by Erin Wright
“Yeah. You talk and I love listenin’ to ya, and then, all of the sudden, you’re Fort Knox over there, not lookin’ at me, not talkin’. You hide.”
There was a part of Elijah that wished that he had Aaron’s gift of gab. He could make this sound so much better than Elijah was doin’. But if he were gonna have a relationship with Hannah of any kind, he couldn’t keep havin’ her shut him out every other sentence.
Not, of course, that he was gonna have a relationship with her. This was just a one-and-done date. Nothin’ more.
She pushed at the bridge of her nose, colorin’ an adorable pink when she realized that she weren’t wearin’ her glasses. “I’m…I’m not hiding!” she protested hotly.
He stared at her, one eyebrow cocked, and he waited. He knew that she’d hafta fill the silence, and he wanted to know what she’d fill it with.
Sure enough, after roughly an eternity and a half or so, she broke.
“People are scary,” she said seriously, nibblin’ on her bottom lip with her cute, not-horse-sized teeth. “Well, adults are scary,” she added. “Kids are not. But adult males are the worst of all. You men are downright terrifying, I hope you know that.”
She said it with all of the seriousness of a doctor proclaiming that someone was dyin’ of cancer.
“You’re shittin’ me, right?” Elijah asked, stunned. “Guys make sense. It’s them girls that are scary.”
She stood up from the table and began clearing away the dishes, carrying them into the kitchen without sparing him a glance. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she sniffed. “Women are perfectly logical creatures who don’t impulsively do things like say, ‘Hold my beer!’ and then jump off a cliff into an icy cold lake. You’d never catch a woman doing things like that. And anyway, women are kind, and mostly easy to talk to, whereas guys just—”
He snatched the washcloth out of her hands and gave her his best charming grin. He weren’t no Aaron, so charming weren’t exactly his strong suit, but he did his best.
Based on the heat risin’ in her cheeks, he felt pretty confident that he’d succeeded.
“Whereas guys just wanna kiss you?” He finished her sentence for her, tossing the washcloth carelessly into the kitchen sink and then began backing her towards the counter, his hands burrowing into her thick, dark red hair. He’d never seen that particular shade of red outside of the hair salon, but he’d be willin’ to bet his right ball sac that it were natural. Made him wonder what color other hair on her was…
“Only…only this one guy,” she whispered, her huge blue eyes even more huge and blue than they’d ever been before. “And he only did it once, so…”
“That sounds like a challenge,” he whispered, before he finally kissed that delicious mouth the way he’d wanted to for the last hour, ever since he’d come up for air after the last bout of kissin’. She tasted so damn good. He tilted her head for easier access, wanting to devour her or melt into her or—
She broke him, then.
She made the tiniest of noises in the back of her throat, and she broke him. A million little pieces, right there on the floor.
He pulled away, his heart pounding, and he shook his head. “I better take you home,” he said, his words slurred together from the heat burnin’ between them.
If he’d ever felt like this while kissin’ Sarah, he sure couldn’t remember it. He’d never felt this kind of fire roar through his veins before.
And that scared the shit right out of him. He didn’t know if he wanted to be one-and-done with her.
And that scared him most of all.
Chapter 20
Elijah
Another week, another dollar. Except today weren’t just another day at work. Today was when he had to go into Hannah’s classroom and sweep and mop and empty her garbages and pretend like nothing – nothing at all – had happened over the weekend.
That they was just friends, and nothin’ more.
Because he’d had the past two days to think it all through, and to realize that he didn’t deserve nothin’ more than “just friends.” She was smart. She spoke proper, she had a degree in teachin’, and she knew more in her little pinky than he did in his whole body, about pert near everything.
Not only was she good at school, she even teached school. They’d never put him in charge of teachin’ no one, unless it was on how to run a gas station at night, or how to mop floors, or how to knock up your girlfriend when you didn’t mean to.
Like that were somethin’ the men of the world needed help with.
So yeah, she was roughly 937 pay grades or so above him, and he needed to leave her the hell alone so she could move on. Find someone as smart as her and they could have little nerdy adorable children together who wore thick coke-bottle glasses that distorted their eyes, but were somehow all the more cute for it.
With a deep breath, he pushed his way into her classroom and…
Just bein’ in there – yeah, it were as bad as he thought it was gonna be. She looked up at him, confusion and hesitation and excitement written all over her face, and he knew that she didn’t know why he’d dropped her off on her front doorstep on Friday night without sayin’ a word and had driven off into the night.
And damn his dirty hide, he didn’t have it in him to tell her.
He dropped his eyes and stared down at his cart. “Miss Lambert,” he said formally, nodding in her general direction and pulling on the brim of his cap before going around the room to pick up the trash.
Don’t go lookin’ at her. Then you’ll just want her more and you can’t have her. Shouldn’t have had her before. Kissin’ her, listenin’ to her make that little noise that you ain’t never gonna forget…that’s what you get for tryin’ with a woman like her – you get to hear that noise on repeat for the rest of your damn life.
“Mr. Morland,” Hannah said in return, except it came out as a question instead of all formal-like, like she’d wanted to sound, and he knew – just knew – that her big ol’ blue eyes was trackin’ him as he went around the room, asking him questions that he didn’t have no answers for.
He swept the room in record time, kickin’ up more dust and dirt than he was sweepin’ up, and the burnin’ red of his neck just got hotter as the tension in the room got thicker.
By time he were done sweepin’, he figured he could cut that tension with his boning knife.
“Mr. Morland?” Hannah said questioningly, and this time, she didn’t try to pretend that she weren’t confused as hell.
“You got somethin’ I can clean or fix for ya?” he tossed back curtly, refusing to look her in the eye as he dumped the little bit of dirt he managed to sweep up into the trashcan on his cart. It were a pathetic amount of dirt, honestly, and she’d have every right to complain to the principal ‘bout the job he’d just done, but he knew she wouldn’t.
That weren’t Hannah’s way.
“N-n-noo,” she stuttered.
“Well then, you have a real nice day,” and he left.
He was supposed to be moppin’ her floors now, but God knew, he’d hafta sweep again before he could mop and he was dyin’, just dyin’, and he couldn’t bear to be around her no more, and he sure as hell couldn’t sweep her room again, what with her starin’ at him with those big blue eyes the whole time.
No how, no way.
He hurried down the hallway and into the neighboring classroom and felt his chest tighten up as he went, but he ignored the pain.
He deserved what he got.
He’d never get nothin’ more, and that was just how it should be.
Chapter 21
Hannah
November, 2018
The arctic wind whipped by but none of the kids seemed to notice, bundled up as they were against the frigid winter air. Hannah pulled her thick down jacket closer around her, trying to keep her teeth from chattering as she looked out over the playground, watching closely for any signs of trouble. Daisy was standing next to her, as usual, talking
a mile a minute about her horse and training it to jump and Hannah listened with half an ear, making sure to make all the right noises at all the right times. Daisy was one of those children who latched onto a teacher rather than making friends with kids her own age, and thus, recess was spent talking the ear off whichever teacher had recess duty that week.
She was a cute kid, if a little overwhelming at times.
And then Hannah saw it – a group of kids in a circle, all facing inward towards someone she couldn’t see, the whole thing setting off her teacher spidey senses, as she liked to think of them. There was something wrong there, she was sure of it, and she took off at a quick trot, telling Daisy that she’d be right back, zeroing in on the group and hoping to get there before they realized she was coming and had a chance to run.
Alas, it didn’t work – it rarely did – but the kids scattering like leaves in the wind revealed Brooklyn standing there, sobbing her eyes out and blindly trying to hide her face from the rest of the world by burying it in the sleeve of her cute new jacket, much like an ostrich would hide from the world.
“Hey, Brooklyn,” Hannah said softly, wrapping her arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
The little girl shook her head violently, the tears streaming down her face, snuffling loud enough to be heard a block over. The tears on her cheeks in this cold…honestly, she’d be snuffling her nose whether she was crying or not.
Hannah looked up and caught the eye of the aide who had recess duty that week, and waved at her to let her know she was going into the building, and then quickly guided Brooklyn inside and down to her classroom. She closed the door of the classroom behind them to give them privacy, before she turned and kneeled in front of Brooklyn. She wasn’t particularly tall, but neither was Brooklyn, so this just about made them eye to eye.
“You gotta tell me what’s going on,” she said softly to the distraught student in front of her, pushing greasy-looking hair out of Brooklyn’s face. Sarah may’ve started dressing her daughter better, but she sure hadn’t started cleaning her up any better.
“Brooklyn needs a bath,” she said in a mocking singsong voice, and then started blubbering, “That’s what they was tellin’ me.” The tears were creating light streaks through the dirt on her cheeks, and Hannah ground her back teeth together.
“When was the last time you took a bath or a shower, Brooklyn?” she asked quietly, running her hands up and down the frail shoulders consolingly.
“I don’t like showers,” she announced. “I don’t like water in my face.”
Hannah nodded understandingly, even as she noticed what Brooklyn wasn’t telling her – the last time she’d had a bath.
And then she realized: She might not even know.
Hannah forced herself to focus on the here and now, even as she mentally wrapped her hands around Sarah’s neck and strangled her.
“How about we do this?” she said gently. “Let’s go down to the bathroom and scrub all these…tears,” she stumbled over the word, “off your face. You’ll feel better after that, I promise.”
Not to mention the layer of dirt I’ll be stripping off.
Brooklyn shrugged but still, she slipped her hand trustingly into Hannah’s as they walked down the hallway to the bathroom. Hannah’s mind spun as she tried to work through her options.
Elijah cared but had very little home time with Brooklyn, plus there was the fact that Hannah would almost rather set herself on fire than talk to Eli. One magical evening where everything went so wonderfully wrong, and ever since, he’d been treating her like she had leprosy.
Then Sarah…Hannah had yet to meet the woman, despite having held two nights of parent-teacher conferences thus far in the school year.
To put it politely, the mother didn’t seem to have much in the way of interest in her daughter’s education.
To put the nicest spin possible on the situation.
As Hannah knelt in front of Brooklyn and scrubbed her elfin face with a damp paper towel, she tried to figure out some way to help. The neglect wasn’t bad enough to call Child Protective Services on Sarah – if she called CPS every time a child was sent to school with a dirty face and greasy hair, she’d be doing nothing but that for the rest of the school year.
There was a giant gap between what CPS cared about, and what the kids on the playground cared about, though, and Hannah wasn’t sure what to do in that in-between spot.
Finally, Brooklyn’s face was clean and shining, but her hair…yup, dirty blonde was a pretty apt description of it.
Then inspiration struck and she quickly checked her watch.
“We have four minutes left until the bell rings,” she told Brooklyn. “Let’s hurry back to the classroom. I think I know just what to do.”
Hand in hand, they hurried back down the hallway to Hannah’s classroom and over to her desk. Pulling the bottom drawer open, Hannah pulled out some sparkling bows and then from her middle drawer, she pulled out her own hairbrush.
At the sight of the hair clips, Brooklyn’s eyes went wide and she squealed with delight, that particular high-pitched noise only ten-year-old girls can make. “So pretty, Miss Lambert!” she exclaimed.
Hannah had paid for them out of her own pocket to use as prizes in the classroom reading program, knowing that the girls would go spastic over them, but hey, if there was ever a little girl who needed a pretty hair barrette, it was Brooklyn.
“You get it off the packaging while I brush your hair. We’ll have you done up in no time. We gotta hurry – the bell’s about to ring.”
As Brooklyn tore into the packaging, Hannah hurriedly ran the brush through her blonde hair, trying to get the snarls out without tugging too hard. Considering the state of it, though, she should add detangler to her shopping list the next time she went to Boise.
With all of that spare money she had sitting around in her bank account, of course.
Ignoring that reality for the moment, she focused on what needed to happen: Step Two in her plan.
“Brooklyn,” she announced as she pulled the hairbrush through the little girl’s greasy hair, “I’m gonna call your mom after school.” Brooklyn froze, standing in front of her, facing away into the classroom so Hannah couldn’t see her face, but she could tell that Brooklyn thought this was a good plan, just like she would think that being stuck with Dayton as her partner for the rest of the year would be a good plan. “Tomorrow is the beginning of Thanksgiving break, so I’m going to tell her that starting on Monday, she needs to bring you in before school each day so I can tutor you in math.”
Ignoring Hannah’s attempts to clip the barrette into place, Brooklyn turned around and glared at her teacher suspiciously. “I’m doin’ real good in math!” she protested. “I got a B+ on the last math test, and—”
The bell rang, and Hannah spoke quickly before the rest of the class could arrive. “You come before school starts, and I’ll help you get ready every morning. Wash your hair, brush your teeth – all of it. No more ‘Brooklyn needs a bath’ at recess.”
“Really?!” Brooklyn squealed, all anger and suspicion instantly gone. “Thank you, Miss Lambert!” She threw her arms around Hannah’s waist and hugged her as hard as she could with her thin little arms.
Hannah hugged her back, mentally going over everything she’d need to buy out of her meager teacher salary to make this happen.
Being a teacher was mentally and emotionally rewarding, but financially…not so much. She really needed to stop doing this sort of thing, but seeing a need and not helping…she might as well quit being a teacher.
Her mind flashed over to Elijah Mr. Morland. What would he have to say about this?
It only took a hot second to decide – she wouldn’t tell him, any more than she was going to tell Ms. Morland the truth. What mattered was the well being of her student, and if she had to be a little sneaky to make it happen, well then, that’s what she’d do.
Chapter 22
Elijah
December, 2018
“They’re pink, my favorite color!” Brooksy told him as she held his hand, standing in the lunch line, waiting ever so impatiently to get through the line to sit at one of the too-small-for-him tables to eat lunch.
Elijah looked down at her and nodded absentmindedly. “Did your mom buy them for you when she took you school clothes shopping?” he asked, at least happy to imagine that his hard-earned money had paid for somethin’ that made his daughter happy, ‘specially since he didn’t have much more where that came from.
Even as he spoke, his mind was goin’ ‘round and ‘round, worry eatin’ away at him. It was December, which meant he should be comin’ up with a Christmas present or two for Brooksy but his power bill was just outta control this month…the whole thing made his stomach clench with panic. He’d been meaning to put an ad in the newspaper about bein’ willin’ to do handyman work to bring in some extra income, but life had gotten away from—
“Noooo…” Brooksy drew the word out, and then it was their turn to pick up a tray each and begin working their way down the line. He had to wait to question her ‘cause the cafeteria ladies was all laughing and flirting with him, even the ones old enough to be his grandmother, as they dished out the food. They’d told him a long time ago that he could eat there for free, since he did “such a good job” cleanin’ the cafeteria after lunch each day.
It were a child-sized meal so it didn’t fill him up entirely, but he weren’t about to complain. Free food was free food.
He waited until they were out of earshot of the overly flirtatious cafeteria workers and were slidin’ onto the benches at their favorite way-too-small table, before he begun pushin’ Brooksy for answers. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” he asked her, his eyes flittin’ over the sparkly-and-ever-so-pink barrettes in his daughter’s hair. They was the most girly barrettes that he ever did lay eyes on, so of course, Brooksy would love ‘em.