Steelhands (2011) by Jaida Jones, Danielle Bennett Page A

lecturer’s assistant a few months back and he’d developed sensitive feelings toward everyone in that position as a result.
    “Yeah?” I asked.
    “Well,” Radomir said, holding up the syllabus like a white flag, “I simply wanted to suggest that if you were
finished
, it might be time to continue outlining the requirements. Unless you had something else planned for the rest of the class that I simply haven’t been informed of. We
did
go over this together if I recall correctly.”
    I could’ve thumped him on the head for that one, but he had the right of it, and anyway, the last thing I needed was for this girl—or worse, her parents—to decide I’d singled her out somehow even though she didn’t exactly seem like the type to take offense.
    She even looked a little disappointed when Radomir checked us, like she’d been enjoying our little match as much as I had. That was more what I’d imagined teaching might’ve been like in the first place, which was the only reason I’d agreed to it, before I’d learned enough to know my mistake. That and not wanting to retire just yet, but nobody had to know it.
    “Right,” I said. “There’s a whole list of books on here but there’s only one required reading, and that’s one with a whole mess of pretty little diagrams. Helpful, too. Pictures are good for visualization and, like I said, I’ll be calling on you lot at random. Best do your reading the night before. I know the look somebody gets when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either, so tread careful. Everybody’s got that?”
    It took me by surprise as much as anyone to find how little time was actually left in the class after that. It was a shortened day, of course, so as not to load too much into their soft, fragile minds at once, I imagined, but normally the first days dragged on
forever
. I wasn’t the kind of professor who had a lot of things to go over, and after my introductory speech we mostly spent the rest of the time staring dumbly at each other, and me using all the skills I planned to teach in order to avoid questions about what it’d been like to lead the airmen.
    Somehow “a royal pain in the ass” never seemed to be the answer anyone was looking for.
    Anyway, ready for it or not, the bell for class’s end rang while I was still explaining to some weed-brain why full frontal assault was never a good plan. Punctual as you’d like, my students started to shift in their chairs, all eyes turned uncannily in my direction.
    “You can go when you hear the bell,” I told them, and refrained from adding,
My boys always did
.
    The girl with the red hair had already packed her books and pens up, so it didn’t take her long to sling her bag over her shoulder and brush out her skirts. I saw her exchange brief words with her companion before making a beeline through the crowd toward me. The scarecrowfollowed her but hung back. I didn’t blame him; even
I
was a little intimidated, though I knew better than to show it.
    “Ah, the beginning of another term,” Radomir said, tapping his stack of papers against my desk so they all fell in line. “You know, if you planned your lectures in a more linear fashion beforehand, you might—”
    Quickly, I made the decision between having a conversation I’d had at
least
three times before and meeting this girl head-on to see just how offended she was, on a scale of one to screaming mad. I held my hand up to Radomir, then left him in the dust.
    To be fair, he’d be just as happy having that conversation all by himself.
    “My name’s Laurence,” the redhead said, holding out her hand. Up close, she looked like one of those portraits in a locket that Raphael had collected, all fiery red hair and a stern gaze. The countryside, Raphael used to say,
did
breed them like that.
    But none of Raphael’s girls, I was fairly certain, had ever sported a man’s name before.
    “I have a brother named Laurence,” Radomir said from over my shoulder,