I had half a mind to hide his clothes while he was in the tank. Mature? Nawh. Fun? Yup. “Have fun with that.” I reached around him and grabbed my shirt.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to be meeting Lee here. You haven’t seen her, have you?”
I shook my head, pulling my arms through the shirt. “Never met her, so zero chance of me recognizing her.”
“Right.”
I put the bottom button through the hole and started on the second.
“We dress for the festivals around here.”
General Donovan. Fuck my life. “Yes, sir. I was just getting out of the dunk tank.”
“General, sir, this is Jagger Bateman. He’s another lieutenant in my class.” Carter introduced us, looking all chummy with the CG.
The general’s eyes looked like they were about to bug out of his head. “Bateman?”
Why is everyone all over my last name today? “Yes, sir.”
His jaw flexed, and he folded his arms across his chest. That was not the answer he wanted. “Exactly what are you doing here?”
“Working the dunk tank, sir,” I repeated, gesturing behind me like there wasn’t a huge fucking dunk tank in eyesight. “Our class was tasked with it.”
He looked at Carter. “He’s still in your class?”
Carter nodded, and a gleam came across his face. Prick. I had to give it to General Donovan. Other than his arms and that tic in his jaw—there it was again—it was hard to tell he was angry, but I’d grown up with a man skilled at hiding emotion. Yeah, the general was more like livid.
“Major Davidson?”
The major stepped forward. “Yes, General?”
“Can you explain why Bateman is still present on my post? I asked you to handle this.”
Well, shit. My stomach dropped fourteen stories and landed in the realm of nausea.
Major Davidson stopped chewing those peanuts. “You told me to handle it, sir. I tasked the lieutenants accordingly. Bateman was willing to take the fall for all three, and the other two came forward of their own volition. I felt obligated to give them another chance.”
“I want him gone. Now.” He left no room for argument. Carter had the gall to look a little shocked, and then fucking ecstatic. Prick.
“Daddy?” That voice soothed me like nothing else could. Paisley, dressed in the sexiest white sundress I’d ever seen, walked around Carter toward General Donovan. “What’s wrong?”
Wait. “Daddy?” My eyes narrowed, and hers widened as she saw me. Her eyes lingered where the skin of my chest was exposed before dragging them to my face.
“Jagger?”
Now Carter and General Donovan stared her down and called her out at the same time.
“How do you know him?”
“You know each other?”
My teeth ground, more pissed at her betrayal by omission than General Donovan threatening to kick me out of flight school. “You’re General Donovan’s daughter?”
“You’re in flight school?” Her mouth hung slack. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you I was in school here. You assumed college. You?”
“You never asked for my family pedigree.”
“Lee, how do you know Bateman?” Carter asked his question over again, and this time I put it together. William Carter. Carter was Paisley’s Will.
The blood drained from my head, leaving me feeling drunk, and not in a pleasant-buzz kind of way. Oh, no. This was an I’ve-done-twelve-shots-of-tequila-before-a-game kind of way. I would rather have been cross-checked into the boards with no helmet than hear this.
She gave her forced smile to Carter, the one where she didn’t show her teeth. “He’s teaching me how to swim.”
“He what?” Her dad growled.
“Bateman?” Carter’s mouth turned down like he’d tasted something disgusting.
I knew the feeling well.
I buttoned up the rest of my shirt. If I was getting kicked out of flight school, I was at least going to have clothes on. “Hard time believing I can swim, Carter?”
“Wait, you know him, too?” Now it was Paisley’s turn to look incredulous.
“He’s in my class, Lee! He’s Bateman!”
Ah, so he’d been talking about me. Nice to know.
Her gaze snapped toward mine. “You’re the one he’s competing against?”
“Yes.” And I’ll win…if I stay.
“Get him off my post, Major Davidson. I won’t have him here.” The general’s jaw was set, just like his opinion of me.
“Sir, all due respect, but you told me to deal with him, and I did. He’s completed his extra duty and then some. He made a stupid mistake.”
“He put that damned polar bear on my lawn!”
I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes before I could see Paisley’s reaction. I could handle everyone’s disapproval, but not hers. The silence got to be too much for even me, and I manned up and opened my eyes.
Paisley didn’t look disgusted. Nope. She had a shit-eating grin on her face. The general may as well have not existed—I couldn’t pry my eyes off Paisley’s thousand-megawatt smile if he’d told me I was on fire. Then her expression fell, and she glared over at Carter. What the hell was that about?
“Process his paperwork. There’s no chance he’s staying.” General Donovan delivered sentencing and turned on his heel, making it a couple feet before Paisley stopped him.