It’s a second interview with the University of California Library Systems and apparently, according to Miranda, this is the make-or-break part of the process. Before she even got a call to interview, she’d had to submit a video of one of her instructional sessions along with an application that seemed to go on for a dozen pages. The first was a screener to weed out candidates that had the right things on their resumes, but maybe didn’t quite live up to them in person. This round is with the system’s director and the head librarian in charge of undergraduate curriculum development. If Bianca gets the job, she’ll be reporting directly to them as they develop a new program to increase both digital and media literacy in undergraduate students across the state university system.
It’s her dream job and nothing can get in the way of that.
Especially not him.
So, he’s staying out of the line of fire. Or at least he’s trying to.
Except he can hear her and she probably thinks she’s mumbling under her breath, but she’s absolutely talking out loud in the same voice she uses to command the attention of every undergrad course she’s helmed in the last few years and every presentation she’s given.
“It has to say I’m responsible and qualified, but also relatable, and that college students will listen when I tell them to use peer-reviewed sources for their research and to thoroughly investigate the credentials of a study’s author to understand their biases, but also . . .”
“I don’t think a shirt can do that kind of work,” he can’t help but chime in, and then silence. A beat and then another before . . .
“I need it to, if I want them to hire me,” she calls back, clearly annoyed. He can almost feel her glare through the layers of Sheetrock between them.
“They’re going to hire you because you’re the best and not because of what shirt you’re wearing.”
She’s quiet again for a moment and when she speaks again, her voice is lower, resigned almost. “Women get judged for all kinds of things in their interviews that a man would never even consider worrying about. Before I left teaching, I sat on interview committees where female candidates got ripped apart for the absolute stupidest things. For too much heel height or not enough, for the way they did or didn’t do their hair. Contoured makeup? Trying too hard. No makeup? Not professional. A suit? Too prudish and buttoned-up. A dress? Not taking it seriously enough. Of course it was never saidexactlylike that, no one wanted a lawsuit on their hands, but the implications were strong and obvious.”
And he knows that, of course he does, intellectually, but the idea that she’ll be treated that way makes his gut roll.
The silence that falls between them is weighty and then . . .
“Xavier?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“I need your opinion.”
“On your shirt?”
“Yeah, so when I don’t get this job I can blame it on your choice.”
“Fair enough,” he mutters, standing up and ignoring Amelia moving away from her tiny cat computer to the spot he just vacated. He closes his laptop because he knows when he gets back, she’ll be resting atop it.
A few strides of his bare feet get him to the doorway and he leans against the frame, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Which one?” she asks, spinning toward him and he only has a second to register that she’s only wearing a pair of ratty, too small pajama shorts and a bra before he lifts his eyes up and away to her ceiling.
Fuck, that was a lot of smooth olive skin on display, generous curves spilling just slightly over the edges of cotton, but as he lowers his eyes, he does his best to only focus on the shirts she’s holding up for his perusal. If she cares about him seeing her like this, she doesn’t show it. But then why would she? He’s the one with the feelings, not her. He adjusts his glasses, ones he wears to protect his light eyes from the constant screen glare of his laptop, to buy himself some time.
One is a white sleeveless blouse with a high neck and the other is a black scoop neck with capped sleeves. The first is maybe a little dressier, the second, a bit more professional. But neither one is quite . . .
His mind flashes back to last year, in Chicago for the American Library Association’s annual conference. Bianca presented a paper on disinformation becoming a standard part of high school research practices and the implications once students made it to post-secondary education.
He clicks his tongue after a moment and looks up into her eyes. “You look good in anything, you know that, right?”
“Obviously,” she quips sarcastically and plays it off with a shrug. He raises his eyebrows at her and is ignored. “I just need—”
“Neither of those,” he says, cutting her off, and glancing around her bedroom to the pile of shirts she discarded on her bed. “Can I?”
“Go for it.”
He digs around for a few seconds before he lets out a soft, “There it is,” pulling out a soft green blouse with long sheer sleeves. The V neckline is deep, but not so much that it’s unprofessional, and the fabric shimmers in the low light of her bedroom as he holds it up.
“That’s the shirt I wore . . .”
“At ALA last year when you were presenting your paper on disinformation becoming a standard part of secondary school research practices.”
