Her Teacher's Temptation

by Vos, Alexandra

  “Of course she’s mine,” the man hissed in response. “I’m not stupid, Ruth. I just want to get to know my daughter, is that not acceptable?”

  Deciding I really didn’t want this conversation to go on any longer, I strolled into the kitchen as casually as I could and tried not to glare too hard at the tattooed man who was aggressively leaning towards my mother as she tried to calm Lily down. I wasn’t sure what else I was supposed to do, other than to greet them with an awkward “hi, mum.”

  “Hi honey,” she responded warily as I set my bag down on the table, fixing the man with a look that said she really didn’t want to continue this conversation in front of me.

  “I’ll get going,” he ground out. “I’ll see you again soon, Ruth.”

  Lily finally calmed down after he’d slammed the door and I watched my mum carefully. “Want to talk about it?” I finally asked.

  “I don’t know,” she sounded utterly deflated. “He’s not the kind of man I want in my daughter’s life. I don’t want anyone in my life right now. It was all going so well.”

  I frowned. What was wrong with him? I honestly thought it was a bit understandable that he’d want to see his daughter that he’d apparently only just found out he’d got. I decided it was best not to say that right now, though. “He’d never get full custody of her, whatever the situation,” I tried to assure her. “And he probably wouldn’t bother, right? I mean, he looks too young to actually want to be raising a kid right now.”

  “Hopefully,” she muttered, milling around the kitchen, presumably trying to occupy herself. “I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out. Anyway, how was your day? Anything eventful?”

  I wasn’t going to worry her with all the information I’d actually gotten today. “Nothing,” I smiled innocently at her. I’d find a way to deal with my feelings for Ollie and Meg’s impending drug problem myself.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It wasn't until the end of school the next Monday that I worked up enough courage to speak to Meg.

  "Hey, Meg," I began awkwardly, scratching the back of my head as we lit up. We'd decided to walk home today since the weather was so nice. And Rob apparently lived on the way to my house. "Can I talk to you about something?"

  Meg frowned. "Of course you can," she said as if I was stupid. "You can tell me anything."

  I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I'd been basically going over this moment for the past four days, and I still didn't know how to begin, despite the several hours that I’d spent trawling the internet for ideas when I should have been doing homework. "I'm kind of worried about how much E you're doing," I blurted, really hoping that hadn't been too direct, or anything.

  Her face dropped, though I knew it was the likely response. “Why?” She questioned, managing to keep any anger she probably felt out of her voice.

  “You got high at school, Meg,” I reminded her seriously, unable to meet her gaze. “You know it’s not good for you to be doing it this much. And you’d never have normally done this.”

  She scowled, crossing her arms defensively. “So, what? You think this is because of Rob? Just because you have perfect Mr. Wright doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have someone too.”

  Words died on my tongue. Well, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting. “Ollie and I are far from perfect. We’re far from being anything at all.” It was painful to have to admit. “And no, I don’t think it’s completely to do with Rob.” I couldn’t say that I didn’t think he was a bad influence, because I’d be lying. “I think it has to do with your mum.” I’d refrained from asking recently, so I wasn’t even sure what her condition was.

  “That has nothing to do with anything.” Her voice had dropped cold now. “My mum’s fine.” I highly doubted that from the way she stumbled over the word. “You’re overreacting. Just because you’re being boring doesn’t mean that I’m doing anything wrong. I’m just having fun, Maddie. I’m seventeen. This is what I’m supposed to be doing, not working at a boring restaurant and crushing on my teacher that I can never be with.” That stung.

  “I’m just looking out for you,” I muttered, still hurting from the Ollie comment. Of course I knew we were never going to be together. Somehow that didn’t stop me daydreaming about him leaving Jemma for me at least three times a day. I really was a loser.

  “I don’t need you to babysit me, Maddie,” Meg snapped. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “Right.” I agreed. I was going to have to rethink my approach to this, since it clearly hadn’t worked out so far. “Sorry for mentioning it.”

  Meg let out a groan. “And I’m sorry for being a bitch. I’m just cranky and hungover and on a comedown. I know I’ve been a bit irresponsible lately, but it’s nothing serious, honest. It’s just been coincidence with what my other friends have been doing and the cheap stuff they’ve got in. I’m not an idiot,” she insisted. “And I know the risks. This is the last weekend in a row, I promise. I don’t even feel like doing it again for a while anyway.”

  I forced my mouth curl up in a small smile. “Good,” I responded. “I’m glad.” Meg’s words had stung and I’d probably go home and have a cry about them, but for now there was no point in making anything worse. I didn’t want more insults slung in my direction from my best friend.

  “We should do a movie night soon,” Meg decided. “Me and you and maybe Hannah, depending on what her decision about Mike is. It’ll depend on how interesting her conversations are going to be,” she teased.

  I laughed. “That sounds really awesome,” I stated truthfully. It’d be nice to do something just the three of us that didn’t involve some kind of alcohol. “We’ll talk more about it at school tomorrow.”

  “I’m going this way,” she explained, gesturing down a side road that led onto a cul-de-sac. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And thanks for caring,” Meg beamed, giving me a small wave and setting off in the opposite direction to me.

  I almost whined in annoyance when I got home. It took forever to walk home and now I had to come straight back out with the dog. Only as soon as I got in, my mum was shoving my sister into my arms. “You’re late,” she accused, fretting about and then handing me Lily’s favourite soft toy. “I need you to go and take Lily to your friend’s, or something. Just to anyone’s as long as she’s inside and fine,” she was speaking so fast I could barely understand her. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so long getting home.”

  “What’s going on?” I demanded, my heart rate spiking.

  “Nick is coming round and I’m worried that he’s going to do something stupid like try and take Lily, so I just want her as far away from here as possible.”

  “He’s not going to hurt you, is he?” I was finding myself in somewhat of a panic now, too. This had all suddenly got a lot more intense than I was anticipating. I was expecting a court case at the most, not some kind of attempted kidnapping. “Because if he is then you should be calling the police.”

  “He’s not going to do anything like that,” she dismissed, waving me off and calming down a tad now that Lily was safely in my arms. “He’s just angry about not getting to see his daughter. Go on the bus. Don’t just be walking about. And stay wherever you go until I call you, all right?”

  I nodded, realising that it’d make my mum feel better if I just did what she said. “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll keep my phone next to me and off silent.”

  “Thanks, love,” she offered me a tiny smile and kissed both Lily and I on the cheek. “Be wary on your way there,” she shoved me straight back out the door before I’d even had time to put my bag down.

  Thinking over what she’d said, I figured it would be best to go through the jitty to a different street, so that I wasn’t just sat at the bus stop outside my house. The only problem now was where I was supposed to go. Meg was at Rob’s, so that wasn’t an option, and Hannah lived on the other side of Sheffield. Plus, she was no doubt spending time with Mike.

  Which left Ollie.
>
  It was completely inappropriate and I definitely shouldn’t have gone to his house, but I really couldn’t think of anywhere else. I wasn’t close enough friends with the other people in my year to even know where they lived.

  Entering his apartment block, I finally felt my heart rate slow down a bit. I’d been on edge the whole way here and it had made it worse that Lily only stopped crying when we finally got off the bus. A crying baby was definitely one way to bring attention to myself, especially when everyone assumed I was just a really young parent.

  After double checking my memory that I’d got the right apartment, I gave a soft knock. It would be so embarrassing if I’d gotten this wrong now.

  A frowning Ollie opened the door and his eyes widened when he saw me. “Maddie? What’s wrong?”

  I noticed that Jemma was stood beside him, her shoes on and bag in hand. It looked like she was just leaving and my thought was confirmed by her next words. “I’ll see you later, darling,” she gave him a gentle kiss on the lips and me a distasteful look before pushing past me and strutting down the hallway.

  “See you later,” Ollie called after her, inviting me in and allowing me to sit down on the couch. “So, what’s happened? Why are you and your sister here?”

  “My mum said Lily’s dad was coming around and she didn’t want her around him. She told me to take her to a friend’s house, but Meg is with Rob and Hannah lives really far away.” I glanced away as he took a seat beside me on his extremely comfy couch. “I wouldn’t have come here unless I could think of somewhere else.”

  “It’s fine.” Ollie dismissed. “You think your mum will be all right?”

  I sighed, concentrating on Lily’s happy face as I bounced her up and down on my knee. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, if she was worried about this guy kidnapping Lily, I don’t imagine he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t hurt her.” Surely my mum would do something if it would like that?

  “It’ll be okay,” Ollie assured me, his eyes also studying Lily’s giggling face. She was an extremely cute baby, I had to admit, and she’d reached the age where she was really chubby and just walking around. She couldn’t say many words yet, but she was particularly good at making incoherent noises.

  “You want to hold her?” I asked Ollie cautiously. I didn’t want to make him feel like he had to take her off me, but he looked kind of like he wanted to. Watching him play with a cute baby was likely to take my mind of whatever was happening at home, too.

  He hesitated only briefly before nodding. “Sure.”

  I couldn’t help but watch with an affectionate smile as Ollie interacted with Lily. He chuckled as Lily wrapped her whole hand around one of his fingers, but then let out a heavy sigh. “She is adorable,” he admitted. “But I just really don’t want kids right now.”

  I raised a surprised eyebrow. “Well, yeah, I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re only 24,” I reminded him, as if he was stupid.

  “My family, is, erm, very traditional. They expect me to be married and have kids within the next year, like my perfect brother did.”

  “Ha. Traditional as in they want a perfect family, but not that they want their son to go to Oxford?” I questioned, trying not to sound like I didn’t approve of his parents too much. I didn’t know what his actual opinion of them was and offending Ollie definitely wasn’t my aim.

  “I’m not going to attempt to explain it,” he grumbled. “But yeah, basically.”

  “So that’s why you’re with Jemma,” I predicted. “She’s older than you, right? She’s probably actually ready to settle down.”

  “How did you work that out so quickly?” He whined. “But, yeah, pretty much. I mean, she’s pretty much perfect in that respect. Plus, she has tons of money,” he supplied with a small smirk.

  “It’s a shame she’s not perfect in any of the ways that will actually matter to you,” I retorted before I could stop myself. I felt fairly sure that Ollie didn’t actually care about her that much anyway. “You know you’ll regret it forever if you marry her.”

  He ran the hand that Lily wasn’t clinging to through his curls. “I know,” he conceded. “But what am I supposed to do? I don’t want to let down my parents any more.”

  Frowning, I very much wanted to scoot over and rest my head on his shoulder, though I knew it wasn’t a good idea. “They won’t be disappointed in you,” I spoke as if I knew what I was talking about. “And even if they were, it wouldn’t be worth making yourself really unhappy for.”

  Ollie smirked. “You just want me to break up with Jemma anyway.”

  I flushed. “True, but you know I’m being honest about everything else too. I even tried to give you advice about staying with her, so don’t you dare complain that I’m being selfish.” My voice was bitterer than I’d intended by the end and I glanced away.

  “I’m sorry, Maddie, for asking you for advice. It was really shitty of me.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t care. You couldn’t exactly ask anyone else.”

  “I suppose,” he said, though I was secretly glad he’d actually acknowledged that it was a bit of a dick move, even if I’d had to prompt it. “How long do you think Lily’s dad will be?” He questioned. “We can watch a film, if you want.”

  “I’m not sure, my mum said she’d ring me. I’ve got a feeling she’ll leave it a while to make sure, though. She doesn’t know I’m here, obviously. I’m pretty sure we have time to watch a film.” Maybe we could snuggle, though I was seriously doubtful. I wondered if this meant Ollie was going to break up with Jemma. “But you’re picking,” I quickly stated. I was really bad at making decisions like that. I didn’t like the pressure.

  He pouted, but nodded, handing me back Lily and going to switch the TV on and flick through the movie channels. “You’re not even going to give me a hint on genre? Can we take this as some kind of bonding exercise where you tell me what kind of movies you like?”

  I smirked. “Horror, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea since Lily’s here. I don’t know whether babies are affected by that kind of thing.”

  Ollie shrugged. “I don’t know anything about kids. I’ve kind of put off trying to know anything about them. Plus, I’m not good with children. I always just feel kind of awkward around them, like I’m going to say or do something wrong.”

  “Well, I guess you are a bit creepy,” I teased. “Sleeping with a minor.”

  “Hey!” He countered. “You’re technically not a minor since you’re over 16, right? Like if it weren’t for the teacher thing, it wouldn’t be illegal.”

  I chuckled. “No, you’re good, don’t worry. And just put a comedy on or something,” I suggested. There wasn’t likely to be anything great on the movie channels anyway and Ollie didn’t seem to have any DVDs in plain sight.

  We settled on one of my favourite comedies, much to my delight, and Lily fell asleep almost immediately. “I’m going to go and just lay her on the chair,” I whispered to Ollie. “She’s heavier than I thought.” After putting a cushion in front so that it was almost impossible for her to roll off, I returned to the couch and sat beside Ollie. “I talked to Meg earlier.”

  “Oh, really?” Ollie inquired, keeping his voice as soft as mine. Neither of us wanted to deal with a crying baby. “What did she say? It wasn’t too bad, was it?”

  “Well, after she’d snapped at me a bit, she admitted that I was right and said she didn’t even want to do it again for a while.” A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I still couldn’t quite believe it had been that simple. Part of me knew it hadn’t, but I so desperately wanted everything to just be all right with her. “I think I just overreacted a bit.”

  “Hmm,” he made a non-committal noise. “You should still keep an eye on her. If she was defensive about it at first it might be that she just realised agreeing would keep you off her back.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought. You never know, though, I guess.”

  “Well, you definitely know her
better than I do, so we’ll just wait and see.”

  I was surprised to find myself dozing off halfway through the film. I hadn’t slept very well last night, but that was because I’d started reading a book then not been able to stop. Ollie noticed my drooping eyes and smirked at me. “Tired?”

  “Yes.”

  I raised an eyebrow when he retrieved a cushion and put it on his lap, giving me an amused smirk. “I’ll wake you up if your mum calls.”

  I bit my lip before lying down and allowing my head to rest on the cushion, facing the screen. This had to mean that he was breaking up with Jemma. Though it wasn’t exactly cheating, it was certainly intimate and it wasn’t even fuelled by alcohol or sexual desire this time. Considering how bad he’d felt after Newcastle, he wouldn’t be allowing me to sleep on his lap if he planned on staying with Jemma.