by Ally Vance
“Just because I don’t use fuck and shit for every second word I say, doesn’t mean I’m opposed to cursing. But it has a time and a place, Carter.” My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as I took a corner, my heart hammering as I did. There was a reason I had such a small car, because I hated driving. Someone beeped from behind me, and I gritted my teeth. I was going the speed limit, and just because I wasn’t going to be late, didn’t mean I had to go over it.
I kept my gaze fixated to the road and flinched as the car overtook me and beeped his horn again.
“You okay there, Skylar?” Carter asked, but I couldn’t look at him. I was meant to be the adult here. I was meant to be the one keeping him safe, when I couldn’t even do the ten-minute drive to school without breaking a nervous sweat.
“I’m fine,” I gritted out, finally pulling into the school parking lot. I drove toward the back and to the section just for teachers, and blew out a breath when I turned the engine off. Maybe I was just extra nervous because things had been so...weird the last couple of days. I was a woman who liked her routine, I had been since I was a kid, and now, even at the age of twenty-eight, I still liked to schedule my days out down to the last minute.
“Can’t believe I’ve gotta go to school,” Carter huffed out, and I finally looked over at him.
“When was the last time you went?”
He shrugged and opened his door. “Maybe when I was in tenth grade. I dunno, Sky. School don’t mean shit to me.”
I followed him out of the car and toward my trunk, but he was already retrieving my bag and closing the trunk by the time I got there. I clicked my fob and the lights flashed as the car locked.
“School can take you places,” I told him, walking side by side with him toward the main entrance. The glass doors were shiny, but would no doubt be marked with a thousand handprints by the end of the day.
“Yeah?” Carter laughed as I pulled open the doors. “Not where I live. Where I live, all that matters is street smarts.”
I stared at him as he walked past me, and frowned. I hated the fact that not everyone got the same opportunities. We lived in the same world, and yet, we were all separated by circumstances. I could have just as easily lived in the rough area Jenifer and Carter lived in, but I was lucky. I was lucky because the mother I had came from money, which meant I had never wanted for anything.
Well...anything but attention from her.
I’d always wondered if I would have preferred to have no money but a loving mother like Jenifer had. I guess I’d never know.
“So what did you get up to this weekend, Skylar?” Guy asked as he sat beside me. He undid the lid on his packed lunch and started to pull things out: a sandwich, a salad, an apple, and some rice cakes.
“Nothing much.” I shrugged and looked down at my own lunch of a yogurt and some chopped-up fruit. Because of everything that had happened this morning, I’d forgotten to pack my own lunch so had to grab something from the cafeteria. “My nephew has come to stay with me for a while.”
“Yeah?” Guy asked, glancing at me and pushing the glasses up on his nose. His high cheekbones and sharp jaw were covered in what I thought people liked to call fashionable stubble, and his hair was slicked back off his face. He was the perfect mixture of nerd and hotness. “Is the little guy keeping you busy?”
My mind flashed back to walking in his room this morning and seeing his not so little guy. Dammit. “Erm...well…he’s eighteen so—”
“You have an eighteen-year-old nephew?” Guy’s brows rose and he bit into his sandwich. Guy may have looked the part, but I was hyperaware of his lack of manners and the way he ate. Was it really so hard to chew with your mouth closed?
“I do.” I put the lid back on my empty yogurt container. “He’s visiting from Michigan.”
“Wow.” Guy blinked several times, and then his eyes widened. “Wait, is that the new kid who started today?”
“I...yes.” I paused, watching his face carefully. “Have you met him?”
“Yeah. He turned up late to my class so I told him to go to the office. He’s got an attitude on him for sure.”
I didn’t know why what he said raised my hackles, but it was the way he was dismissing Carter that had my temper rising. “What do you mean he had an attitude? What did he do?”
“Did you not just hear me?” Guy shook his head and tutted. “I told you, he turned up late.”
“That was all?” I asked, pushing my shoulders back. I wasn’t usually so vocal, and in the grand scheme of things, I hadn’t really said anything to him, but he was pushing my buttons.
“Yes.” Guy stared at me, his eyes narrowing. “That’s enough to send him to the office.”
“But…” I flicked my gaze around the room and to the other teachers. They were all known in the community we lived in. They knew most of the kids’ parents. Everyone knew everyone. So it made me wonder if they all saw a new face in Carter and his relaxed attitude, and instantly wrote him off. “It’s his first day. Maybe he got lost and couldn’t find the classroom.”
“Not my problem.” Guy shrugged and took another huge bite of his sandwich. “Looks rough if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I shot back and stood. I didn’t wait around to see what else he had to say. He’d pissed me the hell off with his judgements, and I didn’t want to be sitting in the same room as him. There wasn’t long left of my lunch anyway, so I went back to my classroom to prepare for the last two lessons of the day.
The first one was a group of freshmen who were eager to learn, but my last class on a Monday were seniors. It was the worst class of the week to try and get them to listen. They were hyped up from it being only an hour until the end of the day, and drained because it was Monday and they probably wanted to sleep their hangovers off.
Yep. That was right. I knew exactly what these eighteen-year-olds got up to. I may not have liked cursing, but it didn’t mean I was an old fart. I was still under thirty, and I could post an Instagram story if it took my fancy.
I waited near my desk as all the seniors filed into the room and toward their usual desks, but it was when I saw Carter trailing after them all that my brows rose. I hadn’t expected to be teaching him AP English, but he would have been put in this class based on his grades from his old school which meant he could do the work. Had he been skipping school because he didn’t want to go, or was he bored and already knew everything?
My spidey senses were on high alert, and I made a mental note to ask Jenifer about it later. It was then I realized I really didn’t know much about their lives. I’d kept myself apart from them, not wanting to think about the way they lived and the things they had to deal with, and all the while, I was sitting pretty in my nice house with a freezer full of ice-cream.
Carter halted in the doorway, his gaze meeting mine, but then he looked away. He didn’t acknowledge me at all, but I was more than okay with that. I understood how the school system worked and not wanting people to know you knew a teacher.
I cleared my throat and stepped forward, then started to tell them about the assigned reading I was setting. They all groaned, but I knew if I didn’t put it in the syllabus, they wouldn’t pick up a book. I was also aware of not using a book that had turned into a movie, because all they would do was trade the reading for a screen, and I’d lose everything I was trying to set out to achieve.
The hour flew by faster than any other that day, but I hadn’t missed the fact Carter hadn’t paid much attention. He was sitting in one of the back seats, and I could hear his cell vibrating from the front of the classroom and noticed his downcast eyes, but I hadn’t called him out on it. I’d let him be, not wanting to single him out in a room full of his new peers. But that didn’t mean I’d let it go. All the teachers would soon know who he was and where he had come from, and if he acted like that in their classes, they’d judge him in the same way Guy had.
“Carter, please stay behind,” I shouted over the school bell.
The classroom emptied of students, but I didn’t move from my spot near the desk. Carter still hadn’t looked up, his attention focused on his cell, so I stepped toward him. My heels clicked on the hard floor, each one getting closer and closer to him until, finally, I was in front of his desk.
“Carter?” He didn’t make a move to say he’d heard me, only his thumbs were moving as he typed out a message. I placed my hand on his and reached forward with my other one then plucked it out of his hand. It vibrated against my palm, but I didn’t look down at the screen, I kept my attention focused on Carter’s face as he slowly moved his gaze to mine.
“What you doin', teach?” His voice was rough, and somehow deeper than it had been that morning.
“I’m trying to get your attention.”
His tongue trailed over his bottom lip, his gaze not straying from mine. “That right?”
“Yes, Carter, that is right.” I shook my head. “You can’t sit at the back of my class and not pay attention. I told you the rules.”
“I’ve already read the book,” he said with a shrug and leaned forward.
“You have?” I asked, my breath hitching. If he’d already read the book then… “Tell me what it’s about?”
His nostrils flared, but it was the twitch of his long fingers on the desk that had my attention. “It’s a story about forbidden love.” I glanced back at his face and watched his eyes spark. “It’s a story about how a woman wants what she can’t have, and goes to any lengths to get it.” I couldn’t look away from him, fascinated with the way his tongue rolled over the words he was saying. “She gets what she wants, but it’s at a cost. It’s always at a cost.”
I felt his fingertips against the side of my knee and tried to hold in my gasp. My skin was on fire from his touch, and I couldn’t bring myself to pull away from it as he trailed his fingers higher.
“What else?” I whispered.
“People think the sex and illicit affair is what it’s about, but they’re wrong.” His fingers met with my inner thigh, and I squirmed. “It’s about how society views the world. Who gets to decide what is right and wrong? Who gets to tell people what they can and can’t have?”
I swallowed at the intensity of his gaze and felt myself shuffling forward. His hand was so close to my core, and I knew my panties were wet from the way he was touching me, but it wasn’t just that. It was the way he’d talked, the way he’d been able to tell me about the story in a way no one else ever had before.
“Miss Bernard?” I jumped away from Carter and spun around, just in time to see Jarod—one of my top students—knock on the classroom door and enter. “Oh, sorry, Miss Bernard. I didn’t realize you were busy.”
“I’m not!” I shouted, and winced at my own voice carrying over the mostly empty room. “Sorry, Jarod.” I shook my head and placed Carter’s cell on the desk in front of him. I kept my gaze focused on Jarod as I stepped toward him. “This is my nephew, Carter.” I heard the creek of a chair behind me, and I had no doubt Carter had stood.
Jarod’s eyes widened and he pulled at the collar of his T-shirt. “Hi,” he squeaked out.
“’Sup,” Carter replied, moving past me and toward my desk. “You were in my chemistry class, right?”
“I…I was,” Jarod stammered, and all I wanted to do was tell him it was okay. He got so nervous around people and liked to live inside a world of books and studying that he was forgetting about the real world around him. “Mr. Pal was an…”
“Asshole?” Carter finished for him, and I couldn't even bring myself to correct him. From what Guy had said, he wasn’t wrong.
“What can I do for you, Jarod?” I asked, steering the conversation away from the man who I was meant to be dating.
“Oh, I...I just wanted to know if I could get any extra credit this semester? It’d look good on my college applications.”
I smiled at him as he looked down at the floor, his too long hair flopping forward with the move. “You have more extra credit than you know what to do with,” I said. “But yes, I’m sure I can find something for you to do.”
“Yeah?” Jarod’s head lifted, his gaze veering from Carter to me and back again. “Thanks, Miss Bernard.” He grinned and spun around, leaving the classroom without another word.
“Damn, Miss Bernard has someone pining over her.”
I spun around and pointed at Carter. “I do not. Stop it right now.” His eyes widened, but it didn’t take long for his lips to quirk into a grin. “Oh stop with that grin and grab my bag. I want to go home.”
“Already?” Carter asked, following me out of my classroom. “Don’t teachers have to stay late and do shit?”
“No,” I started. “We don’t have to stay late and...do shit. I can do my paperwork at home with a tub of ice-cream next to me.”
“Wow.” Carter walked ahead of me and used his back to open up the doors. “That’s the high life right there, Aunt Skylar.”
“Don’t call me that,” I ground out, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I was pretending I hadn’t felt his hand against my thigh and forgetting about the wetness he’d caused. It was just a gut reaction because I hadn’t slept with anyone in so long. How long had it been now? Six months? Nine? Twelve? Damn. No wonder I was getting all hot and bothered. I needed to get laid. STAT.
“Call you what?” Carter asked, his voice all innocent now, but his eyes told me he knew exactly what he was saying.
I didn’t bother to reply to him as I clicked the button on my fob and threw it at him. “Here, you can drive.”
“You don’t even know if I have a license,” Carter said, putting my bag in the trunk and closing it.
I paused near the passenger door, dread already setting in at the thought of driving home after today. “Do you?”
“Of course I do.” He winked and pulled open the driver’s door, and all I could do was groan. This was a mistake agreeing for him to come and stay with me, I just wasn’t sure how big of a mistake it would end up being.
Chapter 3
The first week of Carter staying with me had flown by. We had created ourselves a nice little routine since the first day, one that didn’t consist of me opening up his bedroom to see him naked. He’d taken to driving my car to and from school, and although I hadn’t told him it was a relief not to deal with the assholes who liked to occupy the roads, I had a feeling he knew.
Now we were at the end of his first week at school where he’d attended every day without fail. I’d managed to look at his transcripts from his old school, and my thoughts had been confirmed. He’d been at the top of his classes, and the school he’d attended didn’t have any AP classes, which was the suspected reason for him skipping out. That and being able to provide for him and his mom.
“I’m going out,” Carter grunted from behind me. I was yet again on my sofa, my blanket wrapped around me, and my trusty tub of ice cream attached to my hand.
I turned just in time to see him walk into the kitchen, and took stock of what he was wearing. His usual ripped jeans were low on his hips, but this pair were black and paired with a bright white T-shirt. I had no idea how he’d managed to keep it so white. All my white clothes always ended up looking gray and depressed.
“Where are you going?” I asked. Part of me wanted to know so I didn’t worry, but the other part of me was just being nosy.
“Dunno. I’m meeting up with Jarod.”
“Jarod?” I raised my brows and lifted up on my knees. “As in, my Jarod?” I placed my arms on the back of the sofa and stared at him as he looked dow
n at his cell.
“Your Jarod?” Carter asked, pocketing his cell and then moving closer to me. He stopped a couple of feet away from and crouched down so his face was level with mine. “Got something you need to tell me, Skylar? Are you being a bad girl with one of your students?”
I rolled my eyes. “As if. Jarod isn’t my type.”
Carter grinned, his honey eyes capturing my full attention. “Yeah? Too geeky for you, huh? Maybe you like yourself a bad boy?”
My cheeks burned from his attention, and I was tempted to press the cool ice-cream tub against them. “No. I’ll have you know, I’m dating someone.” I paused, waiting to see his reaction. I didn’t know why I wanted to see it. Maybe a small part of me wanted to seem less like a loser than I felt like at that moment. It was Friday night, and I was staying in all on my own. Guy had asked if I wanted to go out, but I’d declined, and now I wondered if I should have accepted his invitation.
“Really?” Carter asked, his voice lower. The silence stretched between us, and I could hear the buzz of his cell in his pocket.
“Yeah,” I croaked out and leaned farther forward. I was only about ten inches away from his face now, and I knew I should have moved back and not closer to him, but it was too tempting for me to resist at that moment. I didn’t know what it was exactly that drew me closer, but the invisible force wouldn’t let me go. “His name is Guy. He actually works at the school.”
Carter’s hand flinched on his thigh, but I wasn’t sure why. It was an instinctive move, one I couldn’t think too much into. “Have I met him?”
I nodded and bit down on my bottom lip. His gaze zoned in on the move and I let my lip go. I didn’t do it to gain his attention, it was a knee-jerk reaction when I was nervous. “He’s the chemistry teacher.”
Carter was silent for a beat and then let out a brash laugh. “Wait, his name is Guy Pal?”
“I guess.” I couldn’t stop my own lips from pulling up. It was a weird name, one I’d thought was a joke when he’d first introduced himself to me, but apparently, I had been the only one to find it funny at the time. But now Carter was laughing, and I felt myself drifting to him even more. Maybe it was because he was my family, and I hadn’t really had a real family, not in the traditional sense. Sure, I’d had my dad and mom growing up, but they were too busy telling me I had to be a good girl and do as I was told than be bothered to spend actual time with me.