Steelhands - Jaida Jones [223]
“Your apology,” Roy said; I noticed him tugging the exact damn scarf I’d shown him in the first place out of his drawer and winding it around his neck. Maybe he thought I was too color-blind to notice what he’d done, but I knew what he was trying to pull. “I accept your apology. It seems sincere enough, and I know how it kills you to admit you like anything, not to mention anyone.”
“Just don’t chase this one off,” I suggested, which was far from what I actually meant, but I figured Roy’d get it anyway. He knew a lot of languages, and there was no reason “crusty old curmudgeon” couldn’t be one of them.
“Indeed,” Royston said, examining himself in the mirror and poking at his red nose critically. “Well, if this cold doesn’t do it once and for all, I suspect nothing will. What a charming thought.”
“You’d better get going,” I reminded him, before he could get that lovestruck look on his face and go all moony on me. Even if the Basquiat wasn’t getting the full story, I knew he was gonna want his whole focus for the meeting. And he was gonna have a lot he’d want to talk to me about after, too.
“It’s considered rude to hustle a man out of his own house,” Roy said, clearly angling for at least another seventeen minutes to agonize over what he saw in the mirror. As far as I was concerned, there was no chance of it getting any better or any worse, and no amount of staring at himself was going to change things. He just wanted to make an entrance, show up a little late and make a big splash, pretending it was all on purpose—but I could’ve told him this was one meeting where he didn’t want to miss the beginning.
“Lucky for me, I never cared much what people thought in the first place,” I said, getting around behind him and pushing him out of the room like I’d done so many years ago at the ’Versity just to avoid making us both late for exams. It was lucky we’d both been stubborn as bulldogs since I didn’t see how our friendship could’ve lasted so long without us both holding on.
Don’t know why I’d even bothered dragging him to exams the way I had since the bastard always marked higher than me no matter what class we’d been attending.
Some people—Laure, Gaeth probably, and me included—weren’t meant to succeed in a classroom. All I could do was hope that I’d be able to teach ’em in the way that had worked for me, not to mention some of their stubborn predecessors, a few of whom hadn’t even been able to sign their own names.
I guess in some ways I was going back to being a teacher, but this time without any pampering ’Versity rules or parents writing angry letters about how the classroom wasn’t a situation room and their babies deserved more respect. Roy’s collection of complaints would suffer, but I was looking forward to being able to tell people to piss off again. I knew I could count on three of my new pupils to try and get the job done—whatever that job was gonna be—and if the fourth didn’t live up to my standards, I wasn’t going to hesitate showing him what it felt like to get your nose twice-broken.
Now, there was a style of teaching you couldn’t put into practice at the ’Versity, no matter how much you might’ve wanted to.
Hal was waiting in the hall where I’d left him, still looking befuddled. That was nothing compared to what he looked like when he saw the two of us coming down the stairs, Roy blustering indignantly but somehow never quite seeing his way around to pushing past me so he could get back upstairs.
He could call me a bully all he liked, but we both knew who had the real firepower between us.
Also, there was a mirror in the hallway, so he always had a second chance to make a fuss.
“Is everything all right?” Hal asked, caught someplace between nervous silence and plain laughter. “You’re out of bed. I thought you said you were never getting out again. In fact, I believe that was an exact quote.”
“Change of plans,” I explained, from over Roy’s shoulder.
“Are you feeling better?” Hal said, looking suspicious, like he meant to block the door with his body