Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 95676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
"Oh, Mitch!" She wriggles around, doing a little dance. "I love that man."
"You love the free drinks that man plies you with."
"Tomato, to-mah-to," she says, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. "What time are you on?"
"I go on at nine."
"Are you playing tonight or just singing?"
"Both."
"Nice." She pauses. "But no mopey love shit, please."
"Mopey love shit? Are you and Todd fighting?"
"Meh." She shrugs, her brows drawing together. "I broke it off with him. He's too far away. My life is depressing enough without getting serious about someone I'll never see. It's not like I can fly off to New York every time I need to get laid."
I shake my head, bemused. Erin's life is anything but depressing. She's young, gorgeous, and she's got a dream job as a Junior Agent for an up-and-coming literary agency in the city. She can pretty much work from anywhere, at any time. Which is why she's in my classroom at three o'clock on a Friday afternoon instead of slowly dying in a cubicle somewhere.
I'd love the freedom she has. Don't get me wrong, I adore my kids. But teaching isn't a lucrative position. Since I'm still paying off my dad's medical bills and my student loans, and I live in one of the most expensive cities ever, moonlighting in bars around town helps keep me afloat. But I don't have to deal with assholes in expensive suits telling me what to eat and when.
Being a plus size model wasn't easy. Everyone had something to say about my body, my weight, or my ass. I don't miss it at all, but the paychecks were nice.
"I'm sorry about you and Todd," I say.
When she doesn't say anything, I glance up to find her staring at me, an odd look on her face.
"You okay?" she asks me.
"Yeah, fine. I was just thinking."
"Great," she says with a sigh. "Now I've got you thinking about all the mopey love songs you can sing to torture me, don't I?"
"Maybe." I crack a smile. "I'm thinking Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday. Maybe a little Otis Redding." Erin is strictly a hip-hop and Top 40s kind of girl. She has no appreciation for the Golden Oldies. We're complete opposites in so many ways, but our friendship just works. It's effortless.
I love that about her.
"Fu–freak my life," she groans.
"Miss Kendall, you're needed to the principal's office," our secretary, Eloise Brunson, announces over the intercom. "Miss Kendall, you're needed to the principal's office."
"Oh, someone's in trouble," Erin teases, dragging herself to her feet. "Or else Gleeson wants to bang you on top of his desk. I read a book like that the other day. The librarian and principal got it on. It was crazy hot."
"I'm not a librarian. Besides, Bryan is twenty years older than me." With a bald head and muscles for days, Bryan Gleeson does not fit the elementary school principal image, though. He is F-I-N-E fine, like a young Denzel. Not that I plan to have sex with him on his desk or anything. I'd like to keep my job and his friendship.
I throw away the S.O.S. pad and quickly clean up the soap smears left behind. The glue is gone, thank God, but the rest of the room still looks like my class rioted. I pick my way around the mess to the sink at the back of the room to wash up. Usually if Bryan wants to chat, he shows up at my classroom door. If he's calling me to the office, it's serious.
"I bet he fantasizes about you all the time," Erin, says, following me out of my classroom. "He's probably into whips and chains and all that kinky shit. Men in their thirties and forties are great in bed, you know. They have all that experience." She waggles her brows suggestively.
I choose to ignore her as we stop outside the office at the end of the hall. "I'll see you at Mitch's tonight?"
"Dam–darn straight," she says, shooting Eloise an apologetic smile when the woman glances up, her hazel eyes widening. "And I'm wearing my good bra, so be ready to party, sister."
"See you there," I say, shaking my head and trying not to laugh. It only encourages her, and she does not need any more of that.
"Love ya!" She blows me a kiss and disappears out the front doors of the school.
"Sorry," I say, turning back to Eloise. "You know how she is."
"Indeed," Eloise says, waving her hand.
I've been at Grover Johnson Elementary since the beginning of the school year. Eloise has had ample time to get used to Erin and her mouth. And in this part of San Francisco, Erin at her worst is considered tame. Our school is a little over a mile from the Tenderloin District, with half of our kids being bussed in from the crime-riddled area. In her thirty years in education, Eloise has undoubtedly seen, and heard, a lot worse than Erin Bradford's mouth.