“I was just bringing the truck back,” I say.
He walks past me and I shiver as I smell him. “Get in the truck, Ella.”
“I need to get to-“
“Just get in the truck,” he says.
I follow his orders, sliding into the passenger seat and pulling the safety belt across my chest, pushing it into place with a click. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going to the school as well,” he says.
“For what?”
“Work,” he replies simply.
“You’re doing repairs wearing that?” I ask him, incredulous.
He laughs. “Again, you haven’t really gotten to know me yet, Ella.”
“I am so confused right now,” I say.
“I know you hate being in the dark like this,” he says, turning on his blinker and spinning the steering wheel. “Which is exactly why I’m keeping you there. It’s fun for me.”
I grimace and cross my arms over my chest. “Just drive,” I say.
I can out-silent-treatment anyone, and this time is no exception. Luke starts threads of conversation that I handily ignore. “Fine,” he says. “It’s radio time.” He fiddles with the knobs and turns on screaming hard rock music that makes my ears ring.
I slap his hand away and turn it to one of the half-dozen country stations. Keith Urban streams through the car and I sigh contentedly, leaning back in my seat. I’m no sooner relaxing than Luke has his hands on the station again and flips it back to where it was.
“My truck, my rules, my music, Ella,” he says definitively.
“I drove you home last night. You owe me.”
“AHA!” he says. “I got you to talk. I win.”
We finally pull up to the school and I am out of the truck before it’s even come to a complete stop. “Your taste in music is terrible. That much hasn’t changed,” I hiss at him before slamming the door.
I march into the school and walk toward the principal’s office. The smell of chemical carpet cleaner, construction paper, crayons, glue, and wood polish hits me with a slap of nostalgia that nearly knocks me over. I pause with my hand on the door.
“Do you need help, miss?” says the voice of a little old lady. I turn to face her and see the wrinkled face of Miss Holly, the ancient secretary.
“Um, Miss Holly?”
She pulls off her reading glasses and wipes them on her floor-length broom skirt. “Is that you? Ella Hanover?”
I smile. “It is indeed. I’m checking in to get the clinic set up today? I’m supposed to be putting in a few hours this morning.”
Miss Holly claps her hands together and shuffles forward, opening the door to the office. “Come in, come in. Principal Sykes will be in here in a few minutes. He’s running late today.”
I pull my purse onto my lap and sit down on the pilling wool-covered chairs. I rest my elbow on the worn wooden arms. I feel like a little kid again and cross my ankles, smoothing out my skirt. The door opens and I look up to see a smiling Luke standing there. He crosses the office in a few strides.
“Miss Holly,” he says, nodding at her.
She blushes a little. “Good to see you here, Luke. The kids missed you last week. You’ve got quite a roster piled up this afternoon for counseling. Oh, and Miss Seborne called in sick, so is there any way you could look after the little ones this morning?”
Luke pours coffee into a foam mug and nods at her. “I’d be happy to. I think I can handle some coloring and little rascals for a morning.”
“No cursing in front of them,” Miss Holly intones.
I’m sitting there, silent and gobsmacked. “You’re a teacher?” I ask.
Luke laughs. “Counselor, actually. But I substitute teach when it’s needed, which isn’t too often.” He leans back against the counter, sipping his coffee. “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Ella.”
And with that, he takes his coffee and wanders out of the office. Miss Holly sighs as he leaves. “He’s quite a man, isn’t he?”
I don’t answer. I’m still processing how football-throwing, calculus-exam-failing, cheats-on-tests-and-hates-kids Luke Davis is suddenly a teacher. I’m mercifully cut off from wondering by the arrival of Principal Sykes. He was the gym teacher when I was here. I stand up and shake his hand.
“Well, well, well. I had a feeling Ella Hanover would be back here eventually,” he says with a smile. He’s shorter than I am, with a small paunch sticking out of his cowboy-belt-buckled dark jeans. His bald spot shines in the light. “We are just so, so relieved to have you here.”
“Well, here I am. I’d love to get set up, take a look at the little clinic here, see how it’s faring-“
“Actually, we need you to give a speech today to the kids.”
My stomach plummets. “A speech?”
He nods. “We’re having a health assembly. First with the younger kids – just say some things about germs and hand washing and the importance of veggies, you know. Then the high schoolers are going to be assembling this afternoon. We’re just so, so glad you’re here. Did I say that already?”
I nod. “Yeah, you did, but I can’t really give a speech, I didn’t prepare or anything. And I don’t know what you expect me to talk to a group of high school students-“ I stop mid-sentence. Between his enthusiasm over my being here and his unwillingness to confess the proposed topic for this afternoon, I connect the dots. “You need me to teach them sex ed. Oh. Okay.”
I fall back down into my chair, feeling flush.
“You won’t be up there alone. You and Mr. Davis will be co-presenting to the high school students.”
“Oh. Okay,” I say again. “What a relief.” Sarcasm falls out of my mouth along with those words.
I’ll be teaching sex education. With Luke Davis. In front of a group of moody high schoolers.
***
I pace the old, bowing wooden stage. This room smells like dust, old books, and lemon wood polish. I look at the back row and remember sitting there next to Luke during school assemblies, him trying to sneak his hand up my skirt. I’m lost in this daydream when I hear the back doors squeak open and the sounds of little kids rush in.
Suddenly, I’m standing in front of fifty kids aged fourteen and under. The tiniest ones sit in the front row, the folding seats sandwiching their little bodies because they don’t weigh enough. Then Luke walks in carrying a little girl with pigtails, and my knees shake.
You know how people talk about women’s ovaries aching when they see a man with a baby? I’ve never experienced that. Until right now.
The little girl is wearing pink shorts and a white t-shirt and she’s sniffling into the crook of his neck. In his other hand is the tiny, pudgy palm of a little boy who’s also crying. Neither one of them can be much older than four years old. I suddenly realize the entire room is waiting for me to speak as Luke takes a seat in the front row with each little kid on his knee. He’s smirking at me and I’ve completely lost the thread of my speech somewhere in his dimples.
“Um, hello,” I say.
“Hello,” a handful of kids chorus back. I can tell most of them are getting antsy already. That’s not a good sign.
The back row of middle schoolers is snickering, which makes me feel like I’m sixteen and failing my public speaking course miserably.
Luke hands off the two kids to a teacher behind him and jumps onstage, clapping his hands together. “Sorry, y’all. Where are my manners? This right here is Miss Ella. Everybody say hello to Miss Ella and I want to hear it like you mean it. Ready? Three, two, one!”
The entire auditorium rumbles to life. “HELLO, MISS ELLA!”
“That’s much, much better,” Luke says with a smile. “Now, she’s going to teach you about health.” He turns to face me, giving me a small, questioning nod.
I nod back, feeling braver now. “Today, we’re going to talk about hand washing!” I say, and go off into the content of my speech.
Twenty minutes later I’ve managed to do it.
I take a deep breath and exhale with my eyes closed. My hands are shaking as the kids leave the auditorium and the lunch bell rings. Luke is talking to one of the other young, woman teachers and I feel a surge of jealousy as he pats her arm and she laughs. Then he has his hands in his pockets and he’s climbing the stairs to the stage.
“I’m off for lunch,” he says. “Pawned my class of kids off to another teacher. I was thinking we could-“
“Get lunch? Drive into town real quick?” I ask breathlessly.
He looks shocked. “Actually, I was going to say we could work on our presentation for this afternoon. Winging it in front of little kids is a lot easier to pull off than winging it in front of a bunch of high schoolers. Ask me how I know?”
I scowl. “I wasn’t winging it,” I say, feeling hurt. “I don’t wing things.”
Luke chuckles. “Right. I’m sorry to accuse the valedictorian of not being thoroughly prepared for something.”
I furrow my eyebrows. “I accept your apology.” I pause. “And yeah, I totally was winging that.”
Luke guffaws and puts his hand on my back. “Let’s go to the teacher’s lounge and talk strategy of how we’re going to get through this sex ed thing without being laughed off the stage.”
My skin tingles where he’s touching me through my clothes. “The teacher’s lounge, huh?” I ask him, sounding more flirtatious than I ever thought I could.
Luke grins. “I know you’ve only been in there once. Well, that I know of.”
I laugh. “Don’t worry, I didn’t sneak in there with anybody but you.” My stomach tingles at the memory. We walk down the deserted hallways to the lounge. Principal Sykes smiles and holds the door for us as he exits the lounge.
“Doing some prep work, you too?” he asks with a twinkle in his eye that makes me wonder if he somehow knows what Luke and I were doing in here a decade ago.
“Yep. You know teenagers. They’re ruthless critics. Would hate for Miss Ella to get off to a bad start on her first day back at Buxwell Prep.”
I walk over to the vending machine and buy a bag of potato chips and a chocolate bar.
“Now that’s just sad,” Luke says from his perch at a round, wood-laminate-covered table.
“I didn’t think to pack a lunch. I didn’t know I would be here past lunch. I thought I’d be wiping a few noses and doing a few hearing tests and then I’d be on my merry way,” I explain, pulling out a chair at the opposite side of the curved table.
Luke opens the same cooler lunchbox he brought to the clinic the other day. He pulls out a bento box.
“Where the hell did you get that?” I ask, gaping at the gorgeous, shiny-wood bento.
He laughs. “We do have Amazon.com, darlin’, even all the way out here in the sticks.”
“I usually only see bento boxes being carried around by preppy California people. I didn’t expect you to have one.” I peer across the table to see the contents.
“What?” Luke asks, his mouth full of food.
“I was just making sure you didn’t cut your sandwich into the shape of a panda bear,” I say jokingly.
He laughs and wipes his mouth. “Nah. Just an avocado, tomato, and sprout sandwich on some homemade wheat bread.”
My mouth waters at the description. “Do you sleep?”
“Not too much anymore,” he says, patting his leg under the table. Suddenly, I feel guilty. “The pain keeps you up at night?”
He shrugs. “I get a shit ton of stuff done, so I’m not complaining.” He reaches into his cooler lunchbox and produces a stainless steel bento box. “Here you go, Ella.” He slides the container across the table with a whoosh.
I gape at him, opening the tin. Inside is an identical sandwich, with a side salad and a square of brownie in the corner. “I don’t even know who you are anymore, do I?”
He grins at me. “I keep telling you that, Ella. But you just won’t listen.”
Suddenly, I have a flash of Luke standing in a kitchen – our kitchen – lovingly packing up a lunchbox for an imaginary daughter. The pain of this thought nearly knocks me off my chair. I clear my throat and dig in. “Thanks,” I say. “How’d you know I would be here?”
“Tanya told me last night.”
“How’d you know I wouldn’t have packed my lunch?”
“You know, I had a good feeling I might have been running through your dreams after our little outing yesterday. I figured you wouldn’t get much sleep and might run off without food for the umpteenth time.”
I flash back to me in high school, my hair frizzy and frazzled and me staying up studying. “I always forgot my lunch and you always gave me half of yours.” The memory creeps up through my veins and spills out onto the table between us.
“So you do remember some things,” he replies.
My throat is suddenly thick with emotion and I push my food aside, reaching into my bag to pull out a pen and a fresh notebook. I click the end of the pen and start scribbling. “So, what’s the game plan with the teens?”
Luke looks nervously over to the door, which is still shut. He stands up and locks it, pulling out the chair next to me and sitting down. “This is the deal. We’re not allowed to teach actual sex education. It’s a state law thing. And Principal Sykes will be fucking steaming mad if he finds out. But I cannot and will not fail these kids like that.”
I furrow my brow. “So what do we do?”
Luke smiles and takes the pen and paper from me, drawing something. He pulls back from it and pushes the notebook back towards me. “Metaphor, Ella. It’s all about the metaphors.”
An hour later, I’m feeling a hundred times more confident than I did on this stage this morning. Part of this feeling comes from basking in the glow of Luke, who seems to be the most popular teacher who ever existed.
“Mr. Davis!” call out a few kids, including the jocks who are normally way too cool to be seen connecting with a teacher.
The kids settle quickly, clearly eager to have this talk.
“Alright, everyone. This is Miss Ella, and I want you to show her the respect and kindness I know you all have buried somewhere, deep down, underneath those hormones of yours.”
They all laugh.
Principal Sykes sticks his shiny head into the auditorium and gives us a thumbs up. I feel nervous, but Luke is unfazed by this brief interruption.
“All good in here, Mr. Sykes,” Luke calls back. Sykes smiles and shuts the door. Luke rubs his hands together. “We’re in here for two hours-“ this news garners a cheer from a crowd clearly eager to skip two full periods - “and I expect you to be on your best behavior. But there’s a little wrinkle, and so I need your help.”
Everyone leans forward. He has the room at full attention, like he’s Matthew McConaughey accepting his Oscar.
“I need one person to stand at the doorway and peek out the window. The catch is, you have to both listen and stay on watch.”
“What are we watching out for?” asks a girl in the front row, who is already paying rapt attention, notebook open and pen in hand. I realize she’s me, a dozen years ago.
“Principal Sykes, Miss Holly, Miss Tanya – really any adult. Do I have any volunteers?” A dozen hands shoot up, and Luke chooses a tribute to send to the door. “Alright, next order of business. Your parents are going to ask you what you learned about in here. And I want you to tell them the truth: you’re learning about the importance of fruit.”
A few people snicker. “Fruit?” asks Me-From-Twelve-Years-Ago in the front row.
“That’s right, Dana,” Luke says. He reaches into a big grocery sack and pulls out a banana. “We’re going to teach you about fruit.”
An hour into the presentation, each kid has come onstage to slide a condom over the banana that Luke and I take turns holding. It’s a testament to how much these kids love Luke that they’re willing to come up here like this. I can’t think of a single other adult who could pull off that level of trust.
“So if you get the urge to
make fruit salad, I’m going to need you to be safe. You need to be sure of a few things. One, that your partner says yes, wholeheartedly, to making fruit salad with you. Two, that you and your partner agree to be safe while making said fruit salad. This means: condoms at a minimum. And where can you get condoms if you can’t buy any?”
The whole auditorium chimes in. “At the fruit market.”
Luke lowers his voice and whispers dramatically. “And what is the fruit market in non-metaphor terms?”
“Your office,” everyone whispers back.
Luke rubs his hands together, satisfied at this response. “Who wants to break for questions?” Twenty hands shoot up into the air. “Dana!” Luke chooses my doppelganger in the front row.
“Won’t I get pregnant even if I use a condom?” she asks.
Luke nods. “Great question. There’s a small, small chance of that, which is why you should always, always use a backup form of birth control. Like spermicide, or hormonal contraceptives. And you need to make sure you’re putting a condom on the right way, every single time.” Dana scribbles this information down like she’s copying the nuclear codes from the President’s Chief of Staff. “Next!” Luke points at a jock in the back row.
“Have you had sex?” asks a pimple-faced kid in a letterman’s jacket.
Luke laughs. “Yes, I have.”
“Was it good?” another kid asks.
“Well, usually, yes. If you’re with the right person, and you’re safe, and you both feel comfortable with one another.” Luke darts his eyes over to me and I turn beet red. I wish he hadn’t looked at me just then. “Who else?”
A kid with glasses in the third row gets chosen. “Did you and Miss Ella have sex? In high school?”
I drop the banana I’m holding in place for a cheerleader. It falls to the stage with a loud clunk.
“Why are you asking me that?” Luke inquires, clearly trying to arrange his face into a look of surprise. He might have pulled it off had I not dropped the banana.
“My mom says that you and Miss Ella dated in high school. She says you still love her, but she won’t give you the time of day.”
Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance Page 9