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“Because you want it.”
No matter how much it could complicate things, upset the world I’ve carefully built, more than the troubles with Jay. I’m not even sure I can play the ego role that having him kiss me would have stroked it. Because I think—know—I’d be putty in his hands.
I don’t think I’d have been able to turn him down. Not even the kiss.
But it really is moot.
Diego didn’t kiss me.
He left.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket and smile. I press answer. “Hey, Josie, how are you?”
“Better now I’ve finally gotten a chance to call. I’m so angry at ducking Peabody I could spit! It’s not that late. I can bring over . . .” A rustling and banging hijacks the phone. “Rum. I have rum. Aged.”
“You found a dusty bottle in your cupboard, didn’t you?”
She laughs. “It was a going away present last school I was at. Anyway, we can crack this bad boy and plot Peabody’s demise.”
“I’d love to but I’m tired.”
“Depression,” she says wisely. “Fight it with rum. Though, tomorrow night also works if you aren’t up to it tonight? Oh, did that guy find you?”
Josie in full-on mode is a force of nature. It makes her popular at school and kids quickly learn beneath all that’s a sharp mind that doesn’t put up with the wrong sort of nonsense. “What guy?”
“Big and burly. He was asking about you the other day.”
Diego. Had to have been Diego when he got to town. Maybe he did his homework on me too. He discovered I’m a teacher and figured a school would be the best place to find me.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Good. Didn’t give your address, though. Just said he’d be able to find out and about. Just said you were on sabbatical.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey,” Josie’s voice softens, “what about the program?”
“I don’t know. I should just drop it, but I don’t think I can. The kids need something and just because Peabody thinks it makes the school look bad is his own problem, not mine.”
“He’s a shizzhead. But what about your job?”
That’s an angle I need to work on. If I lose the teaching job, I don’t have much, and savings go quickly when they’re all you live on. “If he fires me, I’ll go work for Riff, or someone. Riff wanted me to run his office.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that. Use the time to build it up, make Peabody see.”
Josie has an eternal font of positivity. But maybe she’s got a point.
“And I’m going to help.”
“We can’t both be on suspension, Josie,” I say.
“Let him try.” But I hear it in her voice. We both know he will, and it’s something she can’t afford to do, put her job on the line.
Besides, his ham-fisted threat still sits in my head.
“Josie, this isn’t worth your job. And he’ll try.”
She sighs. “Shizz. I know. But we’ll come up with something, I know we will.”
