“WhatIwant? I’m doing this for my school.”
I leap to my feet. “Forget it.”
She gets up, too. “Didn’t you just say you’d do anything?”
“Not this.”
“Why not?”
“Maybe you have no idea who I am, Jordan. I can’t end up coaching a team in some little school in the arse end of nowhere.”
“I’ll remind you that you grew up here. This school helped you become the man you are today.”
“I don’t owe anyone anything. It’s all me, my hard work. My talent.”
“And your unreasonably huge ego.”
“I should’ve known.” I pace anxiously around her office.
“What?”
“That the other night was all just an act.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re still the same boring know-it-all that you were twenty years ago. You think you’re better than everyone else. Better than me.”
“And you’re still the same bastard who has to sleep with his lab partner just to pass the end-of-year test.”
“What the fuck would you know about that?”
“I took a wild guess. It wasn’t hard.”
“You know what? You can keep your shitty job, and you can keep your place in this crappy school!” My voice grows loud as I head towards the door. “I should never have expected more from you. I thought that…”
“What?” She starts to raise her voice, too.
“I thought that you really cared about us – about my daughter. But you’re just like the others. You wanted something from me. I thought you were different, Jordan; but apparently, I was very fucking wrong.”
Niall
“Want to tell me why you’re so agitated?”
“Didn’t you hear me?!”
“I heard you perfectly. But I don’t understand why you’re so wound up about this.”
“She tried to blackmail me!”
“She made you a proposition.”
“Whose side are you on, here?”
“The reasonable side.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am; that’s why I’m trying to tell you to calm down.”
