Page 41 of What You Wish For

He looked a little breathless. Almost a little sweaty—like he’d been… exercising, maybe? His jacket was off, and so was the vest. His tie was off, too, and his collar was open. What was he up to?

“But you clearly are here,” I said, determined not to be fazed.

Mrs. Kline stood up. “Principal Carpenter, this is our librarian, Samantha Casey. Most people call her Sam.”

And then I couldn’t help it. “Unless we’ve all had a few margaritas,” I said to Mrs. Kline, likeamiright?“Then it’s more like Saaaam, or Samster, or Sammie.”

What was I doing? I didn’t even drink. I didn’t have any nickname but Sam. But Duncan didn’t know that. Because, as I may have mentioned,he had no idea who I was.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“I’m in the middle of something.”

Clearly.“It’s urgent.”

“I’m unavailable.”

“But I have an appointment.”

Duncan checked Mrs. Kline’s wall clock. “In forty-one minutes.”

He wasn’t wrong. But there was no possible way I could wait for forty-one minutes.

“It really can’t wait,” I said, walking right past him into his office. A very ballsy move that, for a minute at least, made me feel quite I-am-woman-hear-me-roar.

That is, until Duncan—less impressed than I’d have liked—watched me situate myself opposite him in his office, ready to face off. Then he seemed to give a kind of mentaloh, wellshrug, and then he kneeled down to the floor, leaned forward onto his hands… and started doing push-ups.

For a second, I just watched him. It was so unexpected. And he was kind of mesmerizing, too—straight as a board from his heels to his head, pumping up and down with absolute vigor, like it was easy. Great form.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked.

“I told you I was busy.”

“Isn’t this the kind of thing people usually do at the gym?”

“Some people, I guess. I like to space them out through the day.”

It was so off-putting. It threw me off. “Should I… wait for you to finish?”

“I thought you said it couldn’t wait.”

Fair enough.

Looking back, the fact that I thought I was about to quit really impacted how that moment played out. I wasn’t thinking of myself asDuncan’s employee, or trying to keep my behavior professional, or even worried about my job. I had one foot out the door, anyway.

Besides, this guy had just pulled out a gun at a school. A fake one, but still.

All bets were kind of off.

When this office had been Max’s, it was full of keepsakes. Plants, kid art, and photos had covered every shelf, wall, and surface—including his desk, at least the parts of it that weren’t covered with ever-changing stacks of papers.

The same office—now belonging to Duncan—was the opposite.

Of course, Duncan had just moved in. Most of his things were still in the boxes stacked in the corner. But it wasn’t just that he hadn’t unpacked. He’d changed everything. When facilities had repainted—which the room had needed—Duncan had chosen a cold gray to replace the warm, creamy white from before. The tan carpet had also been replaced with gray. Max’s warm, Stickley-style furniture had been replaced with—you guessed it—cheap, gray office furniture. With a little black for variety.

The paint smell wasn’t helping, either.

I’m not here to debate the merits of tan carpet over gray.

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