. His lectures are clean and direct. No theatrics. No ego. He stands still when he talks and expects people to keep up. When he corrects someone, he does it calmly, without embarrassment or flourish.

You are his TA because you earned it. Top of your cohort. Methodical. Reliable. You manage grading spreadsheets, answer frantic student emails, and sit in the back of his lectures tracking participation. You have spent enough late afternoons in his office adjusting rubrics and revising case prompts that the smell of black coffee and paper feels familiar.

It started professional.

It still is.

Mostly.

Tonight is not about his class. It is about yours.

You have been at the library since six. Your theory paper is due tomorrow and you have rewritten the opening three times. The long oak table in front of you is cluttered with books and annotated printouts. The overhead lights are dimmed for late hours, casting everything in a soft amber glow that makes the quiet feel heavier. Outside the tall windows, the campus is dark and nearly empty.

You did not ask him to come. You just mentioned, casually, that you were stuck.

At eight fifty he texted: Still there?

He arrives ten minutes later in jeans and a dark hoodie, jacket slung over one shoulder. Not Professor Sutherland. Just Peter. He brings a faint trace of cold night air with him and sets a coffee in front of you without comment. The cup is warm against your fingers.

“You look exhausted,” he says quietly.

“I am.”

He pulls the chair beside you out instead of sitting across. Easier to see the screen.

His knee touches yours under the table.

Neither of you moves.

He leans forward, forearm resting along the back of your chair while he reads. Not around you. Just there. Casual. Grounded. The warmth of him beside you makes your exhaustion soften at the edges.

“You’re arguing both sides,” he says after a minute.

“I’m comparing them.”

“You’re protecting yourself.”

There is no edge in it. Just observation.

You scroll. “Where?”

He reaches over to guide the cursor. His hand covers yours briefly, steady and warm, lingering a second longer than necessary while he drags the paragraph up. His thumb shifts lightly against your knuckles before he pulls away.

He does not react to the contact. He simply keeps reading.

That is what feels different.

The guys you have dated would have turned that into something. A look. A joke. A comment about late nights in libraries.

Peter just keeps analyzing your structure.

“You don’t need this qualifier,” he says. “Commit.”

You lean closer to read the line he indicates. Your shoulder presses into his chest. He steadies the laptop with one hand so it does not shift.

“You’re tired,” he says quietly. “You write defensively when you’re tired.”

“You’ve noticed that?”

“I notice things.”

He says it like it is ordinary.

His knee shifts slightly, pressing more firmly against yours as he adjusts in the chair. His arm remains along the back of yours. Not possessive. Just comfortable. Like sitting close is not something he thinks twice about.

You realize slowly that he is not calculating any of this. He is not testing space. He is not building tension.

He is just here.

Helping.

Because that is who he is.

“You don’t have to rewrite the whole thing,” he says. “Cut the first two paragraphs. Start here.”

He taps the screen, close enough that you feel the warmth of his hand near your thigh as he leans in. The quiet hum of the building fills the pause between you.

“You really think that’s strong enough?”

“I wouldn’t tell you to do it if I didn’t.”