The Mentor's Favor Chapter 1

Troy Partridge’s department, notoriously short on women, had just accepted two new female grad students.

He told me they were neck and neck in terms of skill, but their personalities were night and day.

One afternoon, the quiet, reserved one, Nina Croft, worked up the courage to drop a hint.

"Professor Partridge and Lexi Morgan... they spend a lot of time in his office. And the door is always locked."

Lexi.

The other student.

Just last weekend, I’d bumped into her and her boyfriend. She’d grinned and chirped, "Hi, Mrs. Partridge!"

Later, she would come to me in tears.

"Mrs. Partridge, you're the only one who can help me..."

* * *

"Mrs. Partridge! Fancy seeing you here."

I’d run into them at the mall—Lexi and her boyfriend, one of Troy’s students.

I offered a polite smile. The young couple was holding hands, looking every bit in love.

Noticing my gaze, Lexi leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.

"Please, Mrs. Partridge, you have to keep this a secret for me. The professor would be so mad if he found out."

My brow furrowed. "He gets involved in things like that?"

She nodded, her eyes wide with a practiced sort of sorrow.

The memory faded, and I looked down at the files on my desk—the profiles of Troy's two new students.

Lexi Morgan came from a wealthy family, her personality as bright and outgoing as her pedigree.

Nina Croft was her opposite in every way.

Her hint today was clearly a calculated move, born from self-preservation. After all, if a mentor was having an affair with a student, it would inevitably lead to favoritism, a gross injustice to those who were genuinely working their tails off. And for Nina, who had clawed her way out of a small, struggling town, the stakes were impossibly high.

That’s why she’d risked telling me.

But Troy… would he really do something like that?

After all our years together, I couldn't imagine it. I just couldn't.

That evening, I got a friend request on my social media. It was Lexi.

Hi Mrs. Partridge, it's Lexi! Professor Partridge is in a meeting.

He asked me to tell you he won’t be home tonight.

A knot formed in my stomach.

Is everything okay?

A massive data set from one of the major experiments was corrupted. Months of work down the drain. [Crying emoji]

Troy didn't come home for three straight days. When he finally called, I learned the full story. It was Nina’s data that had been flawed, an error she hadn’t caught in time, forcing them to scrap the entire experiment and start over.

"I swear," he sighed into the phone, "women in this field... such a headache."

His voice was more weary than angry, with an almost... indulgent edge to it.

Then, a new message from Lexi popped up:

Mrs. Partridge, the professor is furious. He had the student who messed up in his office for hours this afternoon, just tearing into her. Please try to cheer him up when you see him. I really don't want to get held back a year!

I wasn't one for deep conversations with near-strangers, so I simply replied, You're all working so hard.

When Troy finally came home that night, the exhaustion was etched onto his face, though it couldn't quite dull the sharp intellect in his eyes. He saw me and flashed his usual smile, warm and reassuring.

"Trapped in that lab for three days. I'm dead on my feet."

He pulled me into his arms, letting out a long sigh.

"It's good to be home."

"I made you some restorative broth. Drink it, then get some real sleep."

He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

"Thank you, my love."

Just then, another message from Lexi.

Mrs. Partridge, is the professor feeling any better? We're all dreading his thunder face tomorrow.

I chuckled, showing the phone to Troy.

"Your student is quite the character. She's been messaging me all day, asking about your mood."

He rolled over, his voice already thick with sleep.

"She's the loudest one in the entire lab. Just ignore her."

I typed back a quick reply.

He's fine, don't worry.

Lexi: Yay!