Focus, Emeric.
“Take out your tablets and open a browser to my website.” With my back to the class, I continue talking while scrawling the url on the whiteboard. “You’ll find all my lectures here. I expect you to follow along.”
When I face the room, Ivory hasn’t moved to follow my directions.
I feel a vein throbbing in my forehead and anchor my fists on my hips. “Let me guess. No tablet?”
“She can sit here,” Prescott says, patting his lap, “and share mine.”
She clenches her jaw and flips him off.
I waver between wanting to punch Prescott’s face and whip Ivory’s perfect ass. Neither is a lawful option, and the latter boils my blood just for thinking it.
My focus dips to her lips for a breath too long before I address the class. “Read the chapter and answer the questions at the end of the lecture.”
I curl a finger at Ivory in a follow-me gesture. “I’ll see you in the hall.”
I follow Mr. Marceaux out of the classroom, my mouth dry and hands damp. As the door clicks shut behind him, my insides writhe under the barrage of a thousand fists.
He’s not a huge man, but he seems gigantic in the empty hall, a towering pissed-off mountain of repercussion.
If my future depends on his first impression of me, I’ve fucked my life to hell.
He rubs a hand down his face, over his mouth, and glares at me for an eternity. “You come to my class unprepared and—”
“I cleared the text book issue with the front office. They always give me the first week to—”
“Do not interrupt me,” he says harshly and leans in, bracing a hand on the wall beside my head.
A rush of blood heats my cheeks beneath the intimidating blue of his gaze. His mouth is so close I can smell the lingering scent of cinnamon gum on his breath, and my stomach turns with unease.
“Are you deliberately trying to waste my time?” His jaw hardens. “No sniveling excuses or lies. You have five words to explain why you don’t have your supplies.”
Five words? Is this guy serious? He can eat a dick, because I’m only giving him four.
“I live in Treme.”
“Treme,” he echoes, deadpanned.
I hate how stiff and uncomfortable I feel in the confines of his glare. I want him to look away, because I hate his eyes, hate the vivid facets of sapphire and the way the icy specks sharpen under the fluorescent lights. Nothing could ever be gentle or safe in that gaze.
His throat moves in the deep pocket of shadow above his tie. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you live in Treme?”
He doesn’t just ask the question. He snaps it like a whip. Like a punishment I didn’t earn.
I’m only inches away from him, my back against the wall, and I feel defensive, cornered, my hackles bristling with vindication. “Oh, right. I forgot you have a big fancy degree, so I’ll dumb it down for you.”
“Watch your fucking tone.”
It’s barely a whisper, caught and held in the small space between us, but I feel it vibrate through me like a thunderous roar.
He said no sniveling excuses or lies? Fine.
I wipe the attitude from my voice and give him raw, unpolished honesty. “I live in Treme because my family can’t afford a mansion in the Garden District, Mr. Marceaux. I can’t afford a cell phone or any kind of phone. I can’t afford running shoes or food for my cat. And those…those electronic bracelets all my classmates wear when they work out? I don’t know what they do, but I can’t afford one of those, either. And right now, I don’t have the money for school supplies. But I will. I’ll have it by the end of the week.”
Straightening, he steps back and lowers his head. Is that a fucking smile he’s hiding? I swear to God I glimpsed one. Is he actually enjoying the pathetic appraisal of my life? What a horrible fucking person! This is the teacher I’m supposed to look up to? The one who will make me or break me? My lungs heave and slam together.
When he lifts his head, his mouth is a flat line, and the frigid depths of his eyes seem to manipulate his entire expression, twisting it into a collage of other faces that haunt me when I sleep. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“Never,” I seethe through grinding teeth. “I never want that.”
“No? Then what? Seems you expect me to make exceptions for you?”
“No. Just—” I’ve never met a more callous, self-righteous dick. “Just write me up or whatever you’re going to do.”
I know something isn’t right the moment he looks down the hall and checks to make sure we’re alone. I know this entire confrontation is inappropriate when he bends toward me and places his hands on the wall, trapping me in. And I know there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do about it as he whispers through the pounding in my ears.