Page 67 of Blood and Fire
He sank down on a stool near the fire. “Nah. I don’t know where they are, how many, what their resources are. Makes me fucking tense.”
“I noticed,” she murmured.
“That bad, huh?”
“Terrible,” she informed him. “Like toxic waste.”
He laughed, but the sound petered out fast. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s OK,” she said. “I’m being a little more bitchy than usual, too.”
He slanted her an eyebrow tilted glance. “Just a little?”
“Just a little,” she said resolutely. “Cannot tell a lie. I’m snarky and difficult even under normal circumstances. Just so you know.”
His dimples flashed. “Good of you to warn me.”
She blew out a sharp breath. “I try to be good.”
They listened to the fire crackling for a while.
“Normal circumstances,” he echoed. “What are those, for you?”
“Huh?” His keen gaze scrambled her thoughts into mush. “What?”
“Your normal. I have no idea what that is,” he said. “I met you in a really weird time in your life. So clue me in. What’s normal, for you?”
She hesitated for so long, he started to look worried. Like she was going to confess to being an escort, or cooking meth in her basement.
Oh, hell. Out with it. “I write term papers,” she said.
His brows knitted together. “Yeah? For what? About what?”
“About anything. On any topic. For whoever can pay my fees.”
The puzzlement on his face was replaced by surprise. “Huh? Oh. You mean…for people who are cheating? In school?”
“Yeah.” She braced herself for the judgment that was coming.
But he just looked fascinated. He tilted his head to the side, studying her intently. “Who hires you? College kids?”
“Lots of different types,” she said. “Foreign students who can’t manage the English. Non-foreign students who can’t manage it, either. Rich kids who are too busy partying. They all keep me busy.”
“No shit,” he murmured. “So what’s your own degree in?”
She shook her head. “Don’t have one. Never made it all the way.”
He frowned. “But how…but if you’re so good at writing—”
“I was going to Columbia,” she began. “Full scholarship. I was going to get my BA and my masters both in four years. I had one year to go, my thesis to write. Then I discovered that Howard hadn’t paid the property taxes on his house. He’d spaced it, for years. I had to come up with eighteen thousand dollars, or he’d have lost the house.”
“Whoa,” he murmured. “Ouch.”
“Bad enough, him being a junkie,” she said. “But him being a junkie under a bridge, or in the subway, well. That I could not face.”
“I hear you,” he said.
“So there was this Greek guy I knew who was struggling with his doctoral thesis, in the history of medicine. He offered me six thousand bucks to write it for him.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t turn it down.”