Life felt like hell, because we expected it to feel like heaven. The quote I read years ago went something like that, but I never understood it. When you’re in the thick all your life, living in ways you eventually figure out no one else is, you learn to sleep well in heat and eat fire. Until one day it’s all you need.
It was heaven I didn’t trust. High hopes and false expectations…
No, I needed the trouble.
I pinched the cigarette butt between my three fingers, feeling my phone vibrate for the second time in my back pocket as I brought my hand up to my mouth and took another drag. The faint sizzle of the paper burned to the end, the hot smoke being pulled into my lungs, and I blew it out again as I leaned against the column next to the bulletin board.
The school was still mostly empty, at least forty-five minutes to the bell.
And the third floor was my favorite place. The bustle of the cafeteria and gymnasium were far below, and there were very few classrooms up here, so it was quiet enough that you could hear every footstep. Every door. Every pen drop… You knew when you weren’t alone.
And she wasn’t alone. I wondered if she’d noticed that yet.
I turned my head and peered around the edge of the column, seeing the blur of her through the glass, across the open air, which allowed for the courtyard below, and through another set of windows. She’d gotten a little too big for her britches, but that was common with new teachers, especially the young ones. They thought college prepared them for this, and even if it did, it didn’t prepare them for Thunder Bay. Things worked a little differently here, and she wasn’t the boss, because I couldn’t be handled. It was time to educate her that teachers fell in line, not the other way around.
She moved in the room, making her copies at the machine, and I licked my lips, my mouth going dry. Come on. Go somewhere quiet, or I’m taking you right there.
Images of her loose, little bun coming down. Those legs in heels as she was bent over a table…
My phone vibrated again, and I blinked hard, swallowing through my parched throat. Goddamn him.
Gritting my teeth, I dug out my phone, swiped the screen, and held it to my ear. “Fuck off.”
“Well, top of the fucking morning to you, Grouch,” Will said. “What’s your problem?”
I swallowed again, raising my eyes to the prize once more. “Nothing my dick can’t solve if you leave me alone for ten minutes,” I told him, staring at her. “What do you want?”
“To make you smile.”
I frowned. To make me… Jesus, fuck. I rolled my eyes. But just like that, I almost gave in. He had a gift for smoothing out my edges and really fucking quick, too.
“Haha. I can hear you smiling.” I could hear his amusement. The laughter always present in his voice.
“You can hear me smiling, huh?”
He was the only one—the only one—who didn’t walk on eggshells around me, and I damn near killed him for it a few times, but now I barely did anything without him. “I told you,” he pointed out. “We’re connected. It’s spiritual and shit.”
I let out a little grin he couldn’t see. “I fucking hate you.”
Idiot.
Will, Michael, and Kai were my friends, and I’d walk through fire for any one of them. Will was the only one, though, who I was sure would walk through fire for me.
“So, what is she wearing?” he asked.
I kept my eyes on her, following her as she left the copy room and started down the hallway. “An engagement ring.”
“Kinky.”
I laughed to myself and took a step and then another, matching her pace as she walked down one hallway and me another. “Be even kinkier if she were wearing the wedding dress, too.”
“I’ll take a piece of that.”
“You’re welcome to it. I’m good about sharing.”
And sometimes sharing was necessary. When it came to women, I didn’t always keep my promises. Will finished them off if I lost interest.
She was approaching the corner and would turn left. It was almost time.
“Gotta go,” I told him. “Meet you in the parking lot at seven-thirty.”
“Yeah. I left my gym bag in your car, so I need to get it before practice. See you—”
I didn’t let him finish. I pulled the phone away from my ear and hung up, never taking my eyes off her. She rounded the corner and reappeared through the windows perpendicular to me, making her way closer and closer. Pulling to a stop, I slid my phone back into my pocket, leaned my shoulder into the wall, and slipped my hands into the center pocket of my hoodie, waiting for her.
She took another left, briefly disappeared from sight, and reappeared again, stopping as soon as she spotted me.
“Mr. Torrance,” she said.
I nodded once. “Miss Jennings. You wanted to see me?”
She took a step back, looking around her. I wasn’t sure if it was instinctive or if she was confused, but it amused me. She wore a short-sleeved, black V-neck dress that hugged every curve, far from the little cardigans and floral, knee-length skirts she wore at the beginning of the school year. A first-year teacher who started out looking very much wife-of-the-town-pastor seemed to like the lustful eyes of her teenage male students on her and couldn’t help but dress for it now. She still wore her glasses and her hair in tight, little buns, though.
She swallowed, a blush crossing her cheeks. “Um, during school hours, yes. I’m, uh…” She dropped her eyes, shifting in her black heels, and I held in my smirk. While she dressed sexier now, she was still shy.
And I loved that. Confidence annoyed me. I didn’t like being hunted.
“Well, you’re here, I suppose,” she said, giving me a curt smile. “Come in.”
I followed her into the classroom, feeling the blood suddenly pump a little warmer through my body.
This was what it took for me.
There were any number of girls downstairs right now. Girls my own age. The cheerleaders, the gymnastics team, the work-study students in the cafeteria… I could get laid in five minutes if I wanted to, but sex for me had little to do with my body.
It was right here. With my eyes on her back. With the door I closed and locked behind me. With the fear and the attraction and the danger I felt rolling off her at being alone with me. With the idea that she’d have to look at me every day for the rest of the year until I graduated, knowing what she’d let me do to her today and the panic that she let it happen but also the desire of wanting it to happen again.
Sex for me was in the head. Almost entirely.
She set her little pile of papers on her desk and turned around, her eyes darting to the door she just realized I’d closed. A heavy pause followed, and I saw her body go rigid, but she pressed on.
She threaded her fingers in front of her body and put on her stern face. A pretty cute attempt for a twenty-three-year-old who thought the seventeen-year-old guy in front of her who was broader—and half-a-foot taller—actually saw her as an authority figure.
I took the two steps to reach the first desk in the front row and planted my ass on the edge.
“Look, I’m not skilled at beating around the bush,” she said, “so let’s just cut to the chase.”
I stared at her.
“There is a significant difference between the work you complete at home and the work you complete in class,” she continued. “And I notice the difference in the handwriting, as well. I’m not going to ask you to defend yourself, because we both know what’s really going on, and I’m not going to waste either of our time.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
She paused, licking her lips and clearing her throat. “All I’m going to say is ‘stop’.” She tipped her chin down at me. “Do the work, or you won’t pass.”
Uh-huh. I kept my eyes on hers, but I could still see the hard, little points of her nipples jutting through her dress. Maybe it was cold. Maybe it wasn’t. I just wanted to see them.