The door swung open and a woman stepped in, "Everything is done, sir. The meeting has been arranged for at 12. Your schedule has been cleared out for the next two days. The flight has been booked for the day after tomorrow, and as you said it's an early morning flight. Anything else sir?" She looked over at the man standing across the room, his back to her.
"No thank you, you can leave now." The man said. "Certainly sir." The woman nodded and exited the room.
The man fished out a phone from his pocket and dialed a number, "Yes, everything is arranged. Certainly, I'll try my best master. You shall not be disappointed. Until then." He hung up.
**** * ****
"So Nora what do you think? About the problem Simon gave." A boy sitting beside her asked.
"Don't know, haven't thought about it. And give our math professor some respect." She hissed.
The boy laughed, "Sure I'll try. Anyway if you get something do tell me. There's no way I'll be able to solve it."
"You're right about that." She smirked. He narrowed his eyes. "Just kidding." She shrugged. "I'll tell you if I find something, and I expect the same from you."
"That's a given. See you then." He grabbed his bag, and left hand in hand with the girl sitting beside him. Nora rolled her eyes.
The classes were over for the day, Nora directly headed to the dorm when her phone buzzed, it was a text from Tina - "DON'T FORGET THE BOOKS!!"
"Oh yes." Nora sighed. She reluctantly changed her path and made her way to the library. "Damn it. She's enjoying her boyfriend's birthday while here I am fetching her books. How cool is that."
"Long time no see kid." The librarian greeted her. "Good afternoon Mrs. Palmer." Nora smiled.
Mrs. Palmer was the librarian at the university since forever, as it seemed. She was in her late forties, had curly red hair and wore string glasses, which always sat on her nose, an ideal librarian.
"What do you need today?" She smiled.
"British literature." Nora looked around. Mrs. Palmer quirked an eyebrow, "Since when did you get interested in British literature?"
"It's for a friend." Nora shrugged.
"I see, also you don't seem like a person who would understand it." She laughed. Nora sighed and started off to the literature section.
She took out a crumbled paper from the side pocket of her back, it had five names on it - Wuthering Heights Jane Eyre Frankenstein Macbeth A Midsummer Night's Dream "Huh, I won't understand it? I've read two of them." Nora smirked looking down at the paper.
Finding the books was a task all together, trying to fulfill all the other requirements that were mentioned on other side of the paper. After a good half an hour, she managed to gather them all.
She put them on the table and wandered off into the science section, looking for the new releases. She moved gliding her hand across the spines of the books. She reached the end, to the book cabinets with glass doors, her favourite. They contained the best of the best books, placed at the end of each section, call them the show stoppers.
Opening one of them she started picking up books, going through them and keeping them back. She stretched her hand to the top shelf and pulled out a book, "A concise start to discrete mathematics."
"Never seen you before." She muttered and sat at the nearest table. She started going through the book and lost track of the time, "Why didn't I find you before? This is certainly good." She smiled. "You're definitely going with me." She closed it and went to get the other books.
"These four go under the name of Tina Miles and this one under Nora." She placed the books at the counter.
"Sure." Mrs. Palmer grabbed the books and started typing on the keyboard. "There you go." She handed her the four of them and got back to the last one. Nora was looking at the book keenly, "You like the book kid?" Mrs. Palmer smiled.
"Oh yeah, just stumbled upon it, it's a treasure." Nora nodded.
"Sure it is. Even the student who wrote it is quite a treasure. Polite, gentle, diligent. He's a good kid." She looked at her.
"You know the author?"
"Of course I do. He spent hours in the library, I saw it with my own eyes."
"Did he?" Nora tilted her head to get the sight of the name of the author.
"Here you go, it's done." She handed her the book.
Nora's eyes directly fell on the author's name, "Luke Osborne." Her mouth dropped open, she read it again, her eyes read the same name. "This guy is now here for a master's degree right?" Nora asked.
"Yes, he is, for mathematics, I think." Mrs. Palmer was back on the keyboard.
She stuffed the four books in her bag and dashed out of the library with the book in her hand. "I don't believe it. He wrote a book and it's good! I've got to find him. Wait. I don't know where he is." She slowed down. "Then maybe next time." She shrugged and turned around. But the luck favoured her today, when she turned around Luke was coming in her direction. He was on his phone.
"Luke." She ran up to him.
"Hmm. Hi Nora." He put back the phone in his pocket. "You need anything?"
"Yes." She held the book in front of his face. "This. You wrote a book! Why didn't you tell me?"
"Oh where did you find that? But it's not a big deal." He shrugged and started walking.
"Not a big deal? What do you mean? I read it, it's really good." She said keeping up with his pace. "And I also looked it up, it's one of the best sellers."
"I don't care about that."
"Don't care? Why would..."
"Nora, I have other things to care about. Understand?" He snapped. She stopped, "I see, sorry. I'll leave." She walked away in the opposite direction.
She had only walked a few steps when Luke grabbed her by her arm. She immediately pulled away. "I'm sorry. I wasn't in my right mind." He said.
"Don't worry, care about the other things." She mocked. "I'll go." She clutched the book tighter and started walking faster. She turned to look, he didn't follow her, she sighed in relief and headed to the dorm.
It was 3 at night when Nora went to bed and Tina hadn't return, "Damn, looks like she's having a blast." She muttered. She switched off the lights and slumped into her bed and buried herself under the covers.