Page 32 of The Games We Play
She’s laughing, twirling in that fucking dress, her curls bouncing around. The skirt lifts high enough so I can just catch a glimpse of her panties.
White cotton.
“Fucking knew it,” I mutter.
She’s dancing to a country song.
I slide my hand back and forth, widening the fantasy. I’m sitting in a booth in a dark corner, watching her. She knows I’m there, but she’s pretending she doesn’t.
Fuck, my balls start to tighten.
Finally, she turns to me. “I miss you, Spark,” she says, before running to me and jumping into my lap.
And without even thinking anything remotely sexual, I come beneath the cheap hotel sheets as I imagine holding her tight in my arms.
10
IRIS
“Miss O’Connor, why is water see-through?” Thema asks as she tugs on her coat.
My head is pounding. The children have been loud today. It’s windy outside, and a kindergarten teacher I worked with on one of my college teaching assignments said the energy of windy weather gets inside the kids and turns them into dervishes. But I take a deep breath. Only a few more minutes, and I can limp home, have soup for dinner, and then be in bed by eight. “That’s a great question. It’s transparent. And it’s because water has no color.”
“Why does it have no color? Because I’ve seen the ocean, and it looks blue or green.”
I swear to God, most days I love having Thema in my class. Her curiosity and intelligence are a powerful combination in a young girl. I’m determined to nurture it. But today, I just want a dark room and my bed before this headache turns into a migraine. I already have the twitch in my eyes that sometimes happens when one is brewing.
“Lots of reasons, but the main one is what happens to the rays of sunlight when they hit the ocean. The water reacts with the light, and you see blue or green.” I try to keep the explanation simple. Even as brilliant as she is, she’s too young to understand the light spectrum and how water absorbs the red wavelengths, making it look blue. “How about tomorrow, we look at what happens when we add color and light to water?” I say. Without the headache, that would be fun. I can’t even remember what the lesson plan for tomorrow actually is with a bass drum banging against my left temple.
“Yeah,” Thema says, and skips to the door.
Once they are all accounted for and on their way home, I grab my things.
“Iris,” Chris Bentley, the principal, calls out when I try to hurry to my car. “Can I have a quick word?”
I don’t really want to. I have that weird slightly metallic taste in my mouth, the one I get before I feel sick, with too much saliva pooling beneath my tongue. Normally, I’d just capitulate and stay, but today, I don’t feel like I can.
“Is it urgent?” I ask. “I don’t feel great. Headache.” For some reason, I point to my temple, like he doesn’t already know where a headache takes place.
“Ouch,” he says. “Yeah, you don’t look great. Let me walk you to your car.” He takes my bag and the books from my hands before I can argue.
“There wasn’t enough space in the parking lot this morning, so I had to park on a side street across from the school.”
“No worries.” He opens the door so I can walk through. Chris is attractive as older men go. Dark hair with threads of silver, a wide smile he’s generous with, and kind hazel eyes. If he were maybe a decade younger and not my boss, I might have flirted.
When we get to the car, he waits while I pop the lock and then drops my bag and books into the trunk. “Thank you,” I say as he slams it shut. The noise makes me wince.
“No worries. You sure you’re okay to drive home? I could always drive you, if you can give me half an hour.”
The idea of waiting for an ice pack and painkillers is more than I can handle. “I’m fine, thank you. What did you need to speak to me about?”
Chris smiles. “Oh, it was about Dylan. We’ve made all the official reports. Come see me when you’re feeling better tomorrow, and I can bring you up to speed.”
“That’s great news. I’m holding out hope there’s some genuine reason he keeps showing up bruised the way he does, but my gut says it’s exactly what we think it is.” It hurts my heart that he carries himself like he’s permanently hurt. His ribs. His back. His arm. But there’s always a story. Football practice. Over-playful older brother. Falling in the park on his skateboard.
I’m relieved when a parent calls Chris’s name. I watch as he leads the parent back onto the school grounds.
“You like a guy in a shirt and tie, little chick?”
