“Okay, that’s enough,” Delia announced. She didn’t want to hear any more about this spoiled trouble maker that she would soon have to put up with. “How many times do I have to tell you losers about gambling?”
“It doesn’t make mathematical sense to gamble,” Ian said in a mocking voice. “But seriously, this time the numbers are in my favor. C.J. Mitchell is the coolest high school guy in the city. He wouldn’t give Angie a second glance.” Angie balled up a piece of paper and lobed it at Ian’s head.
“I heard he dated an Olsen twin,” Courtney said, trying to shift the conversation back to her.
Courtney liked to be the only source of information for the school. She was starting to get visibly annoyed with interjections from other people, especially Rachel, who added, “I heard he dated Lindsay Lohan too. You see, he only likes older women.”
Delia rolled her eyes. If an Olsen twin and Lindsay Lohan were considered older women, what was she? Ancient?
Delia sat at her desk and studied her lesson plans for the day when she felt someone staring at her. She looked up at her students. It wasn’t any of them. They were looking at the door. She followed their eyes to a familiar figure standing in her doorway. It was a very familiar figure indeed.
It was Chase. Chase Donovan from the cruise. What in the world was he doing in her classroom and in a Saxon Arms uniform?
He looked exactly the same except he was clean shaven and his curly hair had grown longer and now looked shaggy and a little unkempt. He brushed it off his forehead, revealing those gorgeous dark blue eyes and sending a shiver down Delia’s spine.
She was just about to ask him what he was doing in her classroom when he blurted, “I’m C.J.”
Delia started sneezing.
Chapter 6
Chase couldn’t believe his eyes. He wanted to run up to her and kiss her but that would be inappropriate. That would be very inappropriate considering she was now his math teacher. Delia was still sneezing. God, that was the cutest sneeze he had ever heard. Suddenly, he remembered where he was. He was a junior at Saxon Arms, his fourth private school in a year and a half. He had a reputation to keep up. Chase swaggered to the back of the room, flopped down in his seat, and placed his baseball cap over his face. He pretended he was sleeping as Delia tried to carry on with class.
“Take out a sheet of paper,” she announced between sneezes. “Pop quiz.” All the students groaned simultaneously. Considering it was only the third week of school and they had just finished a unit, it was odd timing to be giving a pop quiz, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She was too shocked to actually teach something and she was sneezing so much she had trouble breathing.
Delia wrote two problems on the board that she knew would take them the entire period to figure out. Then she sat at her desk and looked for her allergy medication. Even though she knew it wouldn’t help, she felt she needed to take something. She was starting to get a migraine as well. While the class was intently working on the problems, she spied a glance at Chase or C.J. or whatever that lying bastard’s name was. He was slouched in his chair with his head back, arms crossed, and a hat over his face as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He shouldn’t be wearing a hat with the uniform. It was against dress code. And she thought she saw him chewing gum. That was against the rules too. Delia wanted to throw something at him. How dare he come into her class like this? After what they had been to each other. Then she realized something. She was the teacher, she didn’t have to take this from him. She could kick him out if she wanted to.
Delia blew her nose then marched over to the back of the classroom. She flicked the hat off his face and said, “What do you think you’re doing? There’s a quiz.” Chase/C.J. sat up and met Delia’s stare. Her heart raced and tears burned behind her eyes as she looked into his all too familiar face and realized how he’d lied to her. How he’d so completely and thoroughly lied to her.
They held each other in their emotion filled glare for so long that the other students began to whisper among themselves.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“Is he gonna hit her or something?”
Then, without saying a word, he snatched a sheet of paper off of his neighbor’s desk, took a pencil from the inside of his blazer and started writing.
When the bell rang, Delia collected the papers and started grading immediately so she wouldn’t have to think about what just happened. As expected, everyone failed the quiz. Well, almost everyone. There was one paper that was completely correct. There was no name on it, but she could give a pretty good guess as to who it was especially since there was a note at the bottom of the page that said, “We need to talk.”
***
Donna Lee exited the boardroom in a huff after another frustrating meeting. She had worked for The Sport’s Guy magazine for two years and she still never got assigned the stories she wanted. And she knew exactly why too. It was because she didn’t have a pair of balls dangling between her legs. Either that or because she’d slept with the chief editor one night after a staff party then never returned his calls. She had to remember not to bring the bed into the boardroom.
After slamming her notebook on her desk, she flung herself into her chair with so much force that the chair rolled back and nearly knocked over the cubicle wall. Sliding out the keyboard drawer, she started typing the title to yet another figure skating story. She planned on banging out the story in ten minutes flat then sneaking out to catch the National’s batting practice. She thought by forming alliances with local teams she would be primed to get the scoop on the next big story. Plus their new second baseman had the best ass she’d ever seen.
Just as she finished typing the last few phrases of her story about the upcoming U.S. trials, her cell phone buzzed.
“Where are you?” her sister’s voice yelled.
“I’m at work, why?”
“Meet me at P.F. Chang’s now. It’s important.” Donna Lee was out of her chair and putting on her coat before she even hung up. She knew it had to be something serious if Delia was calling in the middle of the day.
Mere steps away from the door, Jeff Tanner, the chief editor, noticed her trying to escape.
“Ms. Clark, where do you think you’re going?” She hated when he tried to be overly formal and called her Ms. They had shared a bed together for God’s sake. There was no need for titles.
She glared at his red hair and freckled face and wondered what she ever saw in him. Then she remembered. She had just broken up with Kyle and needed to relieve some stress. He was just rebound sex, but he wanted more and caught an attitude when Donna Lee wasn’t interested in anything more.
“Lay off, Jeff. I’m taking my lunch break.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you turn in your story. We need to send it to copy so we can catch all of your mistakes.”
He made it seem like she was the worse writer on staff. He knew good and well that her stories were virtually flawless. She so badly wanted to say that he was her only mistake. Instead, she stormed back to her desk, hit print then said, “There you go,” while waving to the office printer theatrically.
Then she burst through the door onto the street and ran the six blocks to P.F. Chang’s.
“Okay, what’s this about?” Donna Lee said breathlessly, taking a seat across from Delia.
“I’m Mary Kay Letourneau,” Delia said after blowing her nose into her napkin. Donna Lee couldn’t figure out whether she had been crying or just having one of her stress induced allergy attacks.
“Who?”
“Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher out in California that slept with her thirteen-year-old student. She had two kids from him. Maybe three. She went to jail. I’m going to jail!” Delia started crying into her napkin. Donna Lee reached across the table and grabbed her hand.
“Oh my God, you’re pregnant? Dee, that’s not the worst thing in the world. I’ll help you. We can — ”
“I’m not pregnant!�
��
“Then what the hell are you talking about?”
“Chase. He’s in my math class. He’s my student. He’s seventeen. He just turned seventeen. I checked his file. I’m going to jail!”
“Can I get a scotch on the rocks over here?” Donna Lee called to the waiter who was two tables away. “Okay, calm down. Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure!” Delia snapped. “I think I know what he looks like. I know what every part of him looks like. Oh God, I’ve violated a child.”
“But how is this possible?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to jail. I’m going to jail.” Delia burst into tears. The drink arrived and Donna Lee finished it in two gulps.
“Keep ‘em comin,” she instructed the waiter. “You’re not going to jail, Dee. He’s seventeen, not thirteen.” Although she had to admit that those two ages were eerily close, she would never say that to Delia.
“What am I gonna do? I can’t keep teaching him. What if he tells someone? I’ll get fired and go to jail. I’m going to jail.”
“For the last time, you’re not going to jail. Sixteen is the legal age for consent.” Donna Lee wasn’t sure about this, but she thought that was what she heard. Well, at least it sounded right. Suddenly her problems at the magazine didn’t seem like that big of a deal. She’d write a hundred figure skating stories if it meant not having to face possible statutory rape charges. Donna Lee started to feel that sex really just complicated life. Maybe she would look into that celibacy thing. Whoa, that had to be the scotch talking.
“But I’m still his teacher.”
“You need to talk to him and find out what the hell is going on. How could you not know he was underage? How was he drinking on the ship if he was underage?”
“Pedophilia, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, statutory rape. I’m going to jail.” Just then Delia slammed her head down on the table and declared, “Oh God, he’s here.”
“Here? Where?” Donna Lee turned around and looked at the front door. She immediately saw how her sister could mistake him for an adult. He was over six feet tall and devastatingly handsome. The only clue that he was a high school student was his uniform of navy blue pants and green Saxon Arms blazer. Chase spotted Delia and rushed over.
He stood in front of the table for a moment and stared at Delia as she cried into her napkin.
“You must be Donna Lee,” Chase said, turning his attention to her and extending his hand. “Delia told me all about you.”
Donna Lee shook his hand weakly, not knowing what to make of him. She should’ve been angry with him. She should have hated him for lying to her sister, but for some reason she didn’t. There was something in his eyes when he looked at her sister. In just those few seconds she knew one thing for sure, Chase was in love with Delia.
***
“I’m gonna go take a leak,” Donna Lee said suddenly. Delia’s eyes expanded to twice their size when her sister bolted from the table before she could utter a word of protest.
Chase/C.J stripped off his blazer and sat down in the seat Donna Lee had just abandoned. He stared into her emerald eyes, now wet with tears, and had to turn away. The guilt of how he’d misled her tore at his soul. He’d spent the last several weeks trying to forget her, but looking into her eyes now caused everything he’d felt for her on the cruise to come flooding back. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words formed. How could he ever explain? No matter what he said, Delia would hate him. And she had every right to.
The waiter returned and set Donna Lee’s scotch on the table. Without thinking, Chase picked up the glass and downed it in a single gulp. Delia’s eyes, which still hadn’t returned to their normal size after Donna Lee’s departure, expanded even more.
“Good God. I’m having a drink with a teenager. I’m definitely going to jail. How could you do this to me?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Delia,” he said when he’d finally gathered enough courage.
“I’m not Delia to you anymore. I’m Ms. Clark now.”
“Don’t say that, Delia.”
“Well, what do you want me to say, huh? Did you want us to just pick up where we left off? Hey, I know, why don’t we go back to my place and have a quickie before your Latin class?”
Chase was taken aback by Delia’s uncharacteristic sarcasm.
“In all fairness, you never asked how old I was.”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to assume that every man I meet in a bar on a cruise ship throwing back beers is possibly a teenager?” She had a point there. You had to be twenty-one to even get in the bar. She had a right to assume he was of age. “You didn’t even tell me your real name. C.J. Mitchell? I thought you were Chase Donovan.”
“And I thought you were Delia James.”
“James is my married name. I went back to my maiden name, Clark, at the end of the summer.” He had to admit, that was a logical explanation.
He knew Delia lived in D.C. which is why he never told her where he was from, but he had no idea she was a school teacher. Even so, what were the chances that she would teach at the school he attended? But then again, considering the way he went through private schools, the odds were not in his favor.
Chase looked longingly at the empty glass of scotch. He needed another drink badly.
“You shouldn’t be drinking. You’re a child. You should be in class or … popping pimples or arguing with your parents about something.” Delia studied his face looking for signs of adolescence, but she didn’t see any. He looked perfect, tanned, mature, and unfortunately sexy. Delia put her face in her hands.
“Can I get you another drink?” The waiter asked Chase. He didn’t even get carded. Chase wanted to say yes, but he didn’t want to cause more problems so, he shook his head no. “Let me know when you’re ready to order,” the waiter said cheerfully as he bounced away.
“It’s complicated. I can’t get involved right now. I have a lot going on in my life,” Delia mockingly repeated the phrases Chase had told her at different times while they were on the cruise. “Of course, you can’t get involved. You’re in high school. You have to go to prom and apply to college and do homework, homework that I give you because I’m your teacher! I can’t believe I fell for a high school student.” Chase’s eyes lit up. She still cared for him.
“I fell for you too. I’ve thought about you every day since we left the cruise.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? I’m your teacher. You can’t have feelings for me.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he offered knowing she was worried about losing her job. “No one has to know.”
“I’m supposed to believe that? After all the lies you’ve told me, I’m supposed to believe you’re suddenly telling the truth.”
“I never lied to you, Delia. I just … didn’t tell you some things.” Chase reached out for her hand.
Delia abruptly stood from the table and said, “Chase, C.J., whoever you are, just go back to school and leave me alone.” She dashed out of the restaurant.
Chapter 7
Sex was so much better when he paid for it. It was a fact his wife would never understand. At least she didn’t get in the way of his need to feed this urge. She was too mild and meek to argue or try to stop him. The perfect front for his little obsession. Everyone thought him to be the caring, faithful family man.
He took off his suit jacket and undid his tie, wondering the entire time who Amanda had picked out for the evening. It didn’t really matter to him as long as she was young. He liked his prostitutes to seem young and vulnerable even if they were professionals. Amanda had done an excellent job over the past few years providing younger and younger girls. Sometimes he even had to sit them down and persuade them that he would be gentle and wouldn’t hurt them. He didn’t know whether they were acting or if it was really their first time. He didn’t care, though; it was the process, the game that excited him.
Recently, he had gotten his hand on some pharmaceutical enhanc
ements that made the encounters even more enjoyable. For the nervous girls, he offered them drugs that promised to heighten their experience and make it the best sex they would ever have. He had gotten a few repeat performers with this method. Girls would actually ask Amanda to see him again because they wanted more. It was great for his ego.
Some girls needed stronger medication, something that released all their inhibitions, and he was prepared for that as well.
For himself, he had drugs that kept him aroused for hours on end. Sometimes one girl wasn’t enough for him. On those nights, Amanda was ready for back up. He undid his pants and studied his erection. Tonight might be one of those nights.
***
Nobody Girl Page 5