Looking For A Legend (Book 1)

Looking For A Legend Chapter 26 - Elijah

            Eli’s new apartment was larger than his old dorm room, but that wasn’t that hard to beat.  With Levi cosigning his lease, and his own hoard of money, he’d managed to secure a rather nice looking if not a little compact living space.   It was the sample unit, so it came furnished beautifully with sleek modern pieces, but the sensible stream lined kind.  However, it was the sample unit, so between business hours, his privacy was subject to invasion by the landlady showing off the apartment, which he had to keep clean.  When she’d mentioned that point, Levi laughed.  He laughed loudly.

            All stipulations aside, Eli was happy in his apartment.  It came with a garage for his new Mercedes, two large pools on the property, closet space for his suits, and built in shoe rack for his oxfords.  But his favorite part was a rather wide hallway that formed off of the combined living room and kitchen, and connected to the one bedroom and private bath.  The designed deemed it reading area, with lots of shelf space, a desk and a soft couch.  He’d spent the entire first morning unpacking his books onto the shelves.  Levi laughed again when he realized most of what Eli owned was books and three piece suits.

            “Do you even own a pair of jeans?” Levi had asked incredulously.  “You own sweatpants, but you don’t own jeans?”

            Of course all the sweat pants Eli owned were a gross oversimplification.  He had warm up pants from when he swam competitively in college, which he still occasionally wore to the pool.  He had sleep pants in both cotton and flannel, which needed no justification.  And yes, there were one or two pairs of non-purposeful sweatpants, which Eli explained were the pants he wore when he was sick.  But Levi was right; Eli did not own a single pair of denim jeans.

            This new place was farther from Denvellia than he was used to.  Of course, he was used to living on campus.  It was even further away from school than where Valentina lived.  He offered to pick her up on the way, but with him being in another direction – Eli lived to the east of Denvellia, while Valentina lived to the south west – she insisted that he didn’t need to.  But being farther away didn’t bother him too much.  He had a car now, and a park space on campus, but most importantly, he had a place that was his.  No William Dukes would come falling through his door at night, drunken and belligerent.  Levi might, but that was almost acceptable.  Just the same, Eli smiled.  Not even the thought of a drunken Levi disturbing him could kill his mood.

            Denvellia didn’t have traditional semesters, unless the program director wanted them to.  And Dr. Utkin didn’t see the point.  They were all doing independent research, and to him it didn’t matter when or where you did that work, as long as you had a progress report ready when he asked for one.  He did have one strange quirk: the upperclassmen were banned from the lecture hall from September through January.  They still did work, wherever they wished, however they wished, and submitted proof of their work directly to Utkin, or Eli as the situation called, but they were in the background.  This was to give the new students of the program time to find their own pace without being intimidated by a student with three years’ worth of work, and possible publishing in scientific journals.  Eli was, of course, the exception this past fall, as he was leading the class in Dr. Utkin’s absence.  He’d remembered how much he couldn’t wait for Utkin to return, and now the though barely crossed his mind.

            Eli walked into the lecture hall with his leather bag slung over the shoulder of his deep navy button down shirt.  He set the bag down at Utkin’s desk an adjusted the black suspenders than held up his slim cut black trousers.  The room was already occupied by seven students, older than his normal crop, trading stories and catching each other up.  There were only two other student’s from the class Eli started with left in the program.  Three more students were from the year before his, Utkin always said that year had brought him good students.  The last two were from this past year, before Valentina’s class. This was their first year out on their own.  There was still time for them to wash out.