The Mathematician (Book 1)

11. Sapiosexual

The next few days passed in a work-mode blur.

Each assignment did get harder as I solved them, and each one took longer and longer to understand. The second one had taken me two days, while the third took me almost four whole. I was currently amidst number five, and I was on my third day of working on it. One thing was the reading material that only seemed to grow each time, but it was the comprehending it all and then doing the assignment in the end that made it take the time it took. 

But as Harry had pointed out, this wasn't a race. 

For about a week now, I had barely seen anything to Harry, except for the times I had stopped by his office to hand in my finished assignments. Both times he had been on the phone with his earpiece stuffed into his ear and his hands white with chalk as he worked on the problem on his blackboard. The first day I had gotten here, he had mentioned something about a deadline. I wasn't sure if he was still on it or if he was working on something else, all I just knew was that the equation on his blackboard kept growing and growing. It wouldn't be long before he was going to run out of space. 

On the ninth day, a week and a half after the first day where he had presented the assignments to me, I was still sleeping in my bed when I was awakened by the sound of my door being opened. I groaned in complaint when I recognized the heavier footsteps that couldn't belong to Giselle in a million years. If he was waking me up at 7 in the fucking morning...

"You better be a burglar," I mumbled irritably when I heard him walk up to the side of my bed. I grumpily rolled my head his way and cracked an eyelid open when I found him standing there, hands in his pockets as usual, looking down at me with an impatient look. 

"I have a guest coming by today."

That slowly woke me up. Other than his brother's unannounced visit, in all the time I had been here, Harry had never had a guest over. Well... other than me. He always seemed to prefer to seek them out, rather than invite them over here, despite the fact that he claimed to hate the outside world. It had always intrigued me on some level. 

"Who is it?" I tiredly said and rolled over onto my side, rubbing my face when the arrival of his guest seemed to concern me. Why else would he be here?

"A colleague whom I've been working on a problem with," He replied. "He's coming over for brunch, and I would like you to sit in."

I halted up and slowly lifted my eyes to meet his. He wanted me to what? "Why...?" 

He smiled tightly. "Because he happens to be a professor at a certain college. It's never too late to make an impression, and although it's yet to be decided whether or not you'll qualify for the scholarship..."

I slowly sat up and looked at him, suspiciously. "You want me to sit in on a work-related meeting with one of your colleagues, who happens to be a professor, who might soon be... my professor?" Was this purely a coincidence or should I read more into it? "Wait... is this the Dyer-whatever dude you were helping with a thesis?"

"That would be him," He affirmed. "Professor Havers. He's a brilliant mathematician, and he's coming over today to discuss the final details of his thesis before he publishes it."

"How come he's coming over here?" I wondered and laid down in bed again now, stretching out. "I mean... you usually go to see them. Not the other way around. Correct me if I'm wrong."

Harry smiled a little. Then, looking at the floor, he answered; "I prefer to keep this house my sanctuary, but from time to time I do invite an individual over for a luncheon. I don't always trust our conversations to be kept in private out in society."