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I’d say I did a good job of keeping my chin up, my tone challenging enough I wouldn’t look as small as I was beginning to feel.

It sucked.

“Easy, boy.”

I ground my teeth. This wasn’t the moment to read into thatboy—if it was mocking or something else completely.

No, it wasn’t. I still had the taunts from the stupid professor in my head. The condescension in his emails I could quote without any prep.

“Are you going to help me or not?”

Tony gave me another once-over. It had been fine before, not something I cared about. Now, with the disgust of eight out of ten professors fresh in my head, it made me want to curl up on myself more.

“I am not going to go to war with a random professor I’ve never even heard of.” Tony spoke as if it was obvious. I was about to splutter something, maybe grumble, but he stood up and headed toward one of the bookshelves framing the large TV screen. “That’s only one step above having a parent come to your office because their kid is the next Pulitzer, and I hate those.”

Of course he did.

“But you are not—” I groaned, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. It would be nice if I learned to speak as fast as I thought. Would save me a lot of fumbling. “He’s shitting all over your field. You have to care about that.”

Tony had built a reputation over the years, and not just as a strict Dom. He had opinions about everything and everyone.

His back was still to me when he cranked his neck and rolled his shoulders back. It shouldn’t be distracting. I blamed my low-dose T on why it was, and not the fact that I was very easily distracted and very easy to turn on.

“Take this.” He grabbed the book he must’ve been looking for from the shelf and turned to me. I frowned until the thick hardback was on my lap.International Law & Investigative Journalism: Ethical Considerations. “Read it, especially the case on the carceral system, and formulate your response. It’ll be good practice.”

I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I trailed my finger over the leather-bound book. I’d been asking the college librarians to get a copy of this for ages, but they always said it wasn’t possible, and it cost like three hundred bucks, last time I checked. I was sure it was even more expensive now, what with inflation and all.

The cost of academic books was wild.

“When do you want it back?” The rest of what he said registered before he could answer. I scoffed. “Not that it’s going to change anything.”

“Definitely not with that attitude.” Tony rolled his eyes. “But there’s no rush. I have another copy in my office.”

My eyes widened. I’d process the fact that he had two copies of a book that could pay for my food for a month—maybe two—later.

“My attitude?” Well, at least my adrenaline and self-righteous anger were coming back. I was far more comfortable with those than the discomfort and dysphoria, thank you very much. “He’s a transphobic piece of shit who doesn’t go one day without making his displeasure with my existence known, and the problem is my attitude?”

Tony’s face twisted into a grimace. I didn’t care. He could take his three-figure textbook and shove it up his?—

“I’m not defending him, boy.” The fuck he wasn’t. Tony raised his palms before I could say that out loud. “His takes are fallacious at best. Half of the sources he’s quoted have been debunked, and the other half he’s taking out of context. I don’t approve of the tone he uses when talking to a student, either, but I can’t control any of it.”

I gritted my teeth. “And what, you can control me?”

Tony cocked his head to the side. Instead of answering—and now I was thinking howthatsounded given all we knew about each other’s… preferences—he sat back on the couch.

“What do you want to do? When you graduate?”

I frowned. The question threw me off, but it had some weird side effect too. It left me deflated. I didn’t like it. “I don’t know.”

I did, and I didn’t. It was strange. But I was feeling too exposed to elaborate on it one way or another.

Tony squinted at me. “You don’t come across as someone who just doesn’t know.”

Yeah, it was official. Today had just gone from bad to worse.

I huffed. I could’ve said that Tony didn’t come across as the type who didn’t know when to leave something alone. I was back to being too tired for a verbal spat—or anything else—though.

“I wanna run a podcast.”