Page 9 of Play the Last Track
But I wanted more. Istillwant more.
What thatmoreis, who knows?
I sigh, trying my best not to disturb the room of quietly studying students. There are a few at the back on their phones, but I don’t really mind. They’re quiet. If they don’t get their work done, it’s on them.
I’m subbing for a history teacher today. One with a full schedule and a terrible habit of not leaving lesson plans for me. Today, I’ve mostly been asking kids what they’ve been learning, determining I don’t know enough about the subject, and then letting them use the period as a study session.
It’s giving me a lot, and I meana lot, of free time to think about my life choices.
The current one plays over and over on repeat in the form of a video on TMZ’s Instagram feed. The short twenty-second video clip has been open on my laptop all day, and I have probably replayed it over a thousand times.
Flynn Reed, punching and then tackling a guy outside my bar a few nights ago. The same guy who creeped me the hell out with the way he looked at me and leered over the bar. The same guy who I had one of the other servers that night gently advise to head elsewhere if he and his friends wanted to be served.
Flynn fucking Reed.
Tight end for the Boston Broncos, my best friend’s fiancé’s best friend, and my rebound guy.
I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just sort of did.
I blame Italy. I blame the sun and the wine and the fact that I spent weeks with Flynn Reed without a shirt on.
God, he is so hot.
My eyes go back to the video as I gently hit play again. My stomach clenches as I watch Flynn rear his fist back and then slam it into the other guy’s face. I don’t normally condone violence. I hate when fights break out at the bar. I hate that on game weekends, we have to double the security because a patron always takes it too damn far, but I can’t lie, watching him throw that punch is possibly the sexiest thing I have seen in a long time.
The more I watch it, the more the little details start to jump out at me.
The vein in his neck pulses just before he lunges forward. He flexes his hand after the first punch, but never takes his eyes off the guy. His instinctual dodge just before he takes the guy to the ground.
It’s all very attractive and all very, very annoying.
I didn’t mean to fall into bed with Flynn Reed. I really, really didn’t.
After Grant, I vowed to stay single for a while. My head was all over the place. It is still all over the place. My contract at school as a substitute was over, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted a new one. I was being pulled into two different directions, and then Grant and I … well, we fell apart.
I got on the plane intending to spend a summer in Italy with my best friend and figure out what I wanted. I did not intend to get on that plane, sit next to my secret football crush, and then spend the summer flirting instead of thinking.
I certainly never intended tosleepwith him.
A quiet hum of chatter breaks out, and I sigh, close my laptop, and lean my cheek on my hand. Most of the students are no longer paying attention to their own work and have decided to chat amongst themselves. I glance at the clock hanging on the back wall of the classroom. It’s ten to three. Ten minutes before today is over, and I can go home, crawl into bed, and likely watch the video another few hundred times.
Maybe I should just go to the bar after work. That will at least buy me more time away from my mother and her questions. I could go to the bar …
But Flynn Reed will likely be sitting in the booth in the back corner, staring at me all night if I do go. I don’t really feel like putting in the extra effort to ignore him and his lingering gaze tonight.
My phone vibrates, rattling against the desk. I turn it over, seeing a text from my mother.
Mom:Can you bring Sammy home? I’m stuck at the salon.
Well, there goes my bar plan.
***
Dinner at the dining room table in this house is rare.
We might have done it more when it was just Mom, Dad, and me. They didn’t work as many nights when I was little because there wasn’t anyone to look after me, but even then, they normally alternated. Then, my mom got pregnant with Sam, and it got a lot more hectic around the house. The age gap was hard for them.I was turning into a teenager, and Sam was a toddler. We didn’t exactly have the same schedule that allowed for family dinners. When I was in high school, my parents both worked full-time at the bar, and I spent most nights babysitting my younger brother. I went away to college, and then I met Grant.
Now, I’m back living at home for the first time since I was seventeen, and apparently, dinner at the dining table is a thing.
