He asked her to meet him somewhere other than his office, which was, she understood immediately upon reading the text, itself a kind of warning — a request for neutral ground usually meant a conversation too heavy for the specific power imbalance of a desk and a door.
They met at a coffee shop three blocks from campus, the kind of place with mismatched chairs and a permanently understaffed counter, chosen, she suspected, specifically because it was unlikely to contain anyone from either of their departments. He was already there when she arrived, two coffees again, though this time he didn't touch his, just turned it slowly on the table the way she'd learned meant he was working up to something difficult.
"Eleanor Voss called me in yesterday," he said, without preamble, once she'd sat. "
