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He glared in her direction as she turned on her heel, her luggage rolling smoothly behind her. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Crawford,” she called over her shoulder, her tone dripping with false sweetness.
Making her way to the dean, her smile of triumph lasted only a few seconds as a voice came from beside her.
“Kimiko, do you have a moment?”
She turned to see… Archer’s friend.
“Sterling, is it?” she asked him genuinely, and he chuckled.
“The one and only... Did you bring my suggestion to the board?”
She rolled her eyes. His suggestion was to rent out a nightclub for the students to “get to know each other,” as he put it.
“It wasn’t much of a suggestion. If anything, it’s a request; and respectfully, request denied,” she concluded, and he scoffed as he followed, hot on her trail.
“I’m renting it out! It’ll just be the students there. Those who want to go anyway. What harm could it do?”
“It could do a lot of harm—” she started, but stopped when she realized the dean was only a few feet away.
He turned to look at them.
“What harm could what do?” he asked.
Before Kimiko had a chance to speak, Sterling walked over to the dean and pulled him aside to talk as if they were the best of friends.
Kimiko sighed and walked over slowly to hear them chuckling.
The dean turned to her. “Kimiko, why didn’t you come to me with Mr. Reynolds’s idea?”
“With all due respect, sir, I didn’t think it was appropriate for the students to be invited to a nightclub on one of the first few nights of our stay.”
“Nonsense. The students only have to be with the group five hours out of the day. They deserve a bit of freedom. Besides, most of them will want to continue exploring the city or may not even be interested.”
Kimiko sighed and went to speak again. “But sir—”
“Kimiko—” Sterling cut her off, and Kimiko glared over at him. “I think you’ve done a marvelous job planning the trip, but the students want to live a little as well. The chaperones can even tag along. I’m sure Martin here wouldn’t mind.” He beamed, and Kimiko internally scoffed.
“Martin,” the dean’s first name. No “Mr.,” no “sir,” just “Martin.”
“Then it’s settled; you’ll find a spot in the schedule, won’t you, Kimiko? You can even send out a mass message of the change to the students.”
Kimiko looked over to the dean with a forced smile. “Not a problem, sir,” she responded.
He only nodded before he made his way to the many chaperones and board members who were getting plans in order.
Sterling looked over to Kimiko and gave her a small wink before walking off. Clenching and unclenching her fists, Kimiko heard Avery’s voice beside her.
“Mr. Reynolds is awfully close to the dean.”
“Yes. Yes, he is.”
“If he wanted to, he could have requested it to the dean himself; why go to you first?” he asked, and Kimiko sighed.
“I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care. We now have more things to worry about. We depart in less than thirty minutes.”
Avery nodded. “I’ll alert Ms. Newman to let her know we’ll be boarding soon.”
Kimiko said nothing as he walked away.
