It wasn’t even about Jack and what he’d just told me in the auditorium. I’d always known that Easton was a strong woman and she would be fine.
But my heart was racing, and I refused to think about what I was doing. I walked toward the school and climbed the steps, needing more than anything to look at her for just one moment.
Stopping at her classroom door, I watched her pad around in her bare feet, her heels lying next to her desk, and arch up on her tiptoes to stack books on top of a wardrobe cabinet.
Coming up behind her, I reached up and pushed the book into place for her.
She sucked in a sharp breath and whirled around, the long, sexy bangs of her deep brown hair falling over one eye.
“Mr. Marek.” Her small voice sounded out of breath.
Her red blouse was only one inch from my chest, and her little black pencil skirt only reminded me of how well I’d feel her if I took her in my hands right now.
But I backed up, forcing some distance.
“I owe you an explanation,” I told her.
Her expression turned emotionless. “No, Mr. Marek,” she replied stiffly. “You don’t.”
I had never told her our relationship was over. I’d never warned her I wouldn’t call again. I’d simply stopped. I owed her an apology and an explanation, and I wanted her to hear it.
“My son needs to come first,” I explained.
She walked around her desk and turned to face me, her back and shoulders straight. “Of course he does,” she agreed. “Christian is what’s most important, and we were wrong. You made the right choice.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. Why was she acting like that? Where was the sharp tongue? The temper?
At least yell at me when you tell me you don’t care.
“Are you attending the Greystone Ball on Halloween?” I inquired.
She shook her head. “No. Why would I?”
“Your brother is interning with their firm, right? I thought he’d be taking you.”
“How did you know about the internship?” She squinted her eyes at me.
But I ignored the question. I wouldn’t tell that I’d made the call after the luncheon to get him that position.
She waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t, she sighed. “I’m not going.”
I watched her, wanting her to know so many things. That I thought about her every day, nearly all day. There was hardly a minute when she didn’t cross my mind.
That I couldn’t smell her in my bedroom anymore, and that I wanted to touch her.
If nothing else, I needed her to know how much she had mattered to me and still did.
Stepping up behind her desk, I hovered over her, seeing her breathing turn shallow. “Being a man is making hard choices and living with them,” I told her, “no matter how much it hurts.”
And then I reached out and ran my thumb across her cheek. “I miss you,” I whispered.
Her cold expression slowly started to crack, and her face turned sad.
Looking up at me, she shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she argued. “Being a man is having the wisdom – and the courage – to make the right choices.”
And then she took my hand off her face and evened out her expression.
“And you have,” she told me. “You’re a good father, Mr. Marek.”
So cold.
Her heart is a machine.
She turned away, but I reached out and pulled her in to my body, hearing her breath shake.
“Say you miss me,” I begged, whispering in her ear. “If you say that, then I can leave you alone. I can stop risking my relationship with my son, who is standing right downstairs, and my campaign, knowing that it wasn’t just sex.”
As I spoke, I held her cheek with my hand, turning her lips to meet mine. “Say you miss me,” I whispered against her mouth. “And that you won’t forget me. Ask me if I think about you and miss you every day.”
She softened and let her lips fall to mine, kissing me gently, and then looked at me with pity in her eyes.
“Oh, Tyler,” she lamented, speaking quietly. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want the answers to.”
And then she pulled out of my arms and calmly walked from the room, away from me.
TWENTY-FOUR
EASTON
I
finished writing out Twitter handles for the students to follow for homework and capped my dry-erase marker, turning around and calling to the students, “Flip.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Marcus shouted, keeping his head down and holding up his left hand while he continued writing with his right.
The rest of the students flipped their papers over, protecting their work from wandering eyes, and then Marcus sat back, putting his pencil down and finally turning his paper over as well.
“Stand,” I instructed.
The students stood up, some rubbing their eyes and others yawning.
“Stretch.” I locked my hands above my head and pushed up on my tiptoes, leading by example.
The rest of the class did their own stretches, getting their blood moving after sitting with their constructed response questions. I made them stand every fifteen minutes to keep them alert.
“Jump,” I commanded, and we all started hopping or jogging in place.
I stopped, strolling up the aisle. “Now sit.”
They took their seats, the desks shifting under their weight.
“Attack,” I finished, issuing the last instruction and hearing their snickers and snorts as they continued with their tests.
“You have ten minutes left,” I warned them, and locked my hands behind my back, strolling up and down the aisles.
They’d had a selection of ten different constructed response questions and had to pick three to answer. Judging from the amount of writing going on, I was going to have a very long weekend of reading.
Normally, we completed a lot of assignments online or with a Word document, which they e-mailed to me when they were done. With tests, though, I liked to keep it old-school. There was too much at stake to run the risk of losing a document in cyberspace.
Christian held his paper up, pencil in hand, and appeared to be rereading his work. This was the last class I would have with him, since he’d been transferred into AP History starting next week.
Principal Shaw told me he had e-mailed his father to let him know, but I hadn’t heard anything from Tyler.
Christian’s mother was thrilled, and Christian himself seemed to just roll with it. He’d gotten the assurance from me and Principal Shaw that if he didn’t like it, he could come back to my class.
Part of me hoped he’d hate it. I wanted him back.
It didn’t escape me that with Christian out of my class, seeing his father wouldn’t be as much of a problem publicly – but that was never really our problem. Not really.
Tyler took what he wanted but cut loose what he didn’t need. His upcoming campaign, his son, and his company were his priorities, as they should be, and he’d made a choice. While there may have been space enough for me in his life, he was too afraid to fail at anything else to make the room.
I had offered myself up, naked, in his office, and he’d let me go. We had come too close to the point where it was going to hurt too much to ever let go of each other. And then last week, I’d let him go. He’d been in my classroom, and I’d walked away from him.
Checking the clock, I turned and faced the class. “Is there anyone not done?”
Isabel Savers raised her hand, and I looked to the boy in front of her.
“Loren, can you take Isabel to Ms. Meyer’s room?” I requested. “She can finish there. Thank you.”
Once they walked out, I collected the test papers, and the students opened their laptops to continue gathering research for the simulations they were planning. It was a new teaching technique I’d discovered, where students re-create – live – what it was like to experience everyday life on, say, the Mayflower or in a wigwam. I was excited to see
what they’d come up with.
“Ms. Bradbury?” Christian approached my desk as I started grading the papers. “Since we have the rest of class for private study, can I watch my father’s interview? It’s streaming online.”
“Um…” I shot up my eyebrows, for a split second thinking of telling him no because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Tyler.
But that was selfish. The fact that Christian was at all interested was fantastic.
I nodded quickly. “Sure,” I told him.
But then I stopped. “Actually…”
I turned on the projector, my laptop screen appearing up on the front board.
“What site is it?”
“You don’t have to put it on for everyone to see,” he interjected, and I could tell he was embarrassed.
I switched off the projector, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.
“Okay, but I’d like to see it,” I added.
“KPNN,” he called over his shoulder as he walked to his desk.
I brought up the site and turned down the volume, grabbing my green pen, a rubric for grading, and the first student paper, listening as I read.
Tyler’s face flashed on the screen, and I had to force my expression to stay as hard as stone. He looked so large and commanding, and I was afraid the shot of lust coursing through my body, making it hard to breathe, would be written all over my face.
He wore a black three-piece suit with an emerald-green tie, and I wished the camera would back up so I could see all of him. His jet-black hair had been cut since I’d last seen him and was styled up and off to the side, shiny, with every hair in place.
He sat at the conference table in his office, and I knew the expression on his face. The one that said he had better things to do.
Tyler hadn’t officially announced his candidacy yet, but the whole city knew it was coming. I was interested in seeing how he handled the interview, knowing his aversion to prying eyes in his private life and his inability to indulge people and play nice.
And then I steeled every muscle in my arms and legs, seeing the camera flash to Tessa McAuliffe as the interviewer.
Son of a bitch.
“Well, yes, Mr. Marek,” she went on, continuing a conversation that I was catching the middle of. “But you employ no consultants. Your company has interests in the economy, agriculture, and construction, but what qualifies you to vote on legislation for, say, education?” she challenged.
“The fact that I go to the source and talk with teachers,” he answered without hesitation. “Ms. McAuliffe, I don’t need a conference table full of consultants and lobbyists advising me or influencing me on a topic from which they’re also isolated,” he explained, leaning back in his chair with one hand resting on the table. “To learn about construction, I visit my sites. To become aware of issues prompted by poverty, I can find that a block from my home. To know about education, I’ll talk to teachers. Go to the source.” He laid it out. “Ask questions. Read. Research. Find the answers you need in the purest form.” And then he narrowed his eyes, speaking with command and certainty. “I learn some things from second- and thirdhand accounts, but even more from firsthand accounts.”
I looked down at my paper, twisting my lips to hide the smile.
“What changes would you like to see in education?” she asked, unfazed.
He took a deep breath, and then a thoughtful look crossed his face as he thought about what he was going to say.
“A teacher’s job is undoubtedly hard,” he started. “They struggle with less and less funding and ever-growing class sizes.” He looked at her, tipping his chin down. “They need support, and the curriculum and the methods need to change,” he stated.
I put my paper and pen down, unable to concentrate on anything else.
He continued. “Teachers are finding it difficult to compete with increased technology use in the home but then are unable to use that same technology to maintain their students’ attention in the classroom,” he explained, and I smiled, a shocked breath expelling from my lungs at his statement. “They need cell phones, iPads, laptops… We’re educating students for jobs that don’t yet exist, and we’re still using tools that are fifty years behind the times. It’s long past time that those teachers got those tools and learned how to use them to engage students.”
I felt my body flood with heat, and I closed the laptop, unable to keep the elation from making my stomach flutter.
He’d practically quoted me.
I felt something tighten in my throat. I couldn’t believe he’d done that. Not only had he remembered what I’d said, but he was using it in his platform.
No matter how much I told myself that I didn’t need him, I’d never thought that he might have need of me.
He’d hurt me by not choosing me, but it had never occurred to me that he was suffering from his decision, too. Even after he’d visited the classroom to see me, I’d still thought it was merely about sex.
I blinked, looking up, and found Christian sitting at his desk staring at me.
I straightened, evening out my facial expression, but he just sat there watching me like the wheels were turning in his head.
How long had he been looking?
The bell rang, and the students started stuffing their backpacks and jetting out the door.
“Okay, don’t forget,” I shouted, shooting up out of my chair. “Check out the new follows on Twitter in addition to your reading tonight!”
All of the students filtered out, and I sat back down, turning on “Paralyzed” by In Flames as I started looking over the tests.
“Ms. Bradbury?”
I looked up, seeing Christian standing on the other side of my desk with his laptop bag slung over his shoulder.
“Yes, Christian?”
He looked serious, and I took inventory of the room, seeing everyone else was gone.
“I don’t like Tessa McAuliffe,” he told me.
I tilted my head, studying him and wondering why he was telling me that.
“The TV commentator?” I clarified, and he nodded.
“But I like you,” he said matter-of-factly.
And something about the way he just stood there, holding my eyes, made dread creep into my chest.
Oh, no.
“I saw you and my dad in here that day after school at the beginning of the year,” he stated, a bitter edge to his voice. “I’d gotten done with soccer practice and saw that Patrick was here to take me home, but my father’s car was also outside, so I came to look for him. You were fixing his tie.”
Fixing his tie? I let my eyes wander as I searched my brain for that, and then I remembered. The first time… on the desk more than a month ago.
A month!
I opened my mouth, but every damn hair on my skin stood up, and I was scared. Shit! What the hell did he see?
I wanted to crawl under the desk. Had anyone else seen anything?
“You’re not going to lie to me, are you?” he asked.
I lifted my chin, though my dignity no longer existed. “No.”
“Good,” he shot out. “Everyone tries to handle me, and I’m not a baby.”
I licked my dry lips and stood up. “Did you see anything else?” I asked plainly.
I needed to know how severe the damage was.
He shrugged. “Just that it was obvious something was going on.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “I see how he looks at you. His face gets softer.”
I dropped my eyes and let out a breath. What a mess.
“I didn’t really care what the hell my dad did.” He sighed. “But I thought it was pretty shitty of you. You’re my teacher,” he pointed out. “My teacher.”
I nodded right away, looking him in the eyes. “Yes, I am.” I owned up to it. “You have every right to be angry.”
“People are saying that a lot to me these days, as if that makes everything better,” he threw back.
Christian was right. Mistakes can be forgiven but not always forgotten.
And it was unfortunate that he was the one to suffer for others’ shortcomings.
“Why aren’t you seeing my dad anymore?” he pressed.
“Because it was wrong,” I told him. “Because life sometimes has too many obstacles. We betrayed your trust, and you’re the most important thing.”
He pinched his eyebrows together, looking like he wasn’t sure what to believe.
“Really?” he asked quietly.
“You’re the most important,” I repeated.
He turned for the door and started to walk away but then hesitated. “The thing is,” he turned back. “I started to like my dad more. He was trying harder.”
Was he insinuating that I had anything to do with that?
“He’s around a lot now,” Christian explained, “helping me with homework…” He nodded to himself. “But now he seems sad,” he mused. “I’m not sure why I care.”
Hearing that Tyler wasn’t happy hurt. I couldn’t lie to myself. I wanted him to miss me, and I wanted him to have given me up for a good reason. Christian was that reason.
Christian peered over at me. “When I go to the AP class, can you date my dad?”
I broke out in a small smile. “But then I wouldn’t be your teacher.”
“But you’d be around my house,” he retorted, perking up.
I relaxed, seeing that he was no longer angry. I didn’t know if he’d told anyone, but I wouldn’t put the burden of a secret on him, either. If he talked, he talked, and I’d have to deal with the consequences.
Unfortunately, though, he thought his father had moved on because of my relationship with his son, when, in truth, it went far deeper than that.
“I’m always here for you,” I assured him. “You always come first. Don’t ever forget that.”
TWENTY-FIVE
TYLER
I
planted my hand on the ornate marble railing and took a sip of my whiskey, gazing out over the bustle of cars, carriages, and lights in the cool evening of the Quarter. Conversation and laughter drifted outside from the Halloween masque through the doors behind me, but I narrowed my eyes, watching the gutter punks in the doorway down on the other side of the street beg for beer money instead.