His eyebrows flicked up in surprise. “Do you fish?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Isn’t there a lake around here somewhere that has good cod in it?”
He shook his head, frowning. “No cod in that lake, since they prefer saltwater and the lake is freshwater.”
“Oh,” Man, that’s so embarrassing. Doofus. “Sorry, I meant…um, trout. Yes, trout.”
“Have you got a rod?” he then asked as if he could see through my lie.
“Um, yes,” I answered, squirming. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Actually, I don’t want the supplies for fishing.”
“Really? You had me fooled,” he joked, flaring his nostrils, so damn handsome. I wonder if he’s single. I mean… spending an entire school year on a mountain must be lonely. Obviously, there were other staff of a similar age that he would live within the staff halls, but I found it hard to believe that a man as fine as him would be single anyway.
“Sorry, I um, need to set a trap in my room,” I told him straight, and he nodded slowly, then began climbing the stairs back up to my level.
“I might have something in my office,” he suggested smoothly. “Follow me.”
He didn’t ask me what sort of traps, and since I wanted mousetraps, he’d likely assume it began and ended with rodents. That was true, just masked rodents that stole my handgun.
“Unlike you,” he said, brushing past me and running up the stairs to the top level, and I followed, relieved that I had my breath back. “I do fish.”
“In the lake?” I enquired curiously.
“Lake. River. Wherever my mood takes me,” he explained, and I noticed he used the wordmyinstead ofour, as if he were very much alone.
We walked down the corridor, approaching a large window with a beautiful view of the mountains, and Dean suddenly stopped. Naturally, because I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, I bumped right into him. Hmm, my tutor felt and smelled very nice.
“Sorry,” I stated, embarrassed, and quickly gave him space.
“In here,” he said, looking down at me, then opened the door into an auditorium, and I followed him in as nerves flurried into my chest.
“Oh,” I just realized, “this is my class.” It was obviously a popular class as it could fit a good two hundred people, I reckon.
My feet stalled as he stepped into his office, as he was venturing into his private space, tucked behind the front wall of the auditorium. “Right,” I heard him say, “where did I put it?”
The distant sound of hurried footsteps going up the stairs echoed down the corridor, and I looked back, expecting to see someone walk past the door. But the footsteps stopped.
“Here,” Dean announced found them. “You can come in.”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat and stepped into his office, where he had a reel of fishing nylon, a small packetof fishing hooks on the desk, and a gutting knife. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
“How long?” he asked, pulling a long thread of nylon.
“Twice as long, please,” I asked politely, and he cut a long piece and handed it to me, and I stuffed it into my bag along with the packet of fish hooks that he gave me.
“Now,” he threw the reel of fishing nylon into his drawer, “Your hall monitor should have a supply of mousetraps.”
“We don’t have a hall monitor. In fact, we don’t seem to have anyone watching us, but I guess not everyone has arrived yet,” I tried to downplay the quirks of our hall. There are three residents I know of living there. Although I did see that one guy in an ugly, old man face mask. I haven’t seen him since, and honestly, I wouldn’t recognize him even if I did.
“Which hall are you in?” he asked, moving out from behind the desk. Then, something caught his eye at the door. “Can I help you?”
I swiveled around to find, to my dismay, the Prick Warwick. “No,” he replied smugly, leaning against the doorframe as if he bought and paid for it.
“What do you want?” I hissed harshly to show Dean that we weren’t friends and never will be.
He shrugged casually, “I’m just joining the conversation. What were you discussing?”
“Nothing,” I shot him a black scowl, before thanking Dean and ramming past the hulking jock with a hulking ego to match. I waited until we were out in the corridor before I snarled, “What the hell are you doing?”
