Jay relaxed as soon as he set foot outside of classroom 107. Out of sight, out of mind. He wasn’t about to let those sorority girls put him in a bad mood for the day. It was still just the morning, so plenty of good things were bound to happen before the sun would go down. In fact, one already had. He glanced at Anna. Now that she wasn’t so skittish, he could tell that she really was beautiful. His eyes were constantly drawn to the bounce of her blonde hair, the sway of her hips as she walked, the faraway look in her deep blue eyes. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to ask her to be more than just project partners—he had learned from his previous failed relationships that looks weren’t enough to make it work—but man, was he tempted.

“No preference here,” Jay shrugged when Anna asked him what he wanted to do for the project. “I like your idea for choosing a topic randomly though. “Maybe we could each find three different subjects that we like online and choose one randomly.” He already knew one of the topics he wanted to add to the mix: the lesson from their class that day. It was interesting stuff, but he didn’t want to choose it right away because there might be another topic he liked better. Plus, he didn’t want Anna to think he was a sadist or anything. ‘Obedience and Roleplaying’ contained a lot of dark subject matter.

When they got to the study room in the library, Jay took a seat across from Anna. He nodded at her mention of being better at doing research than presenting. “We’ll make a great team then,” he commented. “Because I think research is boring, but I enjoy presenting in front of other people.” He had always liked being in the spotlight. He found the adrenaline rush of public speaking invigorating.

Jay reached into his bag, which he had set on the floor upon sitting down at the table, and retrieved his laptop, “Now that we have our jobs sorted out, we might as well choose a topic, eh? I’ll look up three, and you do the same; then we’ll write them down on notecards and shuffle them on the table.” He smiled at Anna. “You can do the honor of picking our project. Sound good?”