Chapter 18 #2
“Who is the Jaegers’ assistant?” Jerome asks. “That girl who manages the restaurant and bar?”
“Aracely Diaz?” Milo turns and continues with picking books for the students’ library. There’s a display of Ministry Picks, and every time we meet, we offer selections to be stocked. They get changed out every month or so.
“Tell Dallas to bring her,” Jerome tells me. “To offer her in the Wolfe Room if he wants in the Den.”
I pull down another book, still carrying the Seneca. “What makes you think he’ll agree to that?”
But he passes behind me, whispering, “He’s already had her, right? She won’t have expectations.”
Before I can turn around, he’s gone, down the next aisle.
Again, he’s picking up on things I wish he wouldn’t.
It’s not a bad idea, though. She knows Dallas. She wouldn’t be like the other women, looking to be impressed or have their minds blown. I’d be touching someone he knows, someone who might as well be working a job. My father would hear that I did well.
“I don’t normally consider their women a conquest,” Milo calls out, “but I’d love some videos of her sucking Saint cock.”
I leave the stacks. Yeah, Macon wouldn’t like that at all.
Throwing the Seneca into the fireplace, I hear a knock on the door.
“Yes?” I bark.
Mrs. Calderon steps inside and closes the door behind her. “A teacher has a request that might require additional funding,” she tells us.
“We have a form for that,” Vincent reminds her.
“She requested I ask Mr. Ames tonight.” She pushes her glasses up her nose, looking directly at me. “It’s short notice, and she didn’t have time to wait.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“She’s outside.”
Quickly, she turns to go get her, and I halt at the table. “No, that’s not how—”
“Let her in,” Milo cuts me off.
We don’t meet with teachers. We help make decisions. Find funding. Quietly infiltrate their academics. We don’t listen to complaints from teachers who need more printer paper.
Vincent, Milo, and Jerome drop down into seats, and I watch as the young biology teacher walks in, her hands clasped in front of her.
A paper is pinched between her fingers, her strawberry-blond hair pinned back on one side.
At least she’s appropriately dressed in a black skirt and blouse. No wrinkles. Clean nails.
“Hello.” She smiles. “I do apologize for the ambush. I realize this isn’t how things are done.”
“No, it’s not.”
Milo throws me a look, snorting.
Sooner or later, he’s going to catch on as to why I’m not flirting with everything with tits.
She draws in a big breath. “I would like to take my students to the caverns at Marianna,” she says.
“Why aren’t you submitting this request to the dean?” Jerome asks her.
She looks apologetic, licking her newly freshened lipstick. “If I don’t have the buses and hotel rooms, it won’t matter.”
“If we approve those expenses,” I retort, “he’ll see that as approving the trip.”
Her gaze darts back to me.
I can’t hide my sarcasm. “Right?”
That’s why she’s here. She came to us in her tight little outfit because we’re young. The dean is fifty-eight, and his wife teaches French in room 282.
Seeing that I’m onto her, she redirects. “Giving them exposure to the natural world…”
I shake my head. “I don’t give a shit.” I hold out my hand for the paper she wants signed.
We’ll approve the expenses, but I don’t want to hear her whole damn lesson plan. Scurrying over, she hands me the blue paper, and I take a pen off the table, unscrewing the top.
I don’t bother reading, just scanning for where I sign, but I see “Dallas Jaeger” printed in black with his cell number.
“Why is Dallas Jaeger listed on this?” I ask.
“I have to have a chaperone for every ten students, legally,” she points out. “Since I have twelve, I need another adult.”
I hover over the signature line.
Buses…
And hotel rooms.
They’re going to be staying overnight in a hotel. For the first time all day, my heart starts racing. Glancing at my watch, I see my pulse rate rise from seventy-eight to ninety-one.
I clench the pen. “He’s already agreed?”
I hear her hum. “No one says no to me,” she jokes.
Whipping my hand across the paper, I swipe my signature.
But I don’t give it back right away, standing up straight and capping the pen again. “I don’t need to remind you,” I tell her, my eyes lowered, “of the clause in your contract regarding fraternization with faculty, do I?”
Finally, I lift my gaze and watch her smile fall and her nervous eyes search the rest of the table. Her cheeks flush. “No, sir.” She squares her shoulders. “My relationships here are appropriate.”
I hand her the signed form and watch her quickly exit the room.
Milo leans in. “It’s in our interest if her relationship with him isn’t appropriate.”
Yeah, I know. It just came out.
Dallas will only be able to hold off his own nature for so long, and I’m not paying for them to screw in a king room with an ocean view.
Picking up my cap, I fit it back on my head. “Rosenthal’s bachelor party Thursday?”
They nod, confirming, and everyone gets up.
Jerome and Vincent take off, Milo following me for some reason.