Steelhands - Jaida Jones [104]
“You can appreciate some of the things that came out of the war without disrespecting those who sacrificed themselves during,” Adamo said. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t have anything interesting on his desk that I could stare at—no trinkets or portraits of any sweethearts or anything like that for me to focus on instead of him—so that I ended up staring right at his face while he was talking. It wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened to a girl. He had a nice face, even when he wasn’t yelling at anyone. “But that depends on who you talk to, and not everyone’s gonna agree, of course.”
“That’d be nice, but I’m not holding my breath,” I said.
“You’d go purple waiting,” Adamo agreed.
“And then there’s them that’d say I can’t understand all of it anyhow, on account of how it’s got nothing to do with me,” I agreed, picking out a long tuft of the chair’s stuffing before I caught myself; he was watching me do it. Even though he hadn’t said anything to stop me, I had a feeling Adamo didn’t want me to leave his office looking like I’d used it for shearing sheep. “Although there’s some lady diplomats, aren’t there? Some of ’em famous, even.”
“Not too many of ’em, though,” Adamo confirmed, leaning back in his chair. “Though it seems to me the grades come out about even between the boys and girls. Only difference between ’em in my experience is that the boys usually smell worse.”
“You’re just saying that because you’ve never gotten a whiff of me after mucking out our stables,” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t. As great as my new boots from Toverre were, they didn’t come with magical properties and never stopped me from sticking my foot right in my mouth.
Adamo gave me a hard look, like he was trying to decide whether I was putting one over on him or not.
“Actually, on the grand scale of horrible stink I could live without, horse manure’s not as bad as you’d expect,” he said, after a moment.
“Yeah, but chicken shit’s just awful,” I said, before I could stop myself. “For a small animal like that, you wouldn’t expect it to be so much worse.”
Adamo pressed his hands against his face, but I could tell I’d made him laugh. So talking about these things with people wasn’t always the big disaster Toverre wanted to pretend it was. Adamo seemed like the kind of man who needed a good laugh every now and then; made his whole face look different. Younger.
“I was always thankful that was one thing we missed out on,” Adamo said, once he’d gotten control of himself again. “Stables in the Airman always smelled like metal and fire, though I guess that’s its own stink once you get right down to it. But I never had to worry about putting my boot down in fresh dragon spoor, so I guess that’s something.”
“I bet it’d be huge,” I said, then had to clap my hands right over my mouth to keep from saying anything more.
Despite what Toverre said, I did have some sense of propriety, and sitting up in Adamo’s office chatting about shit just wasn’t cutting it. Even if we were having a grand old time.
Adamo did laugh then, but I didn’t know if it was because of what I’d said or just the trapped look on my face.
“So,” Adamo said, but he couldn’t get past it, and his eyes looked a little leaky, like he was holding a big chuckle in. He had to stop and try again. “Sorry about that, something caught in my throat.”
“Wish I could say the same,” I said, feeling my cheeks getting all hot for no reason. It was right about then I realized that I’d ripped a hunk of stuffing out of the chair between my finger and thumb, and I quickly went about trying to shove it back into the chair again. “Might keep me from saying the things I shouldn’t, if there was.”
“Not at all,” Adamo said. “Too many people mince words. Gives me a headache trying to figure out what they’re saying.”
“No wonder you’re so suspicious about a simple student’s motives,” I replied.
“So you’re really not here about exams, then,” Adamo said, like it’d taken a whole conversation