I slam into a hard male body and bounce backward, dropping my phone and Aiden’s lunchbox with a loud clatter. I feel myself reeling backward, off-balance, with nothing to catch myself on. It happens in slow motion, as such accidents always seem to do. But then a pair of hands catch me, and I smell something male and familiar and comforting and arousing all at the same time. Warm, kind, intelligent brown eyes lock onto mine.
“Elyse—are you okay?” His voice is low, a smooth, intimate murmur.
I blink. “Um.” I find my feet, and my voice, as yank myself out of his arms, smoothing my hands over my skirt and tugging my slate gray V-neck blouse back into place. “Yeah—yes. I’m fine, thank you.”
My phone is at my feet, and Aiden’s lunchbox is a few feet away, open, the contents spread across the floor. I kneel and grab my phone first—I have a thick rubber case on it, because I’m prone to dropping it and can’t really afford a new one, so thankfully, the device escaped the fall unscathed, except for a new scratch on the screen protector.
Jamie kneels and scoops Aiden’s lunch back into the box, snaps the cover closed, and now we’re standing facing each other, a little too close for my comfort, and his eyes are piercing, penetrating, curious.
I blink at him, struggling to process what’s happening. “You—you’re…”
“The new Clayton Elementary Principal,” he finishes.
“I—um.” My brain is blank.
This is Jamie. The man I slept with eight days ago. The man who utterly rocked my world with unbelievable, mind-blowing, earth-shaking sex. The man I ran out on without so much as a note.
My son’s principal.
A coworker, seeing as we work in the same district.
“You’re Jamie Trent,” I manage.
He smirks. “That’s me.”
“All I ever saw in the district email newsletter blast about you was that your name was J. Trent and that you’re from the East Coast, and a grainy thumbnail photograph.” I lick my lips, and his eyes follow the movement of my tongue. “You—god, it’s you.”
“It’s me.” He glances behind himself, into the building; he has a walkie-talkie on his belt, crackling with a staticky voice requesting his presence in the fourth-grade classroom. “I have to go.”
“Me too,” I say. “I’m late for work.”
“Where do you work?”
“The high school. I’m a guidance counselor.”
He nods, and I can see he has a million questions, a million things to say, but the walkie-talkie is blurping again, requesting Mr. Trent go to Mrs. Fredrick’s room. “I really have to go, but could we talk at some point?”
I swallow hard. “I—um. I don’t know. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I back away. “I have to go. I was supposed to meet a student five minutes ago.”
“Elyse—”
I whirl, speed walking back to my car, pulse pounding in my ears.
“Elyse!” I hear him behind me, and then he catches up with me. “Aiden’s lunch.”
Somehow it ended up back in my hands, and I thrust it at him. “Oh, um, yeah. He—he forgot it.”
Jamie takes it from me, fiddling with the metal clasps, his eyes on mine. “I’ll get it to him.”
“Thank you.”
I get into my car and drive away, a little too quickly for safety. I glance in the rearview mirror and see Jamie in his starched and pressed gray chinos, well-worn dark leather dress shoes, and a pale blue button-down dress shirt with an explosively colorful tie. His hair is neatly combed, his face carefully shaven. He’s watching me even as he lifts the walkie-talkie to his mouth to reply. When I turn out of the parking lot, he goes back inside.
Somehow, I can still feel his eyes on me.
The surprise, the intrigue.
The attraction.
I’d half hoped I’d imagined everything that had happened that night—or that my buzz had played it up to be more than it was.
But no…
I felt it, he felt it. There was a definite charge in the air between us.
I park in the teacher lot at the high school and hustle inside, working hard to put Jamie out of my mind. I whirl into the office, out of breath and flustered. My appointment, Jen, is sitting in one of the uncomfortable gray chairs lined up outside the guidance counselors’ bank of offices.
She smiles at me brightly, waving. “Hi, Mrs. Thomas!”
I smile back. “Hi, Jen. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. It’s been one of those mornings, you know?”
She shrugs. “Oh, it’s not a problem—trust me. I’m missing AP Calculus, so feel free to take your time.”
I laugh. “We’d better get you back to class as soon as possible, then, shouldn’t we? Wouldn’t want you to get behind in an AP course.”
Jen rolls her eyes. “Please, I was doing calc for fun in tenth grade. Math is kinda my thing, you know? If it was history or Lit, it’d be different.”
I unlock my office and usher her in, flipping on the lights and setting my purse under my desk as I settle in. I look Jen over—she’s grown up a bit since junior year, matured some since the last time we saw each other. Somewhat plus-sized, Jen’s struggle with body image and body positivity is a constant factor in our ongoing discussions. She’s a beautiful girl, with long black hair and beautiful, expressive green eyes and clear, pale skin, but she’s struggled for years to accept herself because of her weight. She comes from a troubled home, as well, and I suspect—though she’s never outright said so—that someone in her home is constantly berating her and beating her down emotionally, especially in regard to her body. She’s a brilliant girl, one of the top students in our school, and a school favorite in our peer tutor program.
Jen gathers her long, thick, loose black hair in her hands and settles it over a shoulder, shifting uneasily in the chair while I close my door and wake up my computer. Logging into my system, I find my notes from the last conversation I had with Jen, at the end of last year. I bring up her schedule. “Wow,” I tell her. “You’ve really piled it on for yourself this year, Jen—AP Calc, AP Physics, Ancient Civ, Modern Lit, fourth-year Spanish, peer tutor hour, and independent study with Mr. Lakoda.”
Jen nods shyly, ducking her head. “Yeah, it’s a little ambitious, I guess.”
“The independent study with Mr. Lakoda, that’s advanced math, right?”
She nods again. “Yeah. He’s going to take me into math beyond what’s taught in even the AP curriculum. I’ve already taken most of the tests for calc this year—I did them over the summer. I basically don’t have to go to first hour at all if I don’t want to, because the real work is coming from the independent study hour, but I had to take the course to have enough credits for graduation.”
“I imagine your peer tutor schedule is already filling up. You had a waitlist last year, didn’t you?”
She smiles, hesitant and unsure. “Yeah, I guess. I helped Rob Krasansky pass math last year, and he was about to fail out completely and be put on academic probation from the football team.”
I laugh. “And that sealed your fate as the best tutor ever, because without Rob, the football team wouldn’t have had a season at all.”
“I don’t do sports,” she says, “but that’s what they tell me.”
“I went to a few games with Aiden,” I say, “and his name was called every other play.”
She rolled her eyes. “He told me he set a record for rushing yards and most sacks in a season, but don’t ask me what any of that means, because I have no clue.”
I frown. “My dad watches football with Aiden, so I know a tiny bit. I think rushing is how many yards he ran with the ball, and a sack is when someone tackles the quarterback before he can throw the ball.”
She snorts. “Sounds like Rob—running around and hitting people.”
I laugh. “Pretty much. Although, you know, he also set another record last year? Most number of volunteer hours in a school year.”
Jen’s eyebrows rise. “Really? What’d he
volunteer for?”
“He helped Clayton Methodist bring meals to retirees and other low-income families in the area. He basically ran the program, and railroaded most of his teammates into doing it with him. It was pretty cool, actually.”
Jen sighs. “Rob is misunderstood, I think. He’s a really nice guy, if you can get past the jock armor he puts up.”
“Kind of like how you’re actually a really cool girl, if you can get past the shy and insecure armor you put up?”
Jen doesn’t answer right away. “It’s not armor, Mrs. Thomas.”
“Get you talking about math or physics, and you’re the most confident girl I know. Take you out of that context, though…”
Jen lifts a shoulder. “Out of that context, I get lost, that’s all.”
“Did you have a good summer?” I ask.
She shrugs noncommittally, her face a little too blank. “It was okay.”
“What’d you do?”
“Read a lot. Mostly books on advanced math and biographies on famous or influential mathematicians.”
“Did you meet anyone new?”
Her face falls. “No, I didn’t.”
“Did you try?”
She stares at her shoes. “Not really.”
“Come on, Jen. We talked about this. You can’t hide behind academics your whole life. You’ll only ever meet someone if you put yourself out there and try.”
Jen nods, shrugs. “I know, I know. But I just don’t…I don’t know how. And if I did put myself out there, I’d just get rejected.”
“How do you know?”
Her eyes flare, anger rising. “Because look at me, Mrs. Thomas! You know what else I did this summer? Not one, not two, not three, but four different diets, none of which worked for more than two weeks.”
I sigh. “Jen, it takes more than a couple weeks. And just because you mess up once or twice doesn’t mean you failed the whole thing. And plus, there’s more to meeting someone and being with someone than what you look like or how much you weigh.”
“I guess, but…” she trails off.
“But what?” I prompt.
“But that’s all I see, and it’s all anyone else will ever see.” Her expression was so despondent it was heartbreaking. “Everyone knows I’m smart, that’s why they all want me to tutor them. Rob was single when I tutored him, and he acted like…like I was a talking robot, or his sister, or something. He couldn’t have been less interested in me if he had tried. I wasn’t a girl to him, I was just…a tutor. Someone to help him at math so he could keep playing football.”
“Jen—”
“He wasn’t mean about it, don’t get me wrong. He was nice, a lot nicer than I expected him to be. He just…he didn’t see me like…like that.”
“Do you like him?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I mean, sure. Who doesn’t? He’s really good-looking. But did I like him? I knew he didn’t and wouldn’t ever see me like that, so I didn’t bother letting myself feel that for him. There wasn’t any point.”
I want to make excuses for him, or offer some kind of explanation. But I don’t. She’d see through them, and I’ve experienced similar things myself, so I know where she’s coming from.
“You have to be confident in yourself, Jen. You have a lot to offer, sweetheart. You’re an amazing person. You’re not just smart, you’re beautiful, and you’re fun to talk to and to be around. So be confident!”
She smiles at me, but I can tell it takes some effort. “I’ll try.”
I tap a few notes into her file, and then turn back to face her. “So. You said your schedule this year is a little ambitious. Do you feel comfortable with it? I think there’s some wiggle room to move things around if you want.”
She shakes her head. “It’ll be a lot of work, but it’ll keep me busy, and that’s a good thing. I can do it.”
I take her hands and squeeze. “Great. I’m glad to hear you sound so confident in yourself!”
“I’m a work in progress?” She says this as if trying to sound hopeful.
I squeeze her hands again. “We all are, Jen—we all are.”
We arrange to meet again in a couple of weeks to check in, make sure her schedule is still working—and so I can evaluate her mental and emotional well-being. She leaves, and my next appointment comes in hard on Jen’s heels: Michael Prescott, a close friend of Rob Krasansky’s, another star football player—Michael is a young man in whom still waters run deep, and I always look forward to chatting with him.
My day is filled with meetings and appointments, one after another in such quick, nonstop succession that I barely have time to catch my breath let alone ruminate about my run-in with Jamie this morning.
And the next week is the same—I’m pretty much the only guidance counselor at the school: there are, technically, two others, but one, John Ward, is retiring at the end of this year after forty-five years at the school, and has pretty much checked out, and the other, Allison Howell, is the kind of guidance counselor who’s just in the wrong line of work…she doesn’t like kids and is angling for a job in the district office so she can get away from the day-to-day grind of having to talk to teenagers all day every day. Which leaves me to take the lion’s share of actual counseling work—resolving scheduling conflicts, listening to upset students, reading college entrance essays, advising athletes on academic probation toward being eligible to play again, and a million other odds and ends that fall between the cracks of the administrative staff.
Which means, for most of that week, I’m too busy to think about Jamie. I run Aiden to school, go to work, pick Aiden up, take him to football—he’s playing in a tackle youth league this year, and my poor mama’s heart has a hard time watching him spend all that time getting roughed up, but he loves it and is thriving—and then we swing by Grandma and Papa’s for dinner and then we go home and start it all again. Sometimes, in the small hours of the morning right before my alarm goes off, Jamie’s face flits through my mind. Sometimes, as I’m drifting off to sleep, I drown in a half-formed memory of his hands and mouth and body. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up aching and needy with his name on my lips.
And I tell myself it’s just loneliness and lust.
It will pass.
It has to pass, doesn’t it?
7
It’s three forty-four, and I’m packing up to leave. It’s been another nonstop, jam-packed day of last-minute schedule changes, withdrawals, and IEP meetings. Aiden’s dismissal bell rings at 3:45, and he has to be at the football field by four, and there’s always a five- or ten-minute wait in the pickup line…
I’m rushing.
I log out of my system, put the computer to sleep, arrange the stacks of papers I need to go through tomorrow into priority piles, unplug my phone and toss it into my purse, check my desk one last time, and then exit my office, shutting off the light and preparing to lock the door behind me.
And there, in front of me, is a student with mascara-laced tear tracks running down her face. Tina Brokaw, four-point-oh student, president of the mock UN, debate team captain, head cheerleader, shoo-in for prom queen…Clayton High School’s premier It Girl. She’s always put together and perfect—blond hair, brown eyes, fashion sense far beyond the understanding of the residents of this little town.
“Tina,” I say, shocked to see her here, and to see her crying like this. “What’s the matter?”
She sniffles, trying to stifle the flood of tears, but she can’t get words out. “I—I…”
I suppress a sigh as I flip my light back on and set my purse back down. “Come in, honey. Sit.” I hand her a box of Kleenex and close my door. “Take a minute, and then tell me what’s going on.”
“Everything!” she wails. “Everything’s wrong!”
“Well, can you break that down a little for me?”
She dabs at her eyes, sniffling again. “I don’t know where to start.” She sucks in a breath, holds it, and lets it out shakily.
I
slide my phone from my purse. “Okay, well, why don’t you think about where to start while I let the elementary school know I’ll be late picking up Aiden, that way we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
I call the elementary office and let Peggy know Aiden will have to stay with the latchkey kids until I’m done here. When I hang up the phone and set it aside once more, Tina has herself more composed.
“First, Jake dumped me.”
I wince. “Wow, that’s unexpected. You guys have been dating for a while, right?”
“Since the summer before ninth grade! He’s going to college in Arizona and doesn’t want to do a long-distance relationship. But why now? Why not just break up after the school year? It’s three weeks to homecoming, and what about prom? We were going to be prom king and queen! Who am I supposed to go to prom with? Rob? Like, no!” She takes a steadying breath. “I don’t get it. I just don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry, Tina. That’s rough. Sometimes guys just do weird, inexplicable things.”
“No kidding. I didn’t realistically expect us to keep dating past high school, since he’s going to Arizona State and I’m going to Brown, but…I just thought we’d finish high school as a couple, you know?”
I offer a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, Tina. I wish I knew what to say besides that.” I sigh. “You’ll meet someone in college, though, right? High school sweethearts are great, but maybe this is for the best, you know?”
“Nice try, Mrs. Thomas. The problem is that his timing just sucks,” she says, half laughing, half crying.
“So. That can’t be the only reason you’re in here crying, can it? You’d go to your girlfriends to cry about a breakup, not some old lady.”
Tina rolls her eyes at me. “You’re not old, Mrs. Thomas. I have an older sister who’s almost the same age as you.”
I roll my eyes back at her. “Leslie, yes, I know. We went to school here together, you realize.”
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