Page 30 of Falling for Mindy

“Fine, give me hell. I deserve it. But think about how you felt. Did you have a hard time just keeping your hands off her?”

“Oh yeah, man. We did it in the storage room behind the cafeteria all the time. I’d bend her over a case of canned green beans and be balls-deep—”

“Stop. I’m gonna puke,” I said. “I don’t want a trip down memory lane with you. Especially if you were fucking on canned vegetables.”

“It was hot,” he laughed, “you go finish your workout, get to work, and then I’ll kick your ass in training tonight. You’re not gonna have the energy to lust after her for the next eight weeks if I get you to follow the training regimen I’m working on.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate you listening, Aaron. I know I screwed up. And I’ll be back here after work to work my ass off.”

“See you then, brother,” he said, shaking my hand and getting back to work.

I could do that. I could wait eight weeks. I’d need to speak to her and explain, but she’d understand. I knew her well enough to be relatively sure she’d wait right along with me. It had been earth-shaking between us last night. There was no way that either of us could put that in the past and forget it. It wasn’t completely impossible for us to be together. It would just take time. I, for one, would be marking days off on the calendar until I could ask her to come to dinner, until I could ask her to stay the night with me.

Plus, in eight weeks, I would have time to sort out my thoughts about why I’d done what I did, what made this so special. I could take a step back, get my head together. I had a chance to do this right, and I wasn’t about to waste it.

CHAPTER 17

MINDY

It had been the longest week of my entire life. That’s how long it had been since I went home with Kyle. With Professor Quinn. I had to stop calling him Kyle in my thoughts or one of these days I’d slip up and say it aloud. Then someone would find out I knew him personally. Biblically, one might even say.

I hadn’t told a soul. I didn’t even tell Katie, and I had always told her everything. This was too deep and dark a secret, that I’d had sex with my professor. That I felt like I’d been turned inside out, body, heart, and soul, by what we had done together. It wasn’t just a hookup. At least it wasn’t like any other sexual experience I’d ever had in my limited history. It was so intimate, so complete and all-consuming. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find myself lying naked in a field someplace six miles from his house because the pleasure had just rocketed me out the window or something.

It hadn’t been only physical, although the physical union had been phenomenal. The way he had held my gaze, touched my face, made sure we came together—that was something real. Something private and shared. The way he had looked at me, that alone kept me from telling anyone. Because I wanted to keep that memory tucked in my pocket, safe from prying eyes. Nobody would understand.

Katie would have started singing “I Kissed the Teacher” from Mamma Mia and demanding that I tell her the exact dimensions of his dick. She would profane the experience by teasing me and wheedling details out of me like it was a salacious story and not something finer and more important than that. I shuddered at the thought of her finding out, at the thought of anyone finding out.

In class, I’d sat in my usual place in the front row. He hadn’t looked at me or acknowledged me. I hadn’t raised my hand to answer any questions. I had an irrational fear that I’d call him by his first name or say something else completely stupid and incriminating. He was acting like nothing had happened. So we were on the same page. Except maybe I’d gone to Cal’s twice in the last week just hoping I might see him there. He hadn’t been there, of course. It wasn’t like returning to the scene of a crime, I guess. At least not for him. I couldn’t get him off my mind, but that was my problem.

I finished up my appointment with Monica at the job center, talking to her about the secretarial job I’d helped her get. She was excited and grateful. I was happy to help. When she left, I looked at my schedule. I knew I had to meet with Professor Quinn after my shift, which I was dreading like the plague. I would have to sit across from him and report on my progress at the job center and never look into his eyes and think about what we’d shared and how we were trying to pretend it never happened. It hurt just thinking about having to sit near him, to smell his cologne and remember the taste of his skin and the exact press and surge of his fingers inside me.

Pushing aside the vivid memory had me tucking my hair behind my ears and trying to recall that it had been one wild night, one mistake I had to get over, not something I should be reliving in great detail three times a day. It had been so intense I could almost believe I’d dreamed it, that nothing in the real, mundane world could have been so incredible. I typed in my notes on Monica and then I pulled out my next file folder and scanned it with my eyes to pick up the general objectives for the client’s job search. It was Alicia’s. I blinked at the folder.

She had messaged me last night from her apartment. I knew I was supposed to use a dedicated Google number for communications with clients, but I had given her my real cell number. Maybe it was a rookie mistake, or maybe it was following my instincts. She was going through a rough time, and she needed my support. She had only texted me a few times, and I’d sent her a couple of funny TikToks and an encouraging meme about staying strong in the worst storms. She wasn’t asking me for money or disrupting my life or doing anything like taking advantage of me. I had offered her my number. She’d never asked me for anything. I just wanted to be there for her in some small way.

Alicia had moved into an apartment recently. She was proud of getting back on her feet financially and had told me more than once that the shelter needed the room for women who were just escaping from abusive situations. Part of me suspected she wanted to move out so her ex wouldn’t go after the people who ran the women’s shelter. Her building, she’d told me, had a buzzer, and you had to buzz visitors in.

I had filed the report with Kyle’s—with Professor Quinn’s guidance-and the situation was under review. She had texted me yesterday that her ex’s messages were getting scarier. The screenshot she’d sent me was pretty menacing, a couple of texts from him saying that he was watching her and that he would never stop. She had confided to me last week that she knew he would never stop until she was dead. I had reminded Alicia that she’d been very cautious and had listened to the suggestions of the counselors and the security personnel from the shelter. That she had taken every possible step to conceal her location, and that it was unlikely that he was doing anything but intimidating her from a distance. Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried for her.

Another ten minutes passed, and Alicia, who was always on time and enthusiastic to participate in the program, hadn’t arrived. Uncomfortable, I went to the office of my supervisor and knocked on her door.

“Hi, Mindy. How’s it going?” Adeline asked, smiling. I shook my head.

“Alicia didn’t make it to her appointment. It’s the first time she’s ever been late or missed one.”

“It’s always discouraging when a client doesn’t show up for their appointments, but it’s not uncommon. We have a lot of clients who live off-site as she does that don’t make public transport in time or just forget what time it was. Do you have reason to be concerned?” she said kindly, offering me a seat.

I sank into the chair. “She told me her ex has been contacting her. That he’s messaged her on her new phone, and he’s hinted that he knows where she lives.”

Adeline sighed and took off her glasses. “I’m afraid that’s another scenario that’s all too common in this line of work. Abusers taking pains to track down the survivors and menace them. Part of it is the narcissistic personality a lot of these guys fit the profile for—they lost their ‘property’ and they want it back. And part of it is the destructive pattern of promising it’ll be different this time and then going right back to isolating her and abusing her.”

“She texted me—I did, I gave her my personal number,” I admitted, “and she doesn’t use it a lot, but she did message me that she had a bad feeling, like he’s closing in on her. She asked me if I thought she’d ever really be free of him. I told her of course she will, and that it’s a really difficult process emotionally, but that we’re all here to help her. I don’t know that it was helpful. I didn’t know what to say. Do you think if I got her some pepper spray, or we found her a self-defense class it might help?”

“What we can do right now is call the police and request a welfare check. As mandated reporters, we’re required to notify police and social services if we are concerned for the safety of any of our clients. So we call the cops, give them her info and they complete a face to face welfare check within twenty-four hours, usually sooner if we have reason to believe it’s serious,” Adeline said. “Have you messaged or called her?”

“I texted her about fifteen minutes ago and I haven’t heard back from her. I asked if she was coming for her appointment.”

“Maybe she’s embarrassed that she forgot about it. Let’s hope that’s all it is. Does she normally answer right away?”

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