by K. Ryan
We stayed like that for a moment, each of us trying to get a hold of our breathing and some of my focus returned as he pressed his forehead against mine.
He grinned lazily before leaning back down to kiss me softly on the lips, moving to both my cheeks and then my forehead. With a deep, relaxed exhale, he pushed himself back on his knees and hopped off the bed to head into the bathroom. I leaned up on my elbow to watch him with a small, satisfied smile as he quickly tossed the condom in the trash and rubbed his face with a nearby towel. When he appeared in the doorway of my bedroom, he grinned at me as he rested his hands on the edges of the doorway, completely stark naked in front of me.
With an easy, sly smirk, Finn sauntered back to the bed, taking his sweet time so I could drink in the hard planes of muscles, the smooth, polished tanned skin, and that little trail of dark hair leading right to all the places I wanted to keep playing with. Exhaustion was the only thing keeping me from pouncing on him again when he collapsed on the pillow next to me, so I snuggled up to him and he tucked me under his arm, squeezing me into him about as close as I could get.
I rested a hand gingerly on his chest, watching it rise up and down with a labored hitch and listened to his heartbeat, which still drummed unsteadily in his chest. Grinning into his skin—after all, I’d been partly responsible for the state he was currently in, I reveled in the feeling of him still lingering in between my legs…it had never felt that good before. While I wasn't completely inexperienced in the bedroom, it had never been like that—the intensity, the way I just let myself go and give in…it wasn’t even close to being on my radar of what was possible in bed.
He shifted around and hitched my leg up and around his hip, pulling up the sheet around us that had pooled to the bottom of the bed. When my breathing started to feel a little more normal, everything else slipped away...Noah’s concerns about the upcoming homecoming, Chase’s leering, those pictures still out there for anyone to see...I didn’t want to think about any of that right now because I was in pure, blissful heaven.
As my eyes fluttered to a close, somewhere I felt Finn’s warm lips press into my forehead before he settled back into his own pillow.
Life was good.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I knew it was going to happen. I’d expected this—Noah had expected this, Cristina had expected this, Finn had expected this. So when my sister-in-law called, I should’ve known.
Wishful thinking had just gotten the best of me.
Today was the day before Matthews Brewing Co. had their rollout at the Bluestone Lounge and I wished that event was the one I could spend my energy focusing on.
Today was also the culmination of Hickory’s week-long homecoming celebration, starting with a half-day at the high school, a pep rally immediately after the school day, a parade through the streets of Hickory, which would take about five minutes, and finally, the homecoming football game against Hickory’s arch nemesis, the Kohler Ghosts.
The whole process was one I knew well. As a high school student, I’d loved every minute of it, reveling in the festivities and participating along with my classmates...you know, being a normal teenager with a normal life. As a teacher, seeing it from a different perspective was another beast entirely—the kids were always out of control during homecoming week and forget trying to do anything meaningful in your classes because you’d just end up beating your head against a wall by the time the week was over. Between dress-up days, class competitions, float decorating, and senior pranks, it was all one headache after another and I found myself counting down the minutes until the stupid week was over—a huge change in perspective from my high school days.
The problem I saw as a teacher was exactly the reason I’d loved homecoming week as a student—you pretty much had free reign to do just about whatever you wanted as long as no one got hurt and nothing got damaged.
Needless to say, we all had every reason for concern because the following year, the first homecoming since my firing, I’d been an easy target. How could they resist using me as their personal punching bag? I wasn’t there anymore and it was well-documented within the school that most teachers and administration alike didn’t necessarily disagree with my treatment following the ‘scandal’. If you throw raw meat to a pack of rabid dogs, they’re going to attack. That’s just all there is to it.
Still, I’d exercised a sliver of hope that somewhere, somehow, someone would come to their senses and intervene this year.
I was wrong.
When I got the call, Finn and I were working our way through a season of Arrested Development on my couch. The second I saw Cristina’s name on my screen, I knew. Finn must’ve felt me tense next to him because his eyes flashed to me, wide with concern, and his fingers squeezed my shoulder. Part of me didn’t even want to answer, but I knew Cris would just keep calling until she talked to me. So, with a heavy heart, I swiped across my screen to answer.
“Hey, Cris. What’s up?”
The brief, albeit weighted pause on the other line told me everything I needed to know.
“Hola, Emmie,” Cris greeted me softly and I wished she would just get it over with already. “Look, I wish there was an easier way to tell you...I don’t know how to tell you...but there’s a video that just popped up online. Noah’s texting you the link right now. I know you won’t want to watch it, but I think you should or at least let Finn see it so he knows what’s going on. I’m so sorry, Em. I wish this would just go away...I’m so sorry.”
I swallowed hard and glanced at Finn, who’d since paused the episode and was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching me intently as concentration creased his forehead.
“Okay. Thanks for letting me know, Cris.”
“Love you, Em.”
“Love you too.”
I blew out a heavy breath as I swiped across the screen to end the call. Sure enough, not even a second later, Noah’s text came through with that dreaded link. My finger hovered over the link and I wavered between clicking it and deleting the text altogether when Finn’s voice called out to me.
“Emma? What is that?”
Another labored breath pushed through my lips and I knew I couldn’t lie, even if I wanted to. “I don’t know....but something happened today. It’s only 4:00, so I’m guessing it was during the pep rally.”
Finn was already leaning into my shoulder to peer at my screen and the mounting fury clouding his eyes had me squeezing my eyes shut.
“Open the link, Emma.”
I shook my head furiously. “No, I don’t wanna see it. Can’t we just—”
“No,” he cut in sharply. “We can’t. Open it.”
Seeing as how I didn’t really have any other options, I opened the link, which sent me to a Youtube video. I wanted to bolt. I wanted to hide. Unfortunately, Finn had an arm around my shoulders to support me and to keep me in place all at the same time so I couldn’t bolt, so I couldn’t hide, so I had to sit down and face it. He did the honors for me, reaching forward to hit play on the video, and my heart flapped wildly in my chest when Kennedy High’s gym came into view.
As the first few seconds of the video played out, a group of students huddled right in the middle of the gym as the rest of the assembly looked on in anticipation. The video was up close enough to see all the faces clearly, so whoever had filmed it was probably sitting in one of the bottom rows in the gym.
Yeah. This looked familiar.
The senior skit. I should’ve known.
It started out just like all the other senior skits I’d ever seen when I was a student and when I was a teacher, too. Each senior class had the opportunity to perform a supposedly staff-approved skit during the homecoming pep rally and each senior class, just like the one before it, always did a variation on the same idea. Apparently, none of the senior classes ever cared too much about originality.
Three senior boys, ones I recognized as former students, stood off to the side and took turns with the microphone as they introdu
ced each section and performed all the voices. The rest of the students in the middle of the floor emulated a typical school day with various students taking roles as teachers in the school—all a ploy to make fun of the school and their teachers. As a student I’d found it hilarious. As a teacher I’d found it mean-spirited and disrespectful.
They started out how all the school days at Kennedy High started: with a brief announcement from Principal Denfield and the pledge of allegiance, only the student with the mic did his best mockery of the principal’s delivery, making sure to make fun of the school’s new dress code policy as a ‘first day of school’ announcement.
Then, after that was all said and done, they moved into first period, which found all the students scurrying across the gym to their respective places as a student stepped in front of a makeshift whiteboard wearing a sign that read “Mr. Hamilton” as everyone else gathered around like they were in class.
The boy with the mic then proceeded to mimic Mr. Hamilton, a much-maligned chemistry teacher, while the boy wearing the sign mimed the movements and mouthed the lines. It was all the same bullshit they did every year—making fun of Hamilton always showing up late to class, being unprepared, and losing everyone’s papers. As far as I knew, most of that was exaggerated and it wasn’t any less funny now as it’d been the first time I heard it as a teacher.
Next, they moved on to mocking a popular Spanish teacher as the pack scampered over to the other side of the gym, where yet another student wore a sign that read “Mrs. Allan-Perreault”. This time, the student with the mic read his lines in a high-pitched girly voice and the student playing her waved his hands manically in the air to demonstrate that she was over-caffeinated and overzealous. Pretty tame, all things considered, and probably indicative of the fact that most students liked Mrs. Allan-Perreault anyway.
Next up was an English teacher, with the students once again flocking over to the side of the gym to signal a change in class periods and another student stood in front of the mock class wearing a “Mr. McLean” sign. This time, they weren’t so kind and skewered the teacher, who had a reputation for being a hard-ass and the kind of English teacher that rarely gave out As on anything. They pitched McLean as a drill sergeant and throwing things like pencils and pretend staplers at kids when they answered a grammar question wrong and at times, suggested that McLean was related to Adolf Hitler. Nice, right?
Now, as they moved once again to the other side of the gym to another class change-up, my palms got clammy. I knew what was next: me.
Unlike all the ‘impersonations’ before it, the student playing me was dressed in a button-up shirt and a black pencil skirt. It looked like they’d taken great pains to make this particularly demeaning, even more so than the year before. As the students gathered around this fake-me, I glanced at Finn out of the corner of my eye and found his chest heaving and his face darkening with each second. I wished I could just stop the video right there, but I knew Finn would never let that fly.
Another student with the pic read his lines in a high-pitched voice, mimicking me and thinking he was funny as the student playing me started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Now, class,” the student with the mic started. “We’re going to play a little game. For every question you get right, I’ll undo one button and if you get one wrong, back up the button goes.”
The whole gym had already descended into a fit of laughter and cat calls and someone yelled, “Ms. Owens is hot!” from somewhere in the audience.
“Why the fuck is no one stopping this?” Finn muttered under his breath.
I just shrugged, turning my attention back to the video.
“Okay, here we go,” fake-me went on in that high-pitched, nasally voice as the student playing me kept unbuttoning his shirt. “Who was the first president of the United States?”
He pretended to call on another student in the ‘class’ who’d raised his hand. “Oh, hey there, Tommy. How you doin’ hot stuff? What are you doin’ later? Oh...you wanted to answer? Okay, go for it—I gave you an easy one to make sure you’d get it right, big boy.”
More roars of laughter. More cat calls. No adults intervened.
When the student answered correctly, fake-me took off his button-down completely to reveal a lacy bra and he wound the shirt over his head like a rodeo cowboy before tossing it into the screaming crowd like he was some kind of rock star. Just as fake-me reached for the zipper on his skirt and started to do a little dance with it, the pretend bell sounded, signaling it was time for yet another class change-up.
I’d seen everything I needed to see and promptly hit the stop button so I could toss my phone onto the coffee table.
Finn, on the other hand, opted to plant his foot against the edge of the table and furiously pushed it aside as he leapt to his feet. He crossed the short distance in between my living room and my kitchen, stopping short at my table and pacing in front of it. Both hands pushed back his hair and he’d let out a low growl by the time I had my hands on his chest in a futile attempt at calming him down.
“Finn—”
“How the hell does something like that happen? Doesn’t anyone check their scripts before they get up in front of the whole school and taunt their teachers?”
I heaved out a loud sigh and pressed my fingertips into his chest to get him to listen. “They’re supposed to, as far as I know. It’s always been that way. The senior class advisers are supposed to review the script ahead of time and sit-in during the practice, but once they get on the floor, I guess all bets are off. They could go off-script as much as they wanted and deal with the consequences later.”
Finn barked out a bitter laugh. “Consequences? What fucking consequences? They think they can do whatever the hell they want.”
I ignored that last comment and moved forward with the rest of my explanation. “All the teachers are supposed to sign-off on the script and give their permission to be included.”
“Except for you,” Finn spat hotly. “Right? No one gave a shit if you gave them your permission or not.”
“I’m sure that part wasn’t in the original script,” I murmured.
Finn’s hands tore at his hair again. “I can’t believe this bullshit. This is such...fuck! What are you gonna do about this, Em?”
Another sigh pushed its way from my lips. “I don’t think there’s much I can do.”
His eyes widened in horrified disbelief. “What do you mean there isn’t much you can do? There’s a helluva a lot you can do.”
“I don’t—”
Finn abruptly pushed past me and stalked back into the living room until he swept my phone up in his hand. “I’m calling your brother.”
“What? Finn, don’t. Please.”
His eyes snapped back up to me, flashing dangerously. “If you’re not gonna do anything then I will.”
I watched helplessly, wringing my hands in front of me, as Finn called my brother. Whatever happened from here on out was probably going to suck in epic proportions and just make all this that much worse.
“Hey, Noah, it’s Finn,” he started, his voice tight and barking out the syllables in rapid succession. “Yeah, we just watched it....yeah, I know, I’m right there with you. So what can we do to get that shit taken down? We can delete the url, but...right, I figured that wasn’t the only link out there...it’s got how many shares? Jesus fucking Christ. I can’t believe this. Yeah, I’ll do that, too. I’ll follow-up with some emails too and I’ll just keep doing that until someone talks to me. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something. Sounds good. Bye.”
He furiously swiped across my screen to end the call and his eyes flicked up to me yet again. This time, his light eyes softened, his face twisting in pain.
“Noah said that video has more than 700 shares in less than two hours and that’s just for that link. Apparently, there are at least 10 other links out there with that video and those are just the ones Noah and Cris were able to find,” he explained quietly.
Two seconds later, my phone buzzed in his hand from a text message and Finn’s eyes skimmed over the text, pressed something on my screen, and brought my phone back up to his ear.
“Finn,” I whispered and swallowed heavily. “What are you doing?”
“I’m doing something about this,” he informed me and then his eyes flicked to the wall as he spoke into my phone again. “Hi, my name is Finn Matthews. I’m calling because I want to know what you’re doing about that senior skit video that’s been circling around social media. It’s disrespectful, inappropriate, and cruel and if you’re not doing anything about it or disciplining the students responsible for it, I’m just going to keep calling until you do. And then I’m calling every news station in the area and telling them that your school district allows its students to participate in sexual harassment, bullying, and verbal abuse. You can call me back at 414-555-6727. Thank you.”
He swiped across my screen again and tossed my phone onto the couch before tugging his hands through his hair. I was still frozen to the carpet, unable to believe what I’d just heard. Everything fogged up around me and I felt dizzy enough that I had to put a hand on the back of my couch to keep myself upright.
“Finn,” I tried again. “Please...just let it at that, okay? You said what you wanted to say and now just leave it alone.”
His eyes flashed wildly. “Leave it alone? What are you talking about? How are we supposed to just leave it alone and let those idiots run wild with this?”
“They’re just kids,” I sighed. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Just kids? They’re fucking animals, Emma. And clearly everyone at that school doesn’t know how to do their jobs because none of those animals obviously know right from wrong.”
“Finn—”
I stopped short when Finn abruptly kicked over one of the chairs at my kitchen table, sending Oliver scurrying for the bathroom. Finn’s chest heaved wildly and he paced around my tiny kitchen, hands in his hair, and finally scrubbed both hands over his face.