Page 56 of Taming His Teacher

Holding hands is rookie stuff, minor league. With everything I’ve done, everything I’ve seen, it shouldn’t impress me. But somehow, her warm hand holding mine tight like she’s not quite sure I’m real, like I might tug away…it half makes me feel like king of the world and it half carves a hole in my stomach.

I want her to hold me tight because she can’t not, not because she’s worried I’m going to leave. I’m going to rebuild that wall one brick at a time, make her believe I’m in this for the long haul, because I am. It might be foolish—we don’t know each other all that well—but I don’t know if there’s anyone else for me. If things don’t work out with Erin, I might be able to find someone who makes me half-happy, but she’s a soft ball of sweetness and light, a little pitcher filled to the brim with everything I want.

It’s probably foolhardy, but I’ve already started thinking about slipping a ring on her finger. Making her mine. And not because I’ve gotten her knocked up. No. I will be fantastically and epically careful about that. Because I love her and she fills in the pieces of me that are missing.

Where I’m sober, she’s giddy, where I’m hard, she’s soft, where I’m rigid, she’s flexible. Not that she’s some shrinking violet. I love her spine of steel she dredges up when she needs it, but I’d like to give her something solid to lean against so she doesn’t need it so often. Let her be tractable, pliant, docile—how I think she’d like to be. How I like her.

Tonight’s the school dance and we’re both chaperoning. I’d traded duties with Skip Connelly, who was too glad to take a vanload of kids to the movies instead. I’m not thrilled about standing in the dining hall decked out with the casino-night theme and having to separate couples who are getting too caught up in each other. I didn’t like it when I was sixteen and I like it less now. But if that’s where Erin is, then that’s where I’ll be.

I wrap a Hawthorn-crested tie around my neck, wishing it were Erin’s head, that I was blindfolding her. She’d bite her plump bottom lip in uncertainty before taking a deep breath and letting go because she trusts me to take care of her, to show her things she’s never known about and to keep her safe.I will, Erin, I promise.

I pull on my blazer and my peacoat over it, fishing my cell out of my pocket to call Caleb as I head outside.

* * *

Erin

I’m slicking on lip gloss when there’s a knock at my door. I almost get the shimmering pink gel on my cheek because my mouth kicks up in a delighted grin. He hadn’t said, but I should have known.

When I swing the door open, he’s there. The lily he’s holding is a soft peach, a pretty complement to the vase of white, pink, and pastel yellow ones he’s given me already. One was waiting on my desk Monday morning, I’d found another one in the ladies’ room at Turner during Tuesday’s study hours—I’d giggled, thinking of Shep sneaking in there—another one when he walked me home on Wednesday. I’ve gotten one every day for the past two weeks and my apartment is filled with the sweet smell of them.

Lilies.

How did he—?

But Shep pays attention. He has an eye for detail, as has become crystal clear over these past two weeks. Despite avoiding me like the plague, he has my schedule down to the minute. On the two nights he’s taken me out, he brought me once to a rundown bowling alley where he ordered me a Cherry Coke and clapped for me even when I got endless gutter balls, and the other time to the aquarium in Boston.

They stay open late one night a month and we got lucky it was our night off. He’d let me drag him around to all the exhibits, stood by indulgently as I pressed my nose to the glass of the jellyfish tanks, laughed and shook his head as I squealed about how weird sharkskin felt when I dipped my hand into the touch pool and one swam right under my widespread fingers.

Tonight when he’s given me a soft, chaste kiss over the threshold to my apartment and I’ve put the pretty flower to join its siblings, he holds out an arm.

“Shall we?”

I nod, flushing. We shall.

We clomp down the stairs, both wearing boots because the campus is covered with snow. Though I’d like to be sexy, I thought he’d prefer me to be practical. At least my knee-high boots have fur on them so I don’t feel too dowdy. When we arrive, Shep takes my coat and spirits it away somewhere safe, away from the piles of down and wool accumulating near the entrances as the kids arrive.

Tonight is the major dance of the season and we’re hosting half a dozen other schools. The place is crowded and hot, and the slinky dresses some of the girls have donned—ostensibly to go with the theme of the evening—don’t look as silly inside as they will when they’re shivering their butts off on the way back to their respective campuses on the buses the drivers won’t have warmed up.

The evening passes uneventfully, no fights this year, thank goodness. None of the kids seem drunk, and there are an average number of couples who need to be separated because they’re practically having sex on the dance floor.

As I tap one particularly amorous young woman on the shoulder, empathy wells in me along with embarrassment. I hate this part of my job.I get it, guys, I do, but this is not the time or the place. And if I can’t get laid tonight, neither can you.

I turn back to where I left Shep overseeing the punch bowl and see a somehow familiar sylphlike form standing between him and me. The clingy black dress is too sophisticated to scream student and the dark hair is twisted up just so. A sudden tightness in my throat descends, gathering strength while it makes its way into the pit of my stomach. As I approach, the head perched on the slim neck turns and I’m greeted by the severe profile of Lana Davis.

I’d never blamed Lana for what happened as much as I blamed Will. He was married, she wasn’t. I’m not a big rah-rah-sisterhood kind of girl. Women have been as untrustworthy and back-stabby as men have been in my experience and I was glad when she moved across the country. Apparently she’s back. Shep laughs at something she’s said and I stop in my tracks. Not again. Not Shep.

I try to silence the harpy voices in my head, telling me I shouldn’t be surprised.Of course this is what I get for thinking I could have a happily ever after and with someone like Shep. He’s so far out of my league it’s not even funny.But I force myself forward because Shep isn’t Will. He wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t.

Would he?

Shep smiles when he sees me, and the screaming dies down to a tolerable level. If he were Will, his face would’ve fallen to be replaced by a grin that used to heat my insides but eventually made me wonder what the hell he’d done this time. I step behind the refreshment table and plaster a polite smile on my face while Lana finishes her anecdote, barely glancing at me.

When she’s finished, she flashes a smile that makes me as suspicious as Will’s. “Erin! It’s been so long. I didn’t realize you were still here. It’s good to see you. You look…nice.”

I’m wearing my purple dress I love, but her unenthusiastic compliment makes me feel plain. I can’t compete with her brand of supermodel sophistication.

“Hi, Lana. I thought you were still in California.”

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