Four missed calls. One text.
@jordan.ezra
Last chance, cunt
The tequila inside my stomach curdles.
“Everything okay?” Thatcher asks, a laugh in his voice. “Or is this the part where you ditch me for a family emergency?”
I slide the phone back into my pocket, my face perfectly neutral. “Former student.”
“On Thanksgiving?”
“Attention seeker,” I mutter into my glass. “Didn’t get enough validation growing up.”
“Seems like a lot of former students need your attention.”
“It’s a burden I bear.”
Thatcher chuckles. Takes another sip of beer. Then, with the casual precision of a sniper racking the slide on his rifle, says, “Speaking of former students…does Kai know about you and Ezra?”
I nearly choke on my bourbon as I swing in my seat to stare at him. “Excuse me?” I rasp.
“Ezra.” Thatcher’s watching me with those sharp eyes, the drunk flush on his cheeks doing nothing to dull his focus. “Kai’s brother.”
“I know who the fuck Ezra is.” The expletive slips out before I can stop it, because JesusfuckingChrist, what the hell just happened?
Just what the hell kind of investigating has this guy been doing?
“So does Kai know? About your…relationship?”
I set down my glass very, very carefully. There’s a growling in the back of my head, and it doesn’t sound like Good Wolf.
“Ezra was my teaching assistant,” I say, each word measured. “Whatever relationship you’re implying?—“
“I’m not implying. From where I’m sitting, it looks like you make a habit of sleeping with your students. Ezra. Kai. Maybe others.” He pauses. “Like Haven. Like Melissa?”
He might as well have been reading me my rights.
I should deflect. Should laugh it off, redirect, do any of the dozen things I’ve spent my life perfecting.
Instead, I lean forward. “Whoever told you I was being inappropriate with students?—”
“No one told me anything, Professor Rooke.”
I don’t know what’s more chilling—that he’s bluffing flawlessly, or that he doesn’t need to bluff at all.
“So you’re guessing,” I huff, smiling bitterly as I tip my glass to my lips. I don’t expect it to be empty, but it is.
“Have it down to an art,” Thatcher says. His beer thuds down on the bar, and I glance over to see it’s empty, too.
I gesture at the bartender.
Not to bring us another drink, but to bring us the check.
I slide off my stool, taking my wallet out of my pocket. Thatcher doesn’t move, but I can see him watching me from the corner of my eye.
When I speak, my voice is pitched low enough so that only he can hear. He leans in a little, eyes boring into me with an intensity that makes my hackles rise.
