The man knew me better than I'd ever been known. well.

I held the beer and took a long swallow before handing it back to him. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“Dinner. Occupying the kids Tucking the kids in . The beer.”

“Oh. Those.” He smiled. “Anytime.”

“I'll remember that.”

“I'm a very capable house-husband at times,” he said, taking his own drink from the beer.

“More than capable.”

“Now that we've established how awesome I am,” he said, handing me back the beer. “Talk.”

“ I don't know if you'll want to listen.”

“ Try me.”

I threw my head back on the pillow and gripped the beer with both hands. I then laid out my day for him in painstaking detail, from Harriet waiting for me in the morning to Harold's revelation before I got home. Half of the beer was gone by the time I finished.

“Whoa,” he said, reaching for the beer when I was done . He swallowed a mouthful. “And I thought I had a full day ? . ”

“ Yeah, s S eriously,” I said. “Who knew volunteering was going to be so awful?”

“ Me.” He grinned and took a drink and set the bottle on the nightstand. “So . L , l et's look at all of this step by step.”

“Oh great. Let's re - live it a third time.”

“Relax,” he said. “I meant to see if we can find some solutions.”

“There are no solutions,” I whined. told him.

“Issue number one,” he said, ignoring me. “Your sign-ups actually sound pretty good. Even if you didn't get another one, the show could run with fifteen . Correct?”

“It doesn't seem like enough.”

“It doesn't seem like enough because it isn't the number you wanted,” he said. “But , in fact, if you think plan for that each act might to be on stage for an average of five minutes, you have enough for at least a ninety minute show when you f . D on't forget to f actor in transitions and a fantastic emcee making who will make great jokes and enterta ining in the crowd.”

I smiled a him. “Yeah, but where will I find that guy?” I asked.

He grabbed my arm and squeezed playfully. “Any more questions like that and you'll actually have to go find one,” he said. “ Now isn't the time for jokes. Face it. You need me.”

“I always need you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said , waving a hand in the air. “But now you need me in a tux and at my witty best.”

“I suppose that's true.”

“Right,” he said. “So, I get that you're frustrated about the counselor and the president not being there, but, in truth, it all honesty, it really doesn't harm the show.”

“No, it just pisses me off,” I said, annoyed. “ Charlotte, I'm disappointed about Charlotte because she's I consider her my friend, but I understand. She can't change her tournament or whatever it is. But what in the world could Bingledorf have going on that she's backing out? I mean, that doesn't even seem fair.”

“Well, it seems she may have a lot going on,” Jake offered. “Which brings us to issue number two.”

“Her leaving Prism?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Actually, let's backtrack to issue number one and a half,” he said. “Can we finally admit that I've been right all along about this school being a total freaking sham? With an administration that has no clue what it's doing and teachers that have no business being in the classroom? Can we just admit I've been right so I can pat myself on the back?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. Congratulations. Because that's the important thing right now.”

He smiled. “Thank you. I feel better. Okay. On to issue number two and Bingledorf's supposed move to greener pastures. I have to ask . W – w ould that really be such a bad thing at this point, given what you've seen and learned this week?”

“No, probably not,” I said admitted . I grabbed the blanket at the edge of the bed and pulled it up over my legs. “But the way she came at me about this stupid fundraiser, with all of the urgency and everything. W ..w hy would she do that if she's leaving? Why make such a big deal about it if she's on her way out?”

“Just because she might be leaving doesn't mean she doesn't care about the school or what's happened,” Jake said, sounding ridiculously reasonable. “Think about it this way . I : i f she is leaving, is there a better way to go out then after you've put together something that helps the school? There's a lot of potential goodwill there.”

“I'm the one putting it together,” I said. told him.

“You know what I mean. Just because she might be leaving for another position or for whatever doesn't mean she wants to leave the school in a lurch.”

“But how can a principal president leave her school in the middle of the school year?”

“Technically, it's still the beginning of the year,” Jake said. “It's not the middle. But who knows? We , in fact, really don't know anything about what she might be doing other than the husband of a PTA mom says shared a rumor that she's leaving.” He shrugged. “A lot of room for misunderstanding when the line between the tin cans stretches tight.”

“Give me the beer back,” I said. “And stop sounding so rational.”

He chuckled and handed me the b eer ottle . “And I'm sorry. You know how I feel about people leaving jobs. As long as they do it in a professional manner, no one should ever take crap for leaving a job. Ever.”

We'd had that discussion plenty of times. He always got frustrated with his colleagues at the recycling plant when someone gave their notice and people co-workers got their noses bent out of joint upset , as if they all were somehow contractually bound to stay there forever. He would always argue that if a person needed or wanted to leave, they should be allowed to without taking any flack for it. Why would you want to keep a person who didn't want to stay anyway, regardless of their reason? He always went out of his way to tell anyone that who was leaving that he'd miss them, but he was happy that they'd found a better opportunity.

Normally, I tended to agree with him, but this felt different. Probably because I was taking it personally.

I took a drink from the swallowed another mouthful of beer. “Still . I , I feel like teaching and school is a little different.”

“You don't know the circumstances, Daisy,” he reminded me. “You don't know anything other than what you've heard – and you haven't heard anything from Bingledorf.”

I frowned at him. “I thought you were here to comfort here me and make me feel better.”

“I am. ” He smiled. “ Is it not working?”

“Not particularly.”

“Are there rules here?”

I pointed the neck of the bottle at him. “Yes. Just agree and tell me I'm right and justified in all my whining.”

“Hmm. ” His fingers trailed up my arm and I shivered. “ I'm not sure those rules help the situation.”

“You're trying to help me.”

He sighed and slipped his arm beneath me, hugging me closer to him. “Alright. I wi ' ll stop making sense.”

I punched tapped him lightly in the stomach. “Stop.”

“I just said I would.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Moving on to issue number three,” he said. “Do you want to say anything about the computer teacher who is no n' t really a computer teacher?”

I'd thought plenty about that already and I'd already decided. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I believe him,” I explained . , thinking back to my conversatio n with Miles Riggler. “I really think believe he thought he'd have a semester to learn what he needed to learn and the wires just go crossed. And I think he's scrambling to learn what he needs to get caught up . The poor guy probably isn't sleeping at all.”