Chapter 5 Of All the Gin Joints
Of All the Gin Joints
Cooper looked undone in a distractingly attractive way.
His tweed jacket was missing altogether.
The top few buttons on his white Oxford shirt were undone, and the sleeves were rolled up displaying tanned forearms, corded with lean muscle.
His previously tidy hair fell in loose waves over his brow, as though he had run his hands through it several times.
For a moment, I felt like a bunny being approached by a wolf.
But this was my den, and I could be a wolf too.
I shook off the feeling. This is what I’d wanted anyway.
Hadn’t I just spent all that time waiting for him?
And now he had come to me. I pasted on my brightest smile and resolutely held his gaze as he approached. It was air-clearing time.
I waited for him to speak first, but he said nothing. He just stood, being tall, looking disappointed to find me. I had to break the silence which had grown denser than osmium.
“Want to hear a joke about nitric oxide?” I asked.
Kill them with kindness, my mother always said.
I could have sworn his lips twitched. “No,” he said, which was, of course, a punch line.
“Don’t tell me you’ve heard that one before,” I pouted.
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world,” he muttered under his breath.
Interesting. He might not appreciate a good chemistry pun, but a man who quoted Casablanca couldn’t be all bad. Maybe there was common ground after all.
“Presumptuous of you to call this your gin joint, when you’re the one walking in on me.” I raised an eyebrow.
“You think so, Princess?” He stopped when he reached the first bench and leaned a hip against it. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared me down as if I was a misbehaving student.
I smoothed my skirt over my thighs and noted that his eyes tracked the gesture. Curious. Mister fancy teacher was just a man, after all. Men I could handle. I reignited my best smile and added a flirtatious tilt to my head.
“The way I see it, Rick,” I said, “this gin joint is just as much mine as yours. At least for the moment.”
“You mean Jack?”
“Rick. From Casablanca,” I clarified. He couldn’t have forgotten already. “Would you prefer Bogie? You’ve called me ‘Princess’ a couple of times now. Only seems right that I give you a cute nickname too.”
“You can call me Mister Cooper.”
I wrinkled my nose in a way that was both cute and condescending.
“Mister Cooper.” I said the words slowly, tasting them on my tongue, before shaking my head. “That’s a shit nickname. We can do better.”
He shrugged. “Coach Cooper is fine too.”
He was not seriously gloating. Or was this his idea of teasing?
I couldn’t get a read on him. I narrowed my eyes and braced my arms on the desk, grounding my mounting annoyance into the solid surface.
This was not how this conversation was supposed to go.
Things were supposed to get better after we talked, but I was feeling decidedly worse the longer I looked at his smirking face.
Never let them see you sweat, my father always said. I took a deep breath before speaking.
“Did I do something to you?” I asked. “You’ll have to remind me, so I can be properly sorry about it.” Shit. That came out much snarkier than I meant it to.
He sauntered slowly around the bench until he stood directly in front of me, arms still crossed across his chest, buttons pulling on his shirt.
“Not to me, no.”
“So, I did something to someone else? A friend?” I doubted it—I’d been friendly and popular in school—but it was possible I had made a misstep at some point. Nobody was perfect.
“No.”
I leaned forward, head tilted back so I could look up at him.
“Then, what is your problem?” My voice was tinged with more exasperation than I preferred.
“My problem is nepotism.” I sucked in a sharp breath, and he continued.
“We don’t all have the luxury of Daddy picking up the phone and buying a job most people spend their whole career working toward.
And only two months after getting your fancy degree?
Did Daddy pay for that too? Some of us had to grind our whole life to get where we are. ”
I slid off the desk and circled behind it, partly so he wouldn’t see me scowl and partly to give me a minute to process all the bullshit he just spouted.
He was half right. My parents had paid for my tuition, though, the coursework was all me.
But Cooper was dead wrong about the job—they had nothing to do with this.
“So, that’s it, then,” I said. “Jealousy. Misplaced jealousy, I might add.” My voice sounded calmer and more controlled, which was a relief.
“Misplaced?” he replied, incredulously.
“Yes. Misplaced.”
He stepped forward, placing his hands on the desk and leaning toward me.
“So, that’s not your name on the library?”
Fuck you was on the tip of my tongue, and I just barely managed to bite the words back. Instead, I mirrored his position with my hands on the desk, closing the distance between us, and staring down my nose at him—which was quite a challenge with someone so much taller than me.
“My name had nothing to do with any of my achievements. Not sports, not grades, and certainly not this job.”
“Bullshit.”
Rage crackled through my nerves like electricity.
“I was on the student council because my peers respected me. I applied and got into Columbia on my own. I graduated summa cum laude because I studied my ass off. I’m here because I fucking earned it. And not that it’s any of your business, but I barely talk to my parents.”
“That might be true to an extent,” he challenged. “But you can’t deny that being a Burke didn’t give you a leg up. People fell at your feet without you having to lift a finger.”
“They did not—”
“And then what? You used their heads as stepping stones on your way to the top—”
“Stop!” I shouted and slammed my palms on the desktop. “Just stop!” My breaths were coming in ragged pants, and I was becoming lightheaded.
“Do you deny it?”
His brows were drawn in a hard line. I saw the briefest glimpse of the boy he had been more than a decade ago. And I saw myself as he saw me reflected in his eyes.
Privileged and popular and nauseatingly perfect.
“No,” I breathed, as the air left my sails. “No, but I still have a right to be here.”
Cooper shook his head, dark hair swishing across his forehead.
“You just don’t quit. News flash, Princess—most people work their ass off in school.
But, then what? You came straight here? I’ve spent the last six years teaching at a Title I school, and that is more of an education than you can buy at any university.
I put in the time—the work—to learn how to actually get through to kids. ”
“I know how to get through to people. I was a bartender—”
“Bartending isn’t teaching. These kids are going to chew you up and spit you out.”
Fresh indignation flared in my chest. I used to spend six hours on my feet in the lab only to turn around and spend another eight hours on my feet at the bar. I could admit it wasn’t teaching—I wasn’t delusional—but it also wasn’t easy, not by any stretch.
“We’ll just see about that. Maybe I haven’t taught before, but I’m here now, just the same as you. And I’m not going down without a fight.”
We were nearly nose to nose, glaring daggers at each other. He had a pleasant, musky scent like he had been outside. I pushed the thought roughly out of my mind.
Don’t smash coworkers, Silvia had said.
“You won’t last a week,” he scoffed. “But when you quit because it’s harder than you expected, you’ll still have your trust fund to break your fall. I need this job, and I intend to keep it.”
My anger faltered for the briefest moment at the way he emphasized the word “need,” but then it flared right back. I needed this job too, and it wasn’t up to him to judge who’s need was greater.
“I have never backed down from a challenge in my life,” I said. “I’m not afraid of the students, and I’m certainly not afraid of you. This isn’t over until one of us leaves. And I’m not going anywhere.”
He huffed a humorless laugh, and a warm breath ghosted across my face.
“Keep telling yourself that, Princess,” he said.
He pulled back abruptly and looked around the classroom as if just noticing where we were. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
There were those words again. But this time, there was no malice. The words didn’t sound like a challenge, but rather, they sounded curious.
I pulled back too, the heated anger reducing to a simmer, low in my belly.
I ran my hands through my hair and hoped he didn’t recognize the nervous gesture for what it was.
This conversation had gone completely off the rails, and I needed to get it back on track.
Stature notwithstanding, I needed to be the bigger person.
“The same as you, I’d expect,” I said.
He retreated back to the first bench, and once again, leaned back against it with his arms folded. His scowl was gone, and his face was arranged into a neutral expression that looked anything but natural. I realized that he was trying. This was his way of offering an olive branch.
I took a deep breath and shrugged, releasing some more of my anger, and accepted the metaphorical ceasefire.
“I just wanted to see the room. And start lesson planning, maybe.”
Cooper ran a hand through his dark hair. Was he nervous too? “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s good to get started early.”
“Did that hurt?” I asked with a smirk.
“What?”
“Admitting that I had a good idea.”
He sniffed. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
That sounded almost like a joke, at least I hoped it was.
Maybe there was a little life under that prickly exterior.
Once he got over his petty jealousy, he might even be decent to work with.
But that was a him-problem, not a me-problem.
All I could do was keep being polite and professional. Keep my temper in check.