AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-three
Amir
Attheendofcommerce, my brain always felt swollen in my skull. Dr. Krasinski had earned his reputation as both a hard-ass and the best teacher at Savage U. He took the semester he had with his students and forced as much information into them as humanly possible.
I’d never been more challenged, but I’d never gotten so much out of a class. When I wasn’t with Zadie or doing my shit for Reno, I was studying and writing for Krasinski.
I walked down the steps of the lecture hall, my brain still buzzing with all I’d heard over the last hour. Zadie and Julien had taken this class last semester, but they’d undersold it in a big way. I was going to have to talk to them about that when I got home this afternoon.
“Mr. Vasquez.” Krasinski stepped into my path. “Do you have a minute?”
I kept my expression impassive. This could be really good or really bad. I hadn’t done shit to make it bad, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be.
“Yes, I do,” I replied, stepping off to the side with him so the flow of students could continue to the exit.
“I received your email last week. I’ve been doing some thinking about your request.”
Krasinski was the recommendation I needed to land a coveted internship at Sparta Inc., the largest import company in Southern California. They took on exactly five interns a year, and my ass planned to be one of them.
“I’m curious about your thoughts,” I said.
He crossed his arms and rubbed his well-trimmed gray beard. “You’ve impressed me so far this semester. The insights in the last paper you turned in were fresh and showed an expert grasp of the material. You’ve also brought a lot to the discussions we have in class. But I have some qualms.”
Fuck. Shit. Fuck.
“That’s unfortunate. Can I ask what they are?”
He paused, staring at me for a long beat. “I’ll be blunt, Mr. Vasquez. I asked around about you. While your past teachers all had positive feedback, there are murmurs. No one knows anything concrete, but there’s a shadow that follows your name. I don’t need confirmation from you whether you know what I’m talking about. I’ll assume you do.”
I remained impassive, all while feeling the fire at my feet grow hotter and hotter. The chickens had come home to roost, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, yet I was.
When I didn’t respond, not even with a nod, he went on. “I’d like to consider my recommendation over spring break. I know you need an answer from me, and I will give it to you when classes are back in session, if not before. But for me to associate my name with anyone, I need to be certain, and to be blunt, I’m not certain about you. To be even more blunt, one arrest on your record for the things you’re rumored to be involved in will kill most opportunities in the line of work you plan to go into. Imagine an import business like Sparta trusting their operations to—”
He cut himself off, but the message was received. A company who imported goods from overseas wouldn’t hire someone with a black mark on their record for peddling dope. It was too risky, no matter if the black mark was well in their past. I’d just have to make sure that never happened.
“Thank you.” That was the only thing I could say. “I hear you. I want you to know I take my future extremely seriously. If you decide to give me the recommendation, I will do everything in my power to make sure you don’t regret it. Thank you for considering it.”
There weren’t many men I’d defer to, but Krasinski was one. Not just because of what he could do for me, but because I truly respected him. For the way he taught, but also for having this conversation with me. Given what he’d heard, even if it was half-truths, it couldn’t have been easy for him to say.
It was like pouring acid in my ears to hear.
Fuck.
By the time I walked across campus to my truck and drove home, I was still wrapping my head around my conversation with Krasinski. I didn’t like being told what to do, but he hadn’t. He’d simply been honest about the consequences of the way I made money. He’d held up a mirror and said, “Look at yourself, you dumb fuck.”
But I was already pulling back as much as I could. I’d made a promise to Reno I couldn’t break. Iwouldn’tbreak. My word was all I had in this world, and I’d given it to him.
Fucking shit.
If I screwed over Krasinski, assuming he gave me the rec, there was no going back.
I was stuck here, caught between the present and the future. My future.
I’d just have to be even more careful. Delegate. Lay as low as possible to outrun the shadow behind me.
And I had to survive the next week, waiting for my answer from him. I wouldn’t even have Zadie here to distract me for most of it. She was flying to Oregon on Monday to visit her dad for a few days. I only had the weekend with her, and I intended to claim every second of it.
As soon as I opened the front door, I was assaulted on every level. Warm, garlic-scented air, fast-paced music from the piano, Zadie’s high, smooth voice singing a Melanie Martinez song. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence anymore. Two weeks had gone by since Zadie and I had spent all day and night in her room, and something had shifted between us. The near choke hold I’d felt compelled to keep on her had loosened without me noticing. When she and Julien interacted, I didn’t have to fight off my need to fuck her in front of him to show him who owned her, because all of us knew. I owned Zadie, and she owned me right the fuck back.
