Page 7 of Teach Me Your Ways

“You couldn’t handle me,” he teased.

I laughed at my friend. Felix looked like a strait-laced professor but the man could always make me laugh, even when I was in a sour mood.

“She’s got it out for me,” I said.

“She’s got it out for your job, Stone. There’s a difference. One is personal, the other’s professional. Though I’d wager in this case, it’s a bit of both. She doesn’t like you.”

I spotted the case of vodka and used my knife to quickly open it, then handed a bottle to Felix. “What did I ever do to her?”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “Turned her down. She wants a little piece of the hot professor.”

“Oh, come on. You think she’s that petty?”

“I think a woman like Carver doesn’t take rejection well. Especially not from someone who wears cargo pants to faculty meetings.”

Felix and I returned to stand behind the bar. He made a big show of dusting the spot before placing the new bottle perfectly in place. That was Felix. He was fastidious. Everything had to be perfect. I was so not like that. When things got busy and I was the asshole behind the bar, it was like a warzone. Bottles were in all the wrong places and the floor was sticky with all the overpours and the occasional broken glass.

I grunted. “I turn down women all the time and it’s no big deal. I’m always polite about it.”

Felix pushed up his glasses. “You do not turn down women all the time.”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I turn down about ninety percent of the women that hit on me.”

“Maybe she just thinks you’re an asshole,” Felix said. “You are kind of a dick.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“I’m just saying,” Felix continued, adjusting his glasses again. “You have a talent for rubbing authority figures the wrong way.”

That was true. I had a problem with people in charge of me. Not because they were in positions of authority. I only had a problem with them when they tried to tell me what to do. I couldn’t give a shit if they wanted to boss other people around. But people that didn’t know shit about archeology or what I did had no business trying to tell me what to do. That was what Carver was.

“I need a benefactor,” I said with a sigh.

“A benefactor?”

“Someone that will fund my projects so I don’t have to fucking teach,” I said. “I need to be out there. Do you know how much history is out there? Sitting in classrooms talking about it is important, but finding the stuff in the first place is more important. Every day we don’t find artifacts and ancient buildings is another day they’re slipping away from us.”

It was a difficult balancing act, trying to get students excited about the field while also getting out into the world. If only I could just spend my days in the jungle or diving on various shipwrecks. I couldn’t decide what I liked best. I needed more time and getting called back into the classroom before I was ready seriously pissed me off.

Why couldn’t they just send the students out with me? They’d learn a hell of a lot more in a Guatemalan jungle than in a classroom.

I reached for a bottle of rum with a pirate on the label and poured myself a generous splash. “All I want to do is dig up cool stuff and share it with the world. That’s it.”

“Well, to do that, you need funding. And guess who holds the purse strings?”

I didn’t answer. Just downed the drink and let it burn.

“Unless you want to work here full time. We could use another dishwasher.”

I flipped him off. “If we could get this place to turn a bigger profit, I might be able to do less teaching.”

He chuckled. “If only college students weren’t so damn poor.”

I reached for the bottle that Felix had already returned to the shelf, turning it just so. He shot me a scowl when I poured another drink. It wasn’t going to get me drunk. I was going to need a lot more than a couple of shots for that. Felix snatched the bottle and put it back once again.

I turned to look at the scattered customers. The bar was a nice income stream, but it wasn’t going to make either of us rich. It wasn’t going to fund a dig in Guatemala. It did buy me some oxygen tanks and boat rentals when I wanted to dive, but I needed more.

My eyes scanned the few people sipping drinks and enjoying the cool AC in the bar. Most of them were either grad students or a few strays that wandered into the bar.