Page 1 of Tempting the Teacher

Raya

“Caught you.” Noel sticks her head in the otherwise deserted computer lab. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sneaking out of school and avoiding my messages. Where’s my RSVP?”

Dang her. You know that dog who won’t let go of a bone? The kind that will hold on to it even if it means dropping off the edge of a cliff. Yep. That’s Nicole. She’s my bestie, and I love her to bits, but still… “R.S.V.P?”

My wide-eyed stare has no chance of working. Zippo. The kids don’t scurry out of her way like rebels fleeing stormtroopers for no reason. Noel runs Bear Ridge High School with the same precision and attention to detail as a NASA scientist preparing for liftoff. If the board had any sense, they’d fork over the extra money and make her principal. Even Mrs. Hannigan, the sweet Ruth Bader Ginsburg type, who’s held the underpaid interim job for the last twenty years, agrees.

Noel doesn’t even bother with the arched brow, cocked head look she saves for her A.P. lit students. Instead, she advances, never a good sign, and stops in front of me, crossing her arms. “Raya Bradley, do you have a good reason for not returning my RSVP for the school reunion?”

I gulp. “That depends… What’s a good reason?”

“None. There are none.” Her eyes narrow, and I’m thinking that those butterflies pinned to the board in the science lab have it easy. “You. Are. Going. End of story.” She straightens back up from her where she had caged me between the computer I’d been shutting down and the student’s workstation. “Understood?”

“Yes, captain.” I salute while grumbling under my breath.

“What’s that?” Now, I get the arched brow. Great, a reprieve. Maybe I should feel lucky that she’s letting me off easy.

Noel sits down in the next computer cubby, and it’s freshman year all over again. Without Danielle, but still, this is where the magic happened. Where we sat giggling and gossiping and completely missing every word of our lecture. Her Barkley Blues soften, and she puffs up her still perfect blonde cheerleader bangs and reaches for my hand. If anyone ever wondered why we put up with Noel’s bossy efficiency, this is why. Under her shiny, pretty armor is a heart as big as the Bear Ridge mountains that backdrop our town.

“C’mon, honey. I don’t want to torture you.” It’s my turn to do the eyebrow arch. Something we all perfected while getting our degrees in education. There’s a class for it, I swear. Because there’s not one teacher here who doesn’t have that look down pat. She laughs. “Okay, fine. But Raya, you teach here. We need teachers to represent the school and show our alumni what Bear Ridge offers. Your computer science class is the prettiest feather in our cap. Your students have won national coding competitions, and several of them have received full scholarships to schools, that other students only dream about. And…” She stops me with the finger-point wave—perfected in another education class. “And your robotics program made the news… National news. Doing a little wining and dining, mixing and mingling is a great way to drum up more money to support and expand those efforts.” She comes to the end of her speech with another huff that sends her bangs back into freefall. “Now, give me one good reason you’re not excited about this event.”

I narrow my gaze and grit out my measly two words. The name she should know is the primary reason. The bane of my high school existence is coming. “Chad Carrington.”

Noel gives my hand a quick squeeze. “Oh, come on. You know, he was all bark and no bite. Besides, I’m sure both of you are different people now. It’s been fifteen years.”

“Every time someone says fifteen years, it feels like a hundred. Which is, ironically, how long it would take you to convince me he’s changed. God, just look at how he made an official announcement on social media about his plans. Talk about arrogance. When you’re a multi-billionaire tech mogul, don’t you keep those things private? What was he thinking? That he’s Bruce Wayne?”

“Okay, first, your Spiderman references don’t mean anything to me. Save it for the kids. It keeps you relatable.”

“Not Spiderman…”

“So not the point. Focus.” I glare, like I’m in her detention class, and she won’t give me a hall pass. “This is the first time Chad has visited since he graduated.”

“He was here for the funeral,” I mutter under my breath. Forgetting her uncanny hearing.

“Doesn’t count. He was grieving, and it wasn’t the right time to talk about the things we need. His head wasn’t in that space. This time he’s doing us a favor by shining a light on the school. A spotlight we need if we’re going to attract more dollars. You know Scott Peterson wants to combine all the county schools into one mega high school. Something that would absolutely kill our Bear Ridge families and students.”

She’s right, and I know it. I know Chad could help us out. He could have helped us out years ago when I visited his office to pitch a proposal. A proposal that I couldn’t get into his fortress of solitude to deliver. Instead, I was brushed aside by a perfectly coiffed assistant with a bright smile and a steel spine. I never told Noel about my trip Chicago trip. Never shared the humiliation—probably because I wasn’t surprised. Chad Carrington had made an occupation of it when we were in school. He never missed a chance outside of this room. This lab was our demilitarized zone. The ancient wooden cubicles that hid our white flag conversations need a serious upgrade.

Noel cuts into my thoughts as if she can hear them. We’ve been friends so long she probably can. “If Chad can help, we will all welcome it.” I wince at the casual way she says his name. Noel had also been a friend of his. To be fair, she was a friend to everyone. She ran in his privileged circles. Her family owned the Barkley Christmas tree farm that supported a lot of families in the community and brought in money by the buckets. Now, with Kevin and Justin’s expansion into camping, trail riding, and opening the Old Barn up for fancy events, the money dump lasts all year. Chad’s family played in the same money waterfall. His grandmother lived on their family-owned property in the Bear Ridge mountains. Having moved there when her husband died, she’d become a part of the community. But it was only when Chad got into trouble at his upper-crust boarding school that his parents decided he needed a slower pace. He’d been enrolled in B.R.H.S. for his senior year.

A decision that turned my year into a steady water drip of agonizing torture. After Noel left, I processed her words. She’s right. She’s always right. So damn annoying. It’s time to move on. To forget Chad and all the digs he made at me, the little bits of myself he stole. I can face him. Of course, I can. Especially now that I have a reason. We can’t let our little school be absorbed into the industrial complex Scott’s envisioning. We’ll need money to fight him. I lean back on the hard wooden chair that has cradled student’s butts, including my own, for at least two decades. This lab needs everything from new computers to modern workstations and comfortable chairs. As much as I hate it. Maybe Chad could bring attention to some of those things.

I return to my desk and surf through my emails until I find the shared document she’s using to record the RSVPs. I shouldn’t look, but I read the list of attending alumni. There he is, his name jumping out like he’s taunting me again.

The list pulls me back to the first time I saw Chad. It was one of those surreal moments where everything froze. Like a movie director had cut the scene, and tore my life into two halves. The story before and the story after I met him. In the before story, I had just stumbled out of my calculus class, lost in equations and algorithms, when he appeared in the hallway.

Chris Evans from The Perfect Score walking down the hallway. Not Chris Evans, Captain America, but he was a walking embodiment of everything smoking hot and sexy. My fifteen-year-old sophomore body didn’t even know what smoking hot and sexy meant. Didn’t know how to process the feeling when my knees shook and my nipples hardened. His face, body, hell his everything was the first to ever turn my body to mush. Push me, no effing shove my body’s schoolgirl reactions straight into womanhood. He took my first look virginity. There was no other way to put it. Tall, with broad shoulders that perfectly filled his varsity jacket. His eyes were a sharp, piercing, brilliant blue. Most people don’t know that originally Clark Kent wore glasses to hide the otherworldly blue of his eyes. His natural eye color didn’t belong in this world, and neither did Chad’s. His smile, oh, that smile. It was charismatic, confident, and lit up the entire corridor. I absorbed all this while I stood like a deer shell-shocked by halogen headlights on a dark night. Blinded by the sheer beauty of the man.

Then, he took in me.

His gaze flickered over my ripped jeans, my long, unruly braids that refused to be tamed, and the hand-me-down sneakers that once belonged to Noel. His smile twisted into a sneer, the warmth replaced by something cold and condescending—mean.

“What’s this?” he said, loud enough for his football player jock friends to hear, “What happened, farm girl? Did you fall into the chicken pen and have to fight your way out? You versus chickens…” Now he was close enough that I could smell his delectable scent and hate myself for loving it. He drew his hand over the frayed threads of denim covering my legs, his thumb lingering on my bare thigh as our eyes met. Before he whispered loud enough for the gathering crowd to hear. “The chickens won.”

They all laughed. A harsh, guttural sound echoed in my ears. I flush with embarrassment, anger, and… shame. I’d loved those jeans. Begged for them. My mom had objected, not understanding why anyone wanted clothes that were advertised as “distressed.” That day was the last day, I wore them.

Chad brushed past me, his shoulder bumping mine, a deliberate gesture that spoke volumes. He headed outside, to his seal gray SUV. The only guy in the school to own such an expensive vehicle. Sure, the Barkley’s had their pick-ups, but they carried the business logo, so it wasn’t quite the same. Trudy Jensen’s parents had gifted her a two-seater cherry red sports car for her sweet sixteen. It didn’t compare in status with Chad’s vehicle. Owning it gave him the power to decide riding privileges. He loaded up with the other elite jocks, and they sped off, leaving behind a cloud of dust that choked me with humiliation.

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