“Yeah, you seem more like an academics kind of guy.”
I definitely spent more time using my brain than my body. “You could say that.”
She showed me the worksheet. “I have to turn this in tomorrow. We have worksheets due at the end of every week.”
I thought it was a bit harsh that she was graded on these worksheets with a red pen as if it were an exam when it was just an assignment, especially when the teacher didn’t offer any feedback through his notes. How was a student supposed to learn if they were just told they were wrong and then they moved on? “Alright. Then let’s make sure there’s no red ink on this one.”
“Works for me,” she said with a grin.
“We’ll go over it together, but I want you to do this worksheet on your own. If you’re getting graded, then it should be your own work. But don’t worry, you’re gonna get every single one right.” I pulled her notebook toward me and started to write down my own problems for her to work on, so we could practice and get her ready before she moved on to the worksheet.
She watched me, her eyebrows raised. “You can just make up questions on the spot?”
“They’re based on the content.” I continued to write them out.
“I know, but still. You can just do that?”
I steadied my pencil and looked at her. “If you know how to solve a problem, why wouldn’t you know how to create a problem?”
She shrugged. “I’ve just never met anyone as smart as you. Even the smartest kids in my classes aren’t like you.”
“Well, they’re a lot younger than me.”
“You know what I mean. Like, gifted. Like, genius. I’ve never met a genius before.”
“That’s not how I label myself.”
“Then how do you label yourself?”
I set down the pencil altogether as I tried to think of an answer. “I’m not sure, actually.”
“You build spaceships. Doesn’t that make you a rocket scientist?”
“I suppose.”
“Then you’re a genius.”
“I don’t really like labels like that. It indicates that I have a higher than average intelligence, and that implies others have lower than average intelligence. If there’s a high number, there’s a low number, and I just don’t believe people are born smarter than others. I believe we’re all the same, but we need to tap into our intellect differently. I believe those kids who don’t do well in school and drop out aren’t less intelligent. They just weren’t given what they needed. I, on the other hand, was given more than enough to achieve anything I possibly wanted. That’s the difference between me and an average person. I was given the tools to be successful, had teachers that taught differently. And that’s the problem with our society, not all students are getting the same quality education. For instance, your teacher relies solely on the textbook rather than his own skill level. That’s not mastery. That’s borderline memorization.”
Lizzie stared at me in silence, her features impossible to decipher because she didn’t have an eyebrow cocked or a smile on her lips. As if she was watching TV, she just stared. “So…you’re saying I could be a rocket scientist if I wanted to?”
“Absolutely.”
“Me?” She pointed into her chest, her tone incredulous. “Someone who’s barely passing geometry?”
With a firm tone, I answered. “Yes. Lizzie, you can be anything you want to be. Whether that’s a heart surgeon or an Olympic swimmer. The world is full of endless possibilities, and not a single one is out of your reach. However, my advice to you is to do something you innately love, something you genuinely care about, that gets you excited to go to work every day. Don’t do something for the money. Don’t do it for the fame. That’s where people get sidetracked.”
“So, you don’t do it for the money?” She looked around at my home. “You live in a penthouse—money must be part of it.”
I shook my head. “Truly, it’s not. It’s a byproduct of how hard I work. That’s all. People care too much about being rich in money rather than rich in character. Don’t be one of those people.” I turned back to the paper and continued to write down the problems. “So, the question is, what do you want to be, Lizzie?” The math wouldn’t hold her back because she was grasping it nicely with better instruction. And she had other nice qualities, like kindness and intuitiveness. I saw the same intelligence that her mother exhibited, the type of skills I would never have.
She shrugged. “I’ve never really thought about it before.”
“Well, you should start thinking now.”
The three of us sat together at the dining table near the window, the same place I used to sit as a kid. It didn’t look quite the same because they’d remodeled the place at some point, so all the furniture and rugs had been changed. But the energy was still the same—still full of infectious happiness.
Dad sat across from me, one arm on the table while the other maneuvered his fork over his plate and picked at the pieces before placing them into his mouth. “How’s it going with Lizzie?”
I was now trying to come over once a week for dinner. It was a few hours of my time, and in the grand scheme of things, not much of a sacrifice. Now that I wasn’t going out with the boys anymore and hitting the clubs and bars, I was free on the weekend nights and not too hungover on Sunday to see my parents. “Good…I think. Emerson said she likes me.”
“That’s great,” my dad said. “I’m not surprised.”
“Well, I called her teacher an asshole the first time we were together, so I kinda fucked up there.” Lizzie thought I was funny, and she seemed to respect me because she listened to me pretty well. I noticed she talked back to her mom a lot, but that seemed to be how most daughters were with their mothers. I remembered the fits Daisy used to throw. “But she listens to me, she’s grasping the lessons, and I feel like we accomplish a lot by the time the session is over.”
My dad continued to eat as he stared at me, interested in everything I had to say.
“She said she prefers me to her own teacher.” I had a feeling I wouldn’t like him because he didn’t show much mentorship toward his students. I was hard on my own students, but I was always there for them outside the classroom, answering their emails late into the night, making videos of problems they didn’t understand and sending it back to them, and spending my office hour in the classroom so they could all benefit. I was a busy man who had a lot of shit to do, but I made a commitment to them and I honored it. “I know he just teaches seventh grade, but instruction at the younger ages is more important than instruction at an older age…if you ask me.”
“Well, you’re also very bright, Derek,” my father said. “Not only do you understand things well, but you understand what people don’t understand—and that’s why you’re such a good teacher.”
I looked down at my food and let his compliment wash over me. “Maybe.”
“Did you talk about her?” Mom asked.
“Yeah, I asked about sports and her friends. She didn’t say much. But I feel like she’s more confident. I told her she could be anything she wanted to be, that she’s not stupid, that no one is stupid. And she seemed to take that to heart.”
“Good,” Dad said. “That’s what young people need to hear when their teachers tell them otherwise.”
“When do you think you’ll tell Lizzie about your relationship?” Mom asked.
“I…I don’t know.” That would be a completely different kind of relationship, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it. I was less timid because Lizzie seemed like a nice girl, but our interactions would be totally altered once she knew I was romantically involved with her mother. “We’ll just see how it goes for a while.”
I stepped outside the lab and approached the golf cart when Emerson drove up and parked.
“Where are you going, hot stuff?”
I grinned at the nickname. “Hot stuff?”
“Yeah.” She parked then got out, looking me up and down. “Come on, walking a
round like that all day…”
“Like what?” I looked down at myself, wearing a black hoodie and black jeans.
She rolled her eyes, like I was the stupid one. “So, where are you going?”
“Driving to Warehouse C. They built part of the rocket, and I want to take a look.”
“Cool. Can I join you?”
“Of course.”
She got into the golf cart.
I moved to the seat beside her and turned on the engine.
Her hand moved to my thigh, and she leaned in and kissed me, even though she hardly ever did that at work, at least not when Jerome and Pierre were still there. But no one was around now, so she just went for it.
I kissed her back, briefly forgetting about the rest of the world, forgetting about the rocket, my hectic calendar, all the shit that needed my attention, but I would probably never get to.
Her hand moved farther up my thigh until she rubbed my dick through my jeans. Then she pulled away, tracing her finger along the edge of her lips like she’d just smeared her color all over my dick. Then she looked at me and wiped her shade from the corner of my mouth, wearing that affectionate look like I was her entire world and beyond. “There. Good as new.”
Now I knew I wasn’t leaving this lab tonight until I had her. Jerome and Pierre would leave, and then I would be all over her, taking her on the couch in my office, getting that lipstick all over my neck and mouth—but this time, I wouldn’t wipe it away.
I drove to the other warehouse and tried not to think about it. Otherwise, people would notice the big bulge in the front of my jeans. We walked inside and saw the base the engineers had constructed in the hangar. I greeted a few people before I walked closer to the base, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Whoa…” Emerson stood beside me and looked up the base, which went at least thirty feet in the air. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
I examined the plates on the outside, saw the electrical engineers working on the wires in the component, the ants on the hill functioning as a team to put this together. Jerome, Pierre, and I conceptualized this thing, but they were the ones who had to put it together. A lot could go wrong, get lost in translation.
I took a look around and visited with everyone, seeing where they were in the process, checking a couple things myself, visiting with the supervising engineer on the project. There were a few NASA team members present as well.
Emerson moved with me and just listened.
When I was finished, I left the warehouse and headed back to the golf cart.
“That was incredible,” she said. “They’ve already gotten so much done.”
“It’s a big team.”
“But still. I’ve been looking at those schematics and equations for so long, and now it’s turning into a real thing. That’s insane.”
I drove back to our lab and parked outside. Instead of sharing her excitement, I felt that old sense of dread hit me, like something was going to be done incorrectly and could cost lives or cargo.
She picked up my mood because she said, “Derek, don’t worry about that.”
“I have to worry about that. It’s my job.” I left the cart and walked inside.
She was beside me the entire way. “You’re doing the best you can. You’re only human.”
I stopped and turned back to her. “I am human. And that’s why when shit goes wrong, I can’t sleep at night. Because I can’t live with that on my conscience. Yes, I know they’re aware of the risks, but they’re also trusting my big-ass brain to do this right. At the end of the day, the blame falls to me. So, doing the best I can is not good enough. If that rocket explodes, I can’t just sit there and say, ‘Oh well, I did the best I could.’ I have to live with that. Do you not understand that?”
She stilled at my outburst and stared at me.
I breathed through the anxiety and realized that I’d let the darkness get the best of me, that she was just trying to make me feel better, and I’d decided to be an ass instead. I bowed my head and sighed. “I’m sorry—”
“Shh.” She wrapped her arms around me and embraced me, her hand rubbing my back as she gave me a warm hug, a hug full of unconditional support, a hug that told me everything would be okay, that she still felt the same way about me at my worst just as if it were my best. “It’s okay, Derek. I will never be able to appreciate the stress on your shoulders, and I wish I could carry that with you, but I can’t. But I’m here, always.” She hugged me tightly and gave me the time to decompress.
My arms surrounded her, and I squeezed her tighter, taking a deep breath when I embraced the comfort I didn’t know I needed. My fingers squeezed the fabric of her dress as I rested my chin on her head, her perfume invading my senses and subduing my anger even more. It gave me peace…slow, still peace.
I was alone in the lab, working in solitude like usual. Emerson was in my office, organizing the pile of paperwork I’d thrown all over the place because I always seemed to be in a hurry.
Then her heels tapped against the floor as she approached my table.
I looked up to meet her gaze.
She stood in black heels and strappy lingerie, thick, black lines of fabric crossing her body in various places, just a little bit covering her nipples. With her hands on her hips, she looked at me with attitude then flipped her hair over her shoulder and strutted back into my office, silently commanding me and turning me into a drooling dog.
I slammed my laptop shut then went after her like a hungry animal, walking quickly even though I knew she wasn’t going anywhere. I entered my office and found her bent over on the couch, her ass sticking out, an opening in the lingerie so she wouldn’t have to take anything off for me to fuck her.
Now I understood why guys fucked their assistants all the time.
I pulled my hoodie over my head then stripped off the rest of my clothes, getting down to my bare skin before I moved behind her and grabbed her by the back of the neck. She looked damn fine bent over my couch in the sluttiest lingerie I’d ever seen, but fucking her with a perfect view of her beautiful behind wasn’t what I had in mind.
I grabbed her by the shoulder and rolled her onto her back, so she lay flat against the couch.
She looked up at me before sitting up on her elbows, clearly surprised that I didn’t want what she offered.
I moved on top of her and positioned myself between her smooth thighs, one arm hooking behind her knee as I opened her and smothered her with my body. My arms kept me on top of her, and I looked into her face as I slid inside her, inched inside the place I called home, felt her skin-on-skin, heart-on-heart. I watched as her eyes widened as she felt me, listened to her quiet whimpers as she felt me enter her creamy slit.
Her hands moved to my back, and her nails immediately started to dig.
Without kissing her, I rocked into her, my breathing matching hers as we got going, the desire consuming me the way it consumed her. With every thrust, I felt weaker, as if just the touch of her was enough to make me shoot for the stars. Getting lost with her at this level of intimacy, her soul wrapped around mine, both of us laid bare to each other, brought me the greatest arousal I’d ever known. It was because I trusted her, trusted her implicitly, knew she wasn’t like the other horrible people who had stomped on my heart.
12
Emerson
I walked in the door after a long day and found Lizzie watching TV on the couch. “Did you do your homework?”
“Hello to you too…” She was on her phone, in her pajama shorts and softball t-shirt.
“If you want to be left unsupervised, you need to act like you’re being supervised.” I left my purse on the counter and pulled out my laptop.
She stayed on her phone.
I looked at her. “Lizzie?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I knew my daughter better than that. “Lizzie.”
She sighed and dropped her phone, wearing
that irritated expression on her face. “Just leave me alone.”
My daughter had never said anything like that to me before. “Lizzie…” I moved to the seat beside her and looked at her. She still wouldn’t look at me, so I stared at the side of her face. “Sweetheart, you’re scaring me. You can talk to me about anything. You know that.”
With her arms crossed over her chest, she continued to look down. Then she squinted her eyes, took a deep breath, and burst into tears. “I got an F on my math assignment.” She quickly covered her face with her hands because she was embarrassed to cry. She never cried. She was stronger than that.
“What?” I asked in shock. “How…how is that possible?”
She continued to cry into her hands, muffling her sobs.
“Lizzie.” I grabbed her wrists and pulled them from her face. “Tell me what happened.”
She turned away, trying to hide her face. “My teacher said I didn’t do it the way he taught, so he marked all the problems wrong…and then accused me of cheating.”
My eyebrows rose and nearly jumped off my face. “He did what?”
“And I didn’t cheat. Derek didn’t help me. I mean, he taught me everything I didn’t understand and then helped me do some practice problems, but then he had me do the worksheet on my own…”
“I believe you, honey.”
“So, the teacher gave me an F and said if I do it again, he’ll report me to the principal.”
An explosion erupted inside my head, furious with this motherfucker. I wanted to scream and shout, but I took a breath and calmed myself because losing my shit wouldn’t make my daughter feel better. “Honey, everything is going to be okay. I’ll talk to your teacher tomorrow and sort the whole thing out.”
Her cries had subsided, but she didn’t look at me. She wiped the snot away from her nose with her thumb and gave a sniff.
The Boy Who Has No Belief (Soulless Book 7) Page 11