Page 1 of Love, Academically

Pedant (noun) ped·ant

One who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasises minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge

One who makes a show of knowledge

A formalist or precisionist in teaching

(obsolete) A male schoolteacher

Lila

“He said what?”

Lila Cartwright marvelled at the complete and utter arrogance of that man. It was quite impressive actually, the way Rhys Aubrey thought that making people cry was acceptable behaviour.

She stared at the students huddled on her little sofa, one of them clutching a wilted tissue in her hands, another sitting as close to her as she could get, as if sharing warmth for comfort.

The boy, DeVon, sitting on the sofa, had wrapped his hands around her delicate teacup so tightly that she was mentally scoping out the first aid box in her bottom drawer in case it cracked under the pressure.

“Mr Aubrey said that if we wanted to be real historians, then we should come up with some ideas of our own and stop wasting his time with regurgitated snippets that we don’t understand,” DeVon said pensively. The girls nodded.

“I see.” Lila smiled, ever the diplomat.

“But it’s not just that,” one of the girls, Ada, said. “It’s the way he talks to us, the way he looks at us. Like we’re not worth his time, like we’re maggots.”

Her heart sank. “Has he ever called you maggots?”

She shook her head. “No. But it’s like that’s what he thinks.”

“So.” Lila reached for the tissue box and offered them around again. “Firstly, thank you for bringing this to me, it must have been very difficult. You’ve been very brave.”

“It’s not the first time he’s made Kerry cry.” DeVon waved a hand at the tissue clutcher. “This time it was because he didn’t like the font she’d used for her essay.”

Never mind his attractive strong jaw and carefully curated hair, Rhys Aubrey was obviously a complete and utter arse. Who cared about stupid fonts?

Lila leaned forward, engaging with the students, like all the good books told her to. “It’s not appropriate that you be upset in your seminars by your lecturers, okay?”

The students exchanged watery, relieved glances. Although she desperately wanted to help, she was mentally rearranging her afternoon to ensure she got the work she was actually paid for done.

It served Lila right. If she didn’t want people coming into her office and offloading their issues onto her, then she shouldn’t make it so damned inviting.

She didn’t need to throw cushions on the sofa and chairs, or have a teapot with freshly brewed tea and China cups and saucers on the little coffee table.

The tempting smell of chocolate chip cookies that she kept in a little tin box didn’t make her office any less appealing.

She shouldn’t moan. This was her job. Kind of.

As the History Department Coordinator, she was there to listen to the students’ trials and tribulations, to big-sister them in their first year away from Mummy.

Well, it was the unspoken part of her job.

Lila’s job description didn’t technically cover dealing with students, but how could she not, when they appeared in her office stressed and in tears because of how one of her colleagues, one of her lecturers, had treated them in a seminar?

Lila dredged up the memory of the HR training course she’d been on earlier in the year.

“We’ve got a couple of ways we can move this forward.

We can either deal with it formally or informally.

It’s up to you which route you choose, and I will support your decision.

” Lila’s lips pulled into a comforting smile.

“If you want to make a formal complaint, I can email you the process of how to do that. Or you could ask me to deal with it informally.”

The students looked warily at each other.

“What would ‘informally’ mean?” Kerry sniffed.

Lila hesitated, keeping her smile in place.

This was the thing. She was full of spontaneous ideas without much to back them up.

Like the time she signed up for a charity bike ride, forgetting that she did not actually know how to ride a bike.

But it had seemed such a worthy cause! Or the time that she made her friends traipse to Hay-on-Wye for the book festival without booking any accommodation and they had ended up staying in a horrendously expensive suite in a very romantic country hotel just outside of Builth Wells.

“We could move your seminars to here?”

That would be less than ideal, but it would give the students the support they needed, and possibly give Rhys the kick up the arse to sort out his behaviour.

“There’s not that many of you and I could fit you all in. I’d be here, but not taking part. It would be part-supervised, I suppose.”

She dredged her memory of the university HR handbook. “There are some internal courses I could recommend to Rhys. I obviously can’t force him to go on one, but I can do my best to persuade him.”

The sharp knock on her open door made her jump. Kerry, the tissue clutcher, flinched as she looked over Lila’s shoulder.

“Miss Cartwright, am I interrupting something?” Rhys Aubrey’s soft southern Welsh accent didn’t quite hide the terse accusation underneath. What was with the ‘Miss Cartwright’? She wasn’t a primary school teacher. But it did slide off his tongue very nicely indeed.

“Rhys,” Lila said, standing and taking a couple of steps towards him. Her smile widened. It was harder for people to be mean when faced with kindness. That was her philosophy anyway. “How can I help you?”

“What’s going on in here?” He took a pointed look at each of the three students in turn.

Lila kicked herself for not shutting the door – rookie mistake. Her old office in the Politics Department had been at the dead end of a corridor, but this new one was smack in the middle of the department thoroughfare.

“Just a friendly chat, Rhys,” she said, taking another step towards him, trying to both herd him out of the door and block the students from his view.

Rhys just stood there, arms tense and folded over his stupidly broad chest. He must have played rugby or something in Wales. It was their national sport, right?

“A friendly chat? With DeVon and,” he gestured vaguely to Kerry and Ada. Christ, he clearly couldn’t even remember their names, “two others from my seminar group?”

“Yes,” she confirmed brightly. “Are you heading back to your office now? I’ll pop in and see you when I’m done here.”

It was an obvious dismissal, and Rhys shifted his attention from the students to her, his brown eyes narrowing in assessment.

Rhys’s dark brown, neatly kept hair was cropped close at the sides, and waved gently over his forehead, the line of his jaw strong and tense as he held her gaze.

Lila didn’t let her gaze falter, even if her neck was starting to hurt from looking up at him.

He was just bigger than her in all respects; broad shoulders, thick thighs and big wide hands that could probably crush walnuts.

Rhys Aubrey was obviously used to having the upper hand, used to people backing down if he waited long enough. But he was in her office and she had the high ground, Anakin.

On her fifth count, Lila’s cheeks started to hurt.

“Fine. I’ll await your visit to my office, Miss Cartwright.”

With a dismissive glance at the students, Rhys stalked from the room, moving really rather lithely despite his size.

Lila bristled. What an absolute prick. Yeah, she’d dealt with him before, but it had always been perfunctory and objective.

This time, he’d let loose that disparaging conceitedness that simmered under the surface.

Was he so blinded by his own sense of self-importance that he lacked all human empathy?

Perhaps he wasn’t human. Perhaps he was from a race of slimy frog men that only had the powers of empathy bestowed upon them when they hit forty. Who knew?

Some telepathic conversation seemed to happen between the students.

“We don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Ada said, “but something needs to change.”

“Don’t think of it as getting someone into trouble, and I want to assure you that there would be no blowback on you,” Lila said gently, taking her seat again.

If the students wanted to bring a formal complaint against Rhys then there was no way she was going to stop them. Although perhaps Rhys just needed a bit more coffee or sugar before his late morning seminar. Lack of sugar made people grouchy.

“We’d like to have supervised seminars. I don’t think I want to be in a seminar with him again without someone there.” Kerry’s chin wobbled slightly.

“That’s something I will strongly suggest Rhys agrees to,” Lila said, offering the tin of cookies around.

“Thanks,” DeVon exhaled. “You said there’s a course?”

A ‘How Not to be an Absolute Dick’ course would be good for Rhys.

“Yes, of course, DeVon. I’ll follow up with you all by email after I’ve talked to Rhys. Is that okay?”

That’s what Lila liked, nods and smiles and happy outcomes all round.

Ada turned to her as the students headed to the door, a mischievous grin crossing her face.

“You know when someone holds eye contact with you for over three seconds it’s because they either love you or hate you?”

Lila laughed. “I think it’s certainly hate there, don’t you?”

“Maybe.” Ada shrugged. “But you never know.”

Uh, yeah you did. Especially when it was Rhys Aubrey. So what if his bum sat nice and pert in his chinos? So what if his soft accent wormed its way into your very soul? Never mind that she’d imagined that full bottom lip in between hers more than once.

Rhys Aubrey was not in love with her and he never would be.

Lila shoved a cookie into her mouth, needing both fortification and a sugar hit. She grabbed a copy of the staff handbook and thumbed through to the internal courses. Rhys could benefit from all the ‘Leadership Skills’ courses, but she highlighted a couple that he should start with.