“Dr. Mejía! Over here!” Sunny called out from their table, waving her arms frantically in the air.
Oh boy. Deep breaths.
Ford had been right—Corrie would never have been a contender in a Miss Congeniality contest back in the day. But unlike Ford, who got things handed to him simply by being charming （and, apparently, by sleeping up the food chain）， Corrie had had to learn to be likeable. And once she’d started teaching, well, she’d realized that excited students meant engaged students. After getting to know her students and mentoring her younger colleagues and seeing that they shared her passion, well, it made the whole experience even better. Sometimes those students and colleagues even became her friends. People like Miri.
Besides, what was the saying? You kill more bees with honey?
Oh, wait . . . or was it catch?
Eight years ago, Sunny would have annoyed the hell out of Corrie. But today, she found Sunny to be the much-needed bright spot—no pun intended—in an otherwise cloudy, craptastic day.
“Dr. Mejía, here, I saved you a seat,” Sunny said, shooing a younger guy out of the way as Corrie approached.
“You can call me Corrie.”
“I thought you said, ‘It’s Dr. Mejía’ earlier today,” Ford grouched from across the table. Though his snipe was quickly met with a jab in the ribs and a whispered grumble from Ethan.
“Well, my friends call me Corrie. Is someone going to introduce me to everyone?” she asked, looking around the table at the other four faces.
Ethan took the reins, going around and introducing Ford’s other interns and Ethan’s research assistant.
“Dr. Mejía—” one of the interns started.
“I told you, please call me Corrie.”
“Oh, okay . . .” he said, looking at Ford as if asking for permission, clearly unsure if doing so would be rude and insulting. Ford merely shrugged his shoulders before stabbing his spoon into his bowl of stew. “Well, Doctor, I mean Corrie, can you tell us about that time you got flooded out and had to build a raft to float to that Native village in the Amazon?”
Even though the world’s most prominent archaeologists didn’t find her escapades very . . . refined, Corrie enjoyed that she’d gained something of a following among the younger generation for her outrageous adventures. Ford let out a quick huff as he stared at his tray, making it obvious which camp he belonged to. Appeasing Ford wasn’t exactly high on Corrie’s list, but she also didn’t need to fan the flames or get into yet another spat with him, especially not in front of an audience. They were his students, after all.
Though she didn’t understand what he was so salty about. They were good stories. Even he should have been able to admit that. And if they really thought she was so great, they would have chosen to go to Berkeley rather than Yale so they could have studied under her instead.
But best not to poke the beast.
“You know,” she deflected, “it seems like you all already know about me. I’d like to learn more about all of you,” Corrie said.
Ford’s eyes looked up and locked on hers, as if acknowledging that she’d done that for him. Yeah, remember that the next time you start being an ass again.
They went around the table, telling Corrie about their studies. How they’d gotten into archaeology—a lot of Indiana Jones and The Mummy franchise fans as per usual. What they wanted to do once they were done with school. A few funny stories about Ford’s classes that garnered an endearing smile and a few playful ribbings from him. It seemed his students enjoyed his teaching style, and based on their banter, it seemed he enjoyed them as well.
Ethan’s assistant, Gabriel, talked about his position at the Field Museum in Chicago. Unlike the others, he’d opted not to get a formal degree in archaeology, studying history instead, but that didn’t stop him from volunteering to go on digs whenever he built up enough vacation time. Luckily, this dig was a paid gig, courtesy of Ford convincing their investor that he needed Ethan, and Ethan convincing Ford that he needed his assistant. Ethan and Gabriel were both skilled in archaeological techniques, which made up for the fact that Sunny and the other interns were not.
The interns all had their various reasons for wanting to go on the dig. Experience. Credits. One, Mateo, was originally from Mexico and wanted to participate in a dig in his native land. Though she’d been born and raised in the US, Corrie understood the desire to study one’s culture. For the most part, they all said they were enjoying their time on the dig, though at three months in with little to no contact with the outside world and no real end in sight, their excitement seemed to be waning. Digs were hard no matter how you sliced it, especially remote ones like this. Being away from home. Being sweaty and dirty all day. Sleeping in tents with no access to running water. But the secrecy surrounding this particular excursion added an extra layer of frustration. They couldn’t tell their friends and family where they were or for how long. They couldn’t discuss what they had or hadn’t found. No, the only people they could really talk to were those crowded inside this tent.
And seeing as one of those people was the person Corrie despised most in the world, she wasn’t sure she was ready to limit her interactions to her present company.
“How did you become so knowledgeable about Chimalli?” Mateo asked.
“Yeah. What got you interested in Chimalli in the first place?” Gabriel followed up.
Corrie opened her mouth to speak, but Ford beat her to it. “Well, Dr. Mejía over here thinks she’s Chimalli’s descendant.” His voice carried an air of skepticism—and a healthy dose of arrogance. He didn’t believe her. Few people did, in fact, so she typically kept that information to herself.
Now she was regretting ever mentioning it to Ford, especially seeing as he’d used that information to get her here in the first place.
“Seriously?” Sunny asked, her eyes wide and full of wonderment.
“Well, uh, yes. My grandfather traced my family history, and it appears that, yes, I could be one of Chimalli’s descendants.”
“Except for the fact, however, that it was widely assumed that Chimalli was infertile, having been castrated with the very knife he took when he fled Tenochtitlán,” Ford felt the need to clarify.
Corrie glared at him. “Yes, that’s one version. But Diego Mendoza’s account presents a different version of the events.”
“Oh, right! You mentioned that in your dissertation, didn’t you?” one of the interns asked.
Her dissertation? She perked up in her seat.
“You . . . you’ve read my dissertation?”
“We all have. Required reading assigned by Dr. Matthews,” Sunny clarified.
She shot a glance over to Ford, sitting with his elbows on the table and taking a swig of water. “What? It’s a good paper. I mean, it’s practically the textbook on Chimalli,” he explained.
Was that . . . was that a compliment? Well, fuck. She pressed her knees together. His now calm, casual demeanor oozed with sex appeal, but a compliment? If that wasn’t the biggest turn-on Corrie had ever experienced . . .
Sure, there wasn’t much concrete documentation on Chimalli, and she had gathered almost everything there was to know about him within that one document, but surely Ford didn’t admit—to his own students, no less—that she knew more about Chimalli than he did. Did he?