Page 6 of Teach Me Your Ways

3

GRADY

Icarried a case of beer up front, carefully putting it on the floor in front of the fridge under the bar. The blue lights that lined the underside of the bar cast everything in a soft glow. It had been a slow summer but with classes starting up soon, The Library was about to get busy.

Felix Winters leaned against the bar, talking to one of our colleagues. They were talking about university politics. I did my best to avoid all that bullshit. Felix was a professor in the anthropology department. He was also my business partner and, sadly, probably one of my only friends.

I rarely stayed in one place long enough to really make deep connections. My focus was on my work. There was too much history out there to uncover for just one lifetime.

“Felix,” I said as I squatted in front of the fridge. “We need that IPA keg tapped.”

Felix turned and looked at me like I had spoken in one of those lost foreign languages he studied. “You want me to tap it?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m carrying the heavy shit.”

“Because you’re built for it.” Felix shrugged. “I’m the numbers guy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I think you just don’t know how to do it.”

“Reverse psychology?” He laughed. “Nice try.”

We had bought the bar two years ago when old man Brewer finally decided to retire and do something boring, like die on a boat in the Caribbean. The man sold exactly three cocktails when he ran the place. The classic rum and Coke, boring vodka soda, and old-lady gin and tonic. Coming to the bar was a lot like going to the DMV. But despite the dullness of the place, it had been a haven for guys like me.

When we heard he was retiring, the idea hit. No one wanted the place to be turned into one of those loud nightclub type of deals. Some of us really enjoyed drinking without screaming to have a conversation or bumping and grinding against sweaty bodies. Especially if those bodies belonged to studies we’d be teaching.

When we bought the place, we decided to rename it The Library as a joke. Students could tell their parents they’re at the library and technically not be lying. And it wasn’t so loud you couldn’t read a book if you wanted. Some people did that. Usually the grad students. We didn’t get a lot of the kids trying to use fake IDs to get in the place.

We catered to the more mature college kids. Not old guys like me, but the students that were more interested in having a drink than partying and fucking. I remembered my college days. Yes, partying and fucking took up a lot of my time back in the day but it made studying difficult. The Library gave the young people a place to do both. A little kicking back. A little flirting. And maybe a hookup with some like-minded people.

Every Friday night, while the rest of campus was ten shots deep and climbing fraternity fences, The Library welcomed those too tired for keg stands and too old for red Solo cups. Professors, grad students, postdocs. The occasional jaded TA hiding from freshmen all congregated here.

I finished stocking the fridge, shot Felix an annoyed look before going to tap the new keg. Felix was everything I wasn’t. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing. He was short, soft, and to be brutally honest, a nerd. I was tall, hard, and most people thought I was a professional athlete instead of a professor.

He dressed like he was a professor at Oxford in England instead of in South Carolina. In his three-piece tweed suit complete with elbow patches, he should have been dying in the southern heat, but he always seemed fine. Felix didn’t give a shit about fashion or trying to look good. He was who he was, and that level of confidence was something most people could only aspire to.

“Hey, did that new vodka come in?” Felix asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll check.”

“Everything okay?” Felix asked, following me to the storeroom.

“Peachy.”

He laughed softly. “That’s code for you’re pissed.”

“I’m not pissed.”

“Let me use my deductive powers of reasoning,” Felix said. He tapped a finger against his chin, pretending to be deep in thought. His wire-rimmed glasses reflected the light in the storeroom.

“Dean Carver is riding my ass again,” I said.

Felix gave me a dry look. “She’s not riding it. She’s sizing it up for demolition. Don’t fool yourself. I’ve never seen a woman so desperate to destroy a man. Are you sure you didn’t screw her over. What do the kids say? Was it a hit it and quit it?”

I nearly vomited. “Felix, what the hell? I wouldn’t fuck that woman with your dick.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” he mused. “Maybe she wants a piece of the great Grady Stone. Give her what she wants and she’ll back off.”

“I’d rather take you to bed,” I retorted.