Page 49 of Not Quite Perfect

Hank winced as he dropped down into the battered wooden chair across from my desk. I’d purposely chosen it to ward off a handful of female students who’d taken to lingering well after my office hours were up. It was the single most uncomfortable seat I’d ever sat in, and with the exception of a few sorority girls who’d shown remarkable determination in the face of its discomfort, it had worked like a charm. “God, I hate this thing,” Hank muttered, trying to get comfortable.

“That’s the idea,” I smirked when he gave up and stood instead.

He lifted his chin toward the stack of essays in front of me. “Those for Hannigan’s class?”

“Yeah. I’m not looking forward to it.”

Hank chuckled. “I don’t know why you let them saddle you with all that extra work.”

I shot my friend a look. He knewexactlywhy I’d taken on Hannigan’s class when the department chair had come knocking. Two weeks ago, after a bender to end all benders, they’d told Professor Hannigan it was either rehab or a pink slip.

While I might have been one of the most popular professors at Thackeray, I wasn’t tenured. With Professor Hannigan—a seventy-four-year-old alcoholic—teetering on the brink of ruin, chances were good that a position would be opening up at the beginning of next year. I wanted it.

“Okay, yeah,” Hank said, nodding. “The tenure thing.”

“You don’t want that?”

Hank laughed. “Are you kidding? Not on your life.”

“I honestly don’t understand you sometimes.” Tenure was the holy grail for professors, what we all worked toward. Everyone, it seemed, but Hank.

“Here’s the difference between you and me, my friend,” he said, leaning against the door jamb. “They know I don’t care about tenure, so they can’t hang it over my head. You, on the other hand, are desperate, and they can smell it. They know you won’t say no.”

He wasn’t wrong. Once they handed me Hannigan’s job, I’d be set for life. What was a little extra hard work now for guaranteed employment until I chose to retire?

And there was also the not-so-little matter of the big fat raise that would go with the position. If I made more money, I might be able to afford to move out of my condo and buy a house big enough for Victoria and I to one day raise a family in.

“Not all of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths,” I reminded Hank.

While my family had always been firmly upper-middle-class, and I had the money from my mom’s life insurance policy, it wasn’t enough to live on. Hank, on the other hand, was loaded. The interest from his trust fund alone would have been enough to set me up comfortably.

Hank clutched at his chest, as if the barb had wounded him. “I’m hurt.”

“No you’re not.”

He grinned. “You’re right. I’m not. Being rich is fucking awesome.”

I rolled my eyes and glanced down at my watch. Not that I didn’t love sitting here shooting the shit with my best friend, but I had at least four more hours of work in front of me before I could get home.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going.” Hank rapped his knuckles on the wall. “Say hello to Victoria for me.”

* * *

“I miss you, David,”Victoria whisper-yelled into the phone several hours later.

“I miss you, too,” I answered, climbing between the sheets on my lumpy ass bed. “It sounds like you had a fun day.”

She’d probably deny it, but I could tell from the breathy quality of her voice that she was well on her way to Drunksville, population one.

“Nope,” she answered, her lips popping on thep. “I had a terrible day. I got fired.”

I sat bolt upright, no longer quite as exhausted as I’d been just moments before. “What?”

She sniffled. “Yup. Me and a few other reporters who pissed off Mayor Donaldson.”

“They can’t do that.”

“And yet they have.” She sniffled again. “What am I going to do?”

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