Page 99 of Every Beat of My Heart

I scrubbed a hand over my face when I saw it was a video of me knocking on Claire’s door and her opening it. I cringed even though I knew what was going to happen. Claire, wearing her pajamas, leaped into my arms. It should have been a private moment, but someone had filmed it and shared it with the kids.

“Is that you, coach?” Kurt turned around to ask.

My jaw tightened. “Where did you get that?”

Lexie looked up at me nervously. “Everyone’s passing it around. I don’t know where it came from.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw, and I felt sick. “Put your phone away, or I’m taking it for the rest of the day.”

Lexie rushed to shove it in her purse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you in the video.”

“It’s not your fault.”

As I made my way to the front of the room, my heart was racing, and my hands shook. The kids were whispering, and the one comment that stood out to me was, “Was that Ms. Coleman?”

This wasn’t just about me. Claire was facing the screen and more visible than me, and she was in her pajamas. It was beyond inappropriate. I didn’t want to jeopardize her job or mine. She didn’t have any backup if she lost her job.

If something happened to me, it would be one more reason for my brothers to say I was a screwup. That I’d never amount to anything.

I stood at the projector with the worksheet with the blanks in the paragraphs on them. “Settle down. We need to go over these battles. Mrs. Allen said there will be a test on Monday.”

I waited for the room to quiet down when Layla in the back row said, “Mr. Calloway? Mr. Miller is here to see you.”

My stomach dropped. The principal stood in my doorway.

“I need to talk to you. We have someone to fill in for you.”

The music teacher, Mr. Kinnan, looked sheepish as he moved to take over for me.

“You’re supposed to review the battles. They have a test—” Suddenly, social studies didn’t seem as important as it had.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” Mr. Kinnan said sympathetically.

He probably knew I was in trouble.

There weren’t a lot of substitute teachers, so the full-time ones pitched in when necessary. I didn’t like that I was the one being called down to the principal’s office. This had to be about the video circulating on the kids’ phones.

I was a distraction, and there was no way the school was going to put up with it. I couldn’t figure out who would have followed me to Claire’s house, then filmed us. I felt sick as I followed Mr. Miller out of the classroom.

When we walked by Claire’s classroom, her door was open, and she smiled when she saw me, only faltering when she noticed Mr. Miller next to me. I didn’t have time to warn her about the video.

“We’ll talk in my office.”

This wasn’t good. Inside his office, I sat where he indicated, next to Mr. Elias. Mr. Miller shut the door.

“What’s this about?” I asked even though I had a pretty good idea.

“We had a call from a concerned parent—” Mr. Elias began.

“With all due respect, sir, a parent of one of my football players threatened to go to you because his son was taken out of the game. If that’s the case, I don’t see how that affects my job.” I was itching to get back to class and do the job I was hired to do.

“If that’s all it was, I wouldn’t be interrupting either of your days. The problem is the video that’s circulating between you and Ms. Coleman.” Mr. Elias looked from me to Mr. Miller.

“It’s highly inappropriate, and we have concerns,” Mr. Miller said.

A muscle ticked in my jaw. “Someone followed me and filmed me in a private moment. We didn’t do any more than kiss in that video. Then we went inside.”

“The problem is we have a video of two teachers together. It’s distracting to our students if they’re watching this on their phones instead of listening in class.”

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