“He started it!” Kenny yelps. He looks no worse for the wear. “I was mindin’ my own business, and he just tackled me!”
Mrs. Baumgartner shakes Jesse by the collar of his shirt. “That true?”
“Yeah.” He sniffs through his bloody nose. “It’s true.”
“All right, boy. You’re comin’ with me. Straight to the principal’s office. And on the first day, too. Ya should be ashamed of yourself.”
She lets go of Kenny’s collar but drags Jesse with her. As they walk past, he throws the blue ribbon at me.
Suddenly, the ribbon don’t seem to matter so much. All that glitters isn’t gold, my mama always says. My ribbon got Jesse in big trouble.
Maybe he ain’t the devil at all. Maybe I ain’t his angel neither. Maybe he’s supposed to be mine.
Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill
I have not had a drop of alcohol in years, but I would give anything for one now. I’d even shoot moonshine in spite of its morning-after consequences.
The papers in my hands shake right along with me as I try several times to file them in my desk drawer. No amount of concentrating on my new student roster is enough to maintain my focus. Memories of the past and present blur into a tumble cycle in my brain. It’s been hours since I first saw him again after so many years, but I can’t quite reconcile the way he looks now compared to the way he felt back then. Hard-won, soft caresses, skinny arms, and whispers of adoration versus hard eyes, sculpted muscles, and the utmost professionalism.
He’s everything I ever dreamed and yet nothing like I imagined.
A sharp rap on my open classroom door precedes the entrance of my new boss into my professional sanctuary. I can’t fault him for his dominance here and now. This is his building. I’m his employee who he’s contractually bound to supervise.
I still haven’t come up with a new plan to circumvent that twist of fate. Mostly because my wildest dreams have no place in my current reality.
Jesse perches on the edge of the student desk closest to mine, his forest-green eyes boring into me. That’s ironic, considering he couldn’t be bothered to make direct eye contact for the duration of our faculty meeting. He’s sure making up for it now. His gaze sweeps me from head to toe quickly, then he starts over again much, much slower.
I let him drink his fill because I’m hungry to do the same. The past five years have been so good to him. He’s removed his jacket and vest, leaving me to feast on a white dress shirt and red tie that look like they cost a pretty penny. The hint of his physique I noticed in the auditorium is much more pronounced without added layers. Scrawny until the night I left him, his arms now look as strong as they used to feel when they were wrapped around me tight. Biceps bulge against the fabric of his shirt. A row of buttons clings to his flat stomach then disappears beneath his belt. His smooth dress pants hug muscular thighs that used to thrust against me until pleasure I never knew was possible made me feel so high I wondered if I’d ever be able to come back down.
I’m down now, all right.
His heavy gaze touches me in all the places that the years haven’t been as kind to me.
I squirm in my seat, cursing Mama and Liz’s choice of dress. There’s no way to hide the bulge of my belly or the breasts that aren’t as perky as the last time he caressed them. At least that’s one thing going for me. He’s matured and aged like a fine wine, but any physical trait I used to possess that attracted him to me is long gone.
His voice sounds the same, even if it’s softer now than the last time I heard it. “I have imagined this moment in so many different ways over the past five years, but now that it’s here…I don’t rightly know what to say.”
I nod even though I never imagined this moment at all.
He continues to stare at me as he seems to almost absentmindedly unbutton one dress shirt cuff then the other, oh-so-slowly rolling his sleeves to the elbows. An expensive watch catches my eye. The kind he never could have afforded when his forearms weren’t so-well muscled, traversed by prominent veins, and dusted by fine black hair.
My breath catches in my chest as I study his left hand. No ring. Not even a tan line from one that might have been removed. I don’t know how to feel about that.
He lifts the same hand in the air, wiggles his fingers, and turns it front and back.
My cheeks flame with embarrassment, and I avert my gaze to the same old tile that was in this room the last time I was. There is one thing I’ve been dying to say for the past five years. “I’m sorry.”
A sharp intake of breath prompts me to lift my gaze. He nods slowly with his brows pulled low—his thinking expression another thing that apparently hasn’t changed.
His mind is a very dangerous thing to me now.
Drawing from the last reserves of my strength, I rise on shaky legs and smooth down my dress. I force my tone to be crisp and business like. “No sense making a mountain out of a molehill, right? The past is the past, but we both have jobs to do in the present. How can I help you, Mr. Yates?”
He studies me carefully for a few more heartbeats, his eyes darting between my own. “Ya could start by showin’ me around your room, I suppose.”
So, I do.
From the posters of famous authors and literary characters to my makeshift library in the back of my room, he follows me at a safe distance, never interrupting as I explain my tentative lesson plans for the year.
Just a regular English teacher reporting to her principal.
He reaches out and drags his fingertips along a smattering of glitter on my hand-made biography of the Brontë sisters. “Such pretty ornamentation for such tragic lives.”
“I have to interest my students somehow. If I at least make the boring stuff pretty, then hopefully they won’t find it so…boring.” I kick myself for my lack of finesse. If I didn’t know exactly how the rough pads of his fingers feel against my skin, maybe I could think a little more clearly.
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Ya never found the Brontës boring.”
He’s not wrong. I’ve been through five copies of Wuthering Heights. “I do love a good tragedy.”
He pops his eyebrows. “That ya do.”
We stare at each other in increasingly unnerving silence. I’m woefully unprepared for a contingency I could never have imagined, and I need some distance from the scent of his subtle cologne to breathe again.
“If there’s nothing else I can do for you, Mr. Yates, I’ll just get back to my preparations for the year.”
My first mistake is brushing past him to take the shortest route to the safety of my desk. My second error is allowing a small gasp to escape when his hand wraps around my arm.
He leans down, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear with every whispered word. “Is there anythin’ I can do for you, Miss Wheeler?”
I can’t afford any more mistakes.
Swallowing down all my selfish emotions, I turn to him with an expression as hard as I’ve had to make myself every time I wanted to break down these past five years. “You can take your hand off of me, Mr. Yates.”
He uncurls each of his fingers in turn until only the ghost of his touch remains. “Should I be expectin’ ya to tender your resignation to me before the school year begins?”