Off Limits, Professor

Chapter Twelve: The Grant Committee

The department meeting ran long, the way department meetings always did, and Adrian found himself watching the clock more than the agenda, his mind drifting somewhere it had no business drifting during a discussion about budget allocations.

"and finally, the Ashford Grant," the department chair, Dr. Marion Whitley, was saying, shuffling papers at the head of the conference table. "As most of you know, this is the largest research grant our department has access to, and this year's committee needs three faculty reviewers. Any volunteers?"

James's hand went up almost immediately, followed, more reluctantly, by a junior faculty member Adrian didn't know well. Naomi's hand rose last, deliberate, her eyes flicking briefly toward Adrian as she did.

"That's three," Dr. Whitley said. "Adrian, you're exempt this year, given your advisee load, but I wanted to mention, the grant funding source has requested updated documentation from all reviewing faculty for compliance purposes. Standard paperwork, background verification, that sort of thing. James, Naomi, you'll both need to submit updated files to HR by end of month."

"Understood," James said easily, already reaching for his coffee.

Naomi didn't respond immediately, her attention still fixed on Adrian with an expression he couldn't quite place, something between curiosity and calculation. "Since Adrian's exempt, does that mean he's also exempt from the general faculty background refresh? I thought that applied to everyone on tenure track."

The room's attention shifted, subtly, toward Adrian, and he felt the familiar tightening in his chest that came whenever conversations veered too close to territory he'd spent years carefully avoiding.

"I believe Professor Cole's file was completed during his initial hiring process," Dr. Whitley said, glancing down at her own notes with the mild confusion of someone trying to recall administrative details that weren't particularly interesting to her. "I'd have to check with HR on the specifics."

"I'd be curious to see it," Naomi said, lightly, though there was nothing light about the way she said it. "Just professional curiosity. I don't think I've ever actually seen your full academic file, Adrian. Given how quickly you moved through the ranks, I imagine it's an interesting read."

"I'm sure it's fairly standard," Adrian said, keeping his voice level, practiced.

"I'd love to be the judge of that."

"Naomi." Dr. Whitley's tone carried a note of gentle warning, the kind reserved for faculty squabbles that had wandered slightly too far into personal territory during an otherwise routine meeting. "I think we can move on. Any other business before we adjourn?"

There wasn't, and the meeting broke up shortly after, faculty filing out in twos and threes, conversations trailing behind them about grading loads and holiday scheduling. A couple of faculty members lingered near the coffee station, murmuring about the exchange in the low, gossipy tones department meetings always seemed to produce once the formal portion ended, and Adrian caught fragments of it as he gathered his things: *tension between those two, always has been, ever since the hire.*

James caught Adrian's arm before he could escape entirely, steering him toward a quieter corner of the hallway, away from the lingering knots of colleagues.

"That was pointed," James said, once they were out of earshot.

"She's been like this for weeks."

"Weeks, or since a certain student started showing up in your office regularly?" James kept his voice low, not accusatory, just careful. "I'm not trying to pry. But Naomi doesn't do anything without a reason, Adrian. If she's digging into your file, she's digging for something specific."

"There's nothing to find."

James studied him for a long moment, the easy humor from the coffee machine entirely absent now. "Adrian. I've known you eleven years. I've never once seen your full personnel file either. I've never asked, because it wasn't my business, and because whatever you came from before this job, you clearly wanted to leave behind. I respected that." He paused. "But if Naomi starts pulling threads, and there's something in that file that doesn't add up the way everyone assumes it does, I need to know whether I should be worried. Not for gossip. Because I'm your friend, and I don't want to watch something blindside you that I could have helped you prepare for."

Adrian was quiet for a long moment, the hallway noise fading into background static as he weighed exactly how much to say, the old, practiced instinct toward silence warring with something newer, more exhausted by the constant vigilance.

"There are things about my background that aren't public," he said finally, carefully. "Things I've kept separate from this job, deliberately. It's not illegal, it's not scandalous in the way you're probably imagining. But if it came out, it would change how people here see me. How they treat me. I built this, James. This job, this life, entirely on my own merit, and I don't know how to protect that if people start looking at me differently because of where I came from."

"That's vague enough to make me more worried, not less."

"I know. I'm sorry. It's not something I can explain properly right now." Adrian ran a hand through his hair, the gesture more tired than he meant to let show. "I will, eventually. Just not standing in a hallway with fifteen minutes before my next class."

James studied him a moment longer, then nodded, slow and accepting, the easy trust of a long friendship allowing him to let the matter rest, at least for now. "Okay. But if Naomi keeps pushing, you might not get to choose the timing on that explanation."

"I know."

"And Adrian." James's expression softened slightly, some of the earlier tension easing. "Whatever this is. I hope it's worth however complicated it's making your life right now."

Adrian thought, unbidden, of a front-row seat by the window, of sharp answers and careful, honest arguments, of a girl who'd made him remember what it felt like to want something without immediately calculating the risk.

"It might be," he said quietly. "I'm still figuring that out."

"Well." James clapped him lightly on the shoulder, some of the weight lifting between them, old friendship reasserting its easier rhythms. "For what it's worth, whatever complications are heading your way, you've survived worse. I've watched you survive worse. You'll figure this out too."

"Comforting."

"I try." James checked his watch, wincing. "I've got a class in five minutes and an entire lecture on the French Revolution I haven't fully prepped. Go teach your students something about tragic longing or whatever it is you do in there. I'll see you Friday."

He disappeared down the hallway, leaving Adrian alone with the particular unease that came from having said more than he meant to and still not nearly enough.

---

He found Naomi later that afternoon, in the small kitchenette adjacent to the department office, and made the deliberate choice to address the tension directly rather than let it fester unspoken between them.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

She looked up from her tea, mildly surprised, though she recovered quickly, gesturing to the empty chair across from her with a politeness that didn't quite mask the wariness underneath. "Of course."

"I know we've never been close," Adrian said, choosing his words carefully, sitting across from her at the small, cluttered table. "I know you were a strong candidate for the position I ended up filling, and I know that's created tension between us that's never really been addressed. I'd like to address it now, if you're willing."

Something flickered across Naomi's face, surprise, maybe, at the directness of it. "That's a bold opener."

"I'm trying a new approach. Directness seems underused around here." A ghost of dry humor, an attempt to lighten what felt like an increasingly heavy conversation. "I don't know exactly what you think you're going to find, digging into my background. But I want you to know, whatever tension exists between us professionally, it was never personal on my end. I respect your work. I've always respected your work."

"That's kind of you to say." Naomi's tone remained carefully neutral, giving nothing away, her fingers wrapped tightly around her mug. "But respect doesn't really address the question of why a twenty-eight-year-old with a suspiciously thin academic paper trail landed a position that took me fifteen years of publishing and conference presentations to even be considered for."

"I understand the frustration."

"Do you?" Something sharper cracked through her careful composure, real and raw underneath the professional veneer. "I've given this department everything, Adrian. Every ounce of ambition I have. Conferences on my own dime when funding fell through. Weekends spent grading instead of with my family. And you arrived, brilliant, undeniably brilliant, I'll give you that, and simply took the thing I'd spent over a decade working toward, with no explanation anyone can find for how you got there so fast. I'm not trying to be cruel. I'm trying to understand something that genuinely doesn't make sense to me, and hasn't for two years now."

Adrian sat with that for a moment, the raw honesty of it landing somewhere he hadn't expected, complicating the narrative he'd built in his head of Naomi as simply an obstacle, a threat, rather than a person with legitimate grievances of her own, real years of sacrifice behind her frustration.

"I can't give you the full explanation right now," he said finally. "I know that's not satisfying. But I promise you, whatever you eventually find, it wasn't achieved by cutting corners, or by taking something from you that you deserved more than I did. There are circumstances in my life that made certain things possible for me that wouldn't be possible for most people. That's not fair. I know that. But it's also not the scandal I suspect you're hoping to uncover."

Naomi studied him for a long moment, something unreadable behind her sharp, careful eyes, the anger from a moment ago cooling into something more contemplative. "I appreciate you saying that. I do." She paused, turning her mug slowly between her hands. "But I'm still going to keep looking, Adrian. I hope you understand that too. It's not personal anymore, not entirely. It's principle now. If something doesn't add up, I need to know why, for my own peace of mind if nothing else."

"I do understand." He stood, some of the tension in his shoulders easing slightly despite the unresolved nature of the conversation. "For what it's worth, I hope when you find it, you'll give me the chance to explain the rest, before you decide what to do with it."

"That depends entirely on what I find."

He left without waiting for a fuller response, the weight of the unfinished conversation settling heavily in his chest as he walked back toward his office, keenly aware that whatever careful architecture he'd built to protect his hidden life was beginning, slowly and inevitably, to show its cracks, one conversation at a time, one suspicious colleague closer to a truth he wasn't ready for anyone at this university to know.