Athena
When we reached the entrance, Mr. D was rushing inside the hall with the Dean. I wanted to stop him and ask what this surprise lecture was all about and why we weren't informed about in advance , but Mr. D looked so nervous I decided it was better to let it go.
We grabbed our seats near the podium. Rhea kept blabbering about High school musical. I looked around to see if the guest lecturer had arrived yet and that's when I saw him.
He had his back to me. He was easily six feet tall, more may be. I couldn't see his face, but still I could make out the attracting aura that he had around himself. Suddenly he turned around, our eyes connected and literally, a shiver ran through my body.
Dark, stormy grey eyes. That was the only way to describe them. He was dressed in a dark navy blue satin shirt which clung to him like second skin. I think his hair was midnight black, but it seemed auburn due to the lighting of the hall.
I hastily lowered my gaze, embarrassed, when I realised I was still staring at him.
Rhea looked at me and frowned, " What the hell happened to you ? Are you okay? You look like you ran a marathon."
" I'm okay. Just...a bit cold," I croaked, still dazed from the weird encounter.
" Umm...is a person supposed to sweat while feeling cold ?" Rhea raised an eyebrow.
I was so engrossed in the mystery man that I forgot I was still dressed in my wet clothes. Luckily the Dean's announcement saved me from answering Rhea's question.
" Good morning my dear students. As all of you were informed earlier, today we are conducting a guidance seminar for practicality of big data analysis. Today we have among ourselves, successful data scientist and owner of renowned Beiguor Analytics, Lars Macalester ! "
As soon as I heard that name, my mind visualised a snobbish old man with an ever-increasing beer belly.
It turned out to be the exact opposite of my imagination.
The mystery man came on the stage in his complete sexy glory. I couldn't believe my eyes. He was even more gorgeous up close.
And then, in the sexiest voice I've ever heard, he said, "Hello everybody. You guys are probably wondering what kind of boring lecture am I here for. Infact, I can see half of you are already falling asleep," people chuckled at that. " I am not here to teach you all the theoretical knowledge. Your professors do enough of that as it is. What I'm here for is...to give you a glimpse of how it is going to be in the outside world. To tell you the practicality of your knowledge."
" Formally...it depends on your audience. For example, let's take a mobile company. Now, you're given the project of complete product analysis of the said company.
What is the first things that you do ?" I don't know if it was for the fact that he was trying to include everybody or because he was simply gorgeous , but everybody seemed to give him their 100% attention.
Nobody answered him. I could see all the girls desperately trying to get his attention by opening the top button of their blouses, letting their hair loose, fluttering their eyelashes and what not. But nobody had the guts to answer his question.
His eyes roamed over the crowd for a split second and stilled the moment they settled over me.
He stared at me with a mischievous expression, " Yes miss. Can you answer my question ?" I froze. Rhea nudged me with her elbow and I jumped. I stood on my shaking legs.
I cleared my throat and tried to answer,
" Umm yes...I mean...no. Umm...can you repeat your question ?"
He raised an eyebrow at me, " You're given the project of complete product analysis of a mobile company. What will be the first thing you'd do ? "
I decided I'd embarrassed myself enough in front of him. So I took a deep breath and started answering the best that I could, " First I'll do a case study of all the products. Then I'll take a look at the most active ones. I'll find out the trend of the complete series and prepare a chart. I'll try to find the ratio of the most and the least popular. Then I'll try to segregate the data by age group, sex, city, country etc. I'll also take history of the product sales into consideration. "
I didn't realize that whole auditorium had quiten down. Mystery man looked quite impressed but he quickly masked his expression with indifference. " Very well miss. You may sit down."
I smiled, feeling quite satisfied with myself. Rhea squealed next to me, " Oh my God Athena ! That was brilliant. And that hottie lecturer was staring at you like you were his next meal,"
She had no filter sometimes.
The next one hour passed in blur. As much as I was distracted by a certain someone, I still managed to pay attention to the lecture. When the seminar got over, several students started rushing out except for a few girl who managed to invent some doubts to ask the mystery man.
Rhea and I were starting to leave as well when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned back and saw the guy who had accompanied the mystery man, " Hi I'm Preston. I'm Lars' friends. I'm sure my friend is quite bewitched with you but he won't ever come and ask for your number. So I'm doing him a favour. May I have your number please ?"
Before I could even form a plausible response Rhea butted in, " Hi I'm Rhea and I'm Athena's best friend. I'm quite sure she's going to make up some bullshit excuse to not give you her number. So I'll do the honours instead. Here's her number"
Preston grinned, " Cool. And thanks. By the way, can I have your number?"
Before these two could go any further I decided to interrupt, " Stop ! Can you both please rewind for a minute and tell what just happened?" I turned to Preston and asked, " Who the hell are you ? And why would I give you my number ?"
Preston just beamed at me, " My dear lady, I already explained to you. My friend likes you."
Before I could question him any further, a deep voice cut in.
" Preston. What, in the world, do you think you're doing ?" It seemed mystery man had enough of the unrealistic doubts since he decided to join the party too.
Preston looked at me before answering, " Nothing my best friend ! I was just striking up a conversation with these two beautiful ladies here. Although I think one of them is interested in someone else who's not me, " he smirked at the last part.
Mystery man clenched his jaw, " I don't care who is interested in whom Preston. We need to leave. I don't want to be late for the next meeting, " He kept stealing glances at me while saying that.
Preston looked confused momentarily but cleared up his expression quick enough, " Oh right, we have a meeting. But... I need to use the rest room. Immediately. Miss Rhea, could you please show me where the washroom is ? "
" Me? Umm...Sure," Wow, even my best friend decided to ditch me with Mr. sex on legs.
Before I could even say a word, they both rushed out of the room leaving me alone with Lars Macalester.