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"Sorry,"he said. "Work fuckingsucks."

"Hmm,"she replied. He knew Jessie had received his complaints about work more times than she probably cared to hear, and she'd always been blunt with herresponses.

"You could sell your work,if you tried harder," she'd said. "You give up too easily onthat."

The door opened,and Professor Young entered and walked to the front of the classroom. Kell peeked over again and saw that Parker's seat was still empty. Had that guy ever been late to class? He'd always seemed like such a perfect student. Never tardy, never absent, usually early. Militantlyresponsible.

Professor Young announcedtheir next assignment would be a group effort in which they'd be creating illustration work along special marketing guidelines and on a tight deadline. Marketing and creating work specifically to business specifications was something that Kell didn't have much experience with. He was used to following guidelines for school projects but designing work for commercial purpose was a little different. He was used to having a lot of freedom, so this would be a goodexperience.

"Hey,"he whispered to Jessie. "Be in my group? I suck at doing marketingstuff."

"For sure.But you think I'm any better?" shesaid.

"Better than me.At least you have experience working withclients."

She shrugged. "I guess."

Everyone was chattering,grouping up, when Professor Young spoke up. "Wait, wait, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. When working for firms we don't often get to choose the people we work alongside with. So, for this project, I'm assigning you randomly into groups ofthree."

Everyone groaned.

"So much for that,"saidJessie.

Professor Young started groupingpeople off from his roster, ticking names away. Everyone who Kell would've wanted to work with was already being assigned off to groups. Jessie's name was called next, and she moved off to sit with the new group. Soon, it seemed like everyone had been assigned off except for him, and he figured that would just mean he'd be slotted in to one of the existing groups, making it a group of four. The classroom door opened again, but this time Kell wasn't really paying attention. Professor Young touched his glasses and squinted at theroster.

"Well,it appears I'd made a miscalculation, so it looks like our last group is going to be a pair. But considering who the remaining folks are, I don't think that'll be a problem." He looked up at Kell and smiled. The rest of the class chuckled. Faces turned to look athim.

"Kelly and Parker,you two are in the lastgroup."

Kell felthis heart do a triple flip in his chest, and his natural response to glance over at Parker's empty seat. Only, it wasn't empty. Parker was there, and he looked over at him with an expression of what Kell read as something between annoyance and cold indifference. Kell's heart did another flip, and his mind suddenly flashed back to the dream he'd had. He quickly lookedaway.

"Oh, dammit,"he muttered tohimself.

Parker grabbedhis bag and made his way over to him, and in Kell's mind it felt like Parker was advancing towards him like a wolf coming after his prey. Kell was nervous, way more nervous than he had any right to be. But it wasn't because he was frightened of Parker. He was nervous for a completely different reason, now. Some weird switch seemed to have been flipped in his mind since the daybefore.

Parker pulledup a chair next to Kell and sat down, and a brief waft of his scent drifted over to him as he did. Kell swallowed, wondering if he'd always smelled thatgood.

Dammit,he thought.Enough ofthat.

"IknowI can count on you not to screw this up for us, right?" Parker said. "I have highexpectations."

"Don't worry about me,"Kell said, tensely. "Mine are just as high asyours."

"Idon't doubt that."

Kell looked at him,unsure if he'd just received some kind of weird Parkercompliment.

"Wonderful,"Professor Young said. "Project details are online. We won't be using all of our studio time to work on this project, so make sure to get your group members’ contact information so that you can meet outside of class. The deadline is in two days, people. Okay, let's move right in to our lecture on colortheory...."

At the end of class,Parker leaned over and said, "Meet me in the art studio." Before Kell could respond, he was already out of his seat and walking for thedoor.

"What is up with him,"he said tohimself.

"Well, this should be fun,"Jessie said, coming up and nudging him in his side. "You and Parker working together. Think you can deal withhim?"

"Fun’snot the word I'd use to describe this situation," Kell said. "More like...nightmare."

"Oh,come on. Learn to deal with him, Kell. You're going to have to deal with plenty of dark-hearted fuckers in this career, anyway. Worse thanhim."