A Thief and a Queen

The Professor and the Bar Owner

For OQ Prompt Party #175. s7 setting, cursed Robin (with another name), Seattle university professor, goes out for a drink after a rough day at a bar he usually avoids as he knows many of his students frequent there, making eyes to the 'zesty and feisty' bar owner. When he meets her, he understands why... What he doesn't understand is why his heart flutters the moment she speaks to him nor does she get why a strange tattoo on his arm seems strangely familiar.

This had to be the worst day in Professor Roald Sherwood's professional life.

First, he had been late to his morning lecture on Myths and Legends due to a car crash that had snarled traffic for miles. By the time he got to his classroom, he was a half hour late and so his students had left after waiting the traditional ten minutes—since he wasn't an adjunct. He trudged to his office and apologized to the dean for his tardiness. Thankfully, he wasn't usually late, so the dean was lenient on him.

It ended up being the best part of his day.

He gave a quiz in his British Literature class that proved all of them were woefully unprepared and he laid into them for not reading the assigned material. Some looked sheepish but most just stared at him blank-faced as if he were barmy for even expecting students in a three hundred level class to do the reading. Those expressions all changed when he threw them out of class and warned them that they needed to have the reading done by the next class.

Steamed from that experience, he marched down into his office and found the dean waiting for him again, along with Victoria Tremaine. Her daughter Ivy was in his Literary Writing course, something he could tell her mother was not pleased with but only accepted because it fulfilled the elective credits Ivy needed to graduate. Ivy was a good student, a solid B+, but apparently Mother thought her grades could be better and he was to blame. He had to sit for an hour defending his grading policies to a helicopter parent while his dean sat stony-faced in a corner.

The dean finally said something to end the meeting, promising Victoria that Ivy's grades would improve. He then ordered Roald to give Ivy higher marks, even if she didn't deserve them, because Victoria was a major donor to the university and they didn't want to risk it. Roald had argued about ethics and integrity but the dean was firm.

Roald nearly resigned right there but he managed to keep his anger in control. The last thing he needed was to overreact to one bad day and one bitchy but powerful mother and lose steady employment he usually loved. Besides, he needed the paycheck to keep his apartment—who knew how long it would take to find another job? His savings wouldn't last more than a few months at best.

By the time the sun had gone down and he turned off his office lights, all he wanted was a drink. A really, really strong drink. Maybe two. Heck, it was Friday. He could live a little. Three really, really strong drinks it was.

The campus he was assigned to was near Hyperion Heights, a rather bohemian community Roald was interested in but never really interacted with. Many of his students lived in the area and frequented the local businesses, so he didn't spend time there outside school in order to avoid the awkward encounters with his students.

He really wanted a drink, though, and didn't want to drag himself across town to the bar by his apartment. Roald knew there was a bar not far from the university campus called Roni's. All his students praised it, saying it had the best burgers in town and that the drinks were reasonably priced, even for broke college students. They also spoke about the "feisty" owner, Roni, and her easy-going manner. Many felt comfortable around her and quite a number, both male and female, admitted to being attracted to her.