A motorcycle started up outside the building, its engine purr fading away.
Wait,Linus thought.Was that... the person who just pretended to be my alpha? Does he have anything to do with the biker on the road earlier?
What if these bikers were all part of one big motorcycle club, and they were taking turns to watch over him?
Like... the one in front of his apartment?
“Okay, that’s starting to get weird,” Linus muttered.
He checked in with Olson, in case anything happened to him at the shop. Then he distracted himself by reading the latest news on computer programming.
Almost too late, he remembered his scrambled eggs. They were no longer fridge-cold after all this waiting, but they weren’t warm, either. Except there was no microwave in the shop’s waiting area.
Linus grimaced and ate his eggs cold.
The good news was,his Jeep was up and running soon after that.
Linus paid and hurriedly drove away, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the shop.
“Thanks, Cowgirl.” He patted the Jeep’s dashboard. Cowgirl rumbled gently under his hands.
Over at the college, he parked and made his way to his office. Linus settled in, fielded his office hours, then got ready for his next class. Only then did he finally calm down.
He could breathe again.
His next class was meant for Year Two undergrads—one of those classes he had conducted so many times, he could do it in his sleep. He checked that his laptop contained the necessary slides. Then he headed to his classroom, skirting around students who were scrambling toward their next classes.
It was only after he had gotten his things set up, that he looked around the classroom.
Only to find a set of tattooed shoulders in the back row, their owner tapping away on his laptop.
Linus froze.That’s the alpha from this morning. Is this why he felt familiar? Because he’s my student?
Except... He could’ve sworn he had seen that alpha in a Year Four class.
Was the alpha even part of this class?
As though he had felt Linus’ attention, the alpha looked up, a warm smile curving his lips. “Morning, Professor.”
Linus’ entire body reacted to that velvety rumble. He couldn’t explain why. “M-morning,” he stammered, trying not to blush. He immediately focused on the lesson in case anyone caught him flustered. “Today, we’ll be discussing data structures...”
He passed around the attendance sheet. As he nudged the students into one discussion after another, he kept an eye on the alpha at the back—whose name he still didn’t know.
In fact, the alpha spent most of his time looking at his laptop screen, fingers tapping away.
Is he even paying attention?
Linus cleared his throat. The alpha looked up, piercing Linus with his bright blue gaze.
“Y-you at the back,” Linus said, trying to keep his voice steady. “How would you find the largest submatrix with rearrangements?”
He expected the alpha to fumble, and he expected the alpha to admit that he wasn’t supposed to be in this class.
But the alpha smiled, a pleased little thing that perplexed Linus. “I would find out the dimensions of the matrix first. Rows and columns. Set the result to zero, and have the return represent the area of the largest submatrix.”
He went on to describe the solution in detail, as though this wasn’t a job interview question that usually stumped candidates.
Linus stared.
