Her Teacher's Temptation

by Vos, Alexandra

  Ollie began running his fingers through my hair and I found myself smiling. “You know, I don’t think I ever want to get married,” I informed him. “I don’t see the point.”

  Though I couldn’t see his face, I could imagine his curious gaze on the back of my head. “How come?”

  “It’s just a waste of money for something that probably isn’t going to last. I always just feel like it’s people trying to prove that they’re in love, or something,” I rolled my eyes at it. Perhaps Ollie did want to get married someday, just not now. “It’s not like there’s any real need to in society anymore.”

  “I can see where you’re coming from.” Ollie agreed. “I mean, if I was with someone I loved who really wanted to get married for some reason, I probably would, but if it wasn’t for my parents expecting me to, I wouldn’t be interested.” Then Ollie chuckled. “What’s made you so against it anyway?”

  I shrugged as best as I could from my position lying down. “I’m not sure if it’s just because marriage has literally never worked out for any of my family, or if it has anything to do with how I’ve never had a proper relationship, or whatever this stupid thing we have going on is.”

  “You know I’d be with you in an instant if it wasn’t for the student teacher thing, right?” Ollie checked seriously, causing me to flush. “I don’t really care about the age thing, even if everyone else thinks it’s creepy or wrong. I’d just have to not tell my parents,” he added with a small chuckle.

  I bit my tongue on a comment that there was less than a year of school left. It wasn’t that long. That would be making too many assumptions. Instead, I smirked slightly. “That’s because it’s not that you think I’m mature, but you just act far younger than your age,” I teased.

  I think we were both glad to move slightly away from the topic of whatever relationship could never happen between us. “I really like your hair,” he commented randomly, running both of his hands through my long, dyed strands and working his way through any knots he encountered. Neither of us were paying any attention to the film at this point.

  “It used to be really short. At the start of sixth form it was practically a bob. It grew faster than I thought it would.”

  “It would have looked nice short,” he decided. “But I like it long a lot.”

  It wasn’t until I felt Ollie fishing around in the pocket of my jeans to find my ringing phone that I realised I must have fallen asleep. He answered it before I’d woken up enough to snatch it from him, though. “Hi, erm, yes, she’s just asleep right now,” I heard him say, though I knew he was trying to be quiet since he thought both my sister and I were asleep. “Oh no, it’s no problem, I can come and drop them off. I have to go out to get something for tea anyway,” he explained. “Okay, erm, bye.”

  I chuckled and buried my face further into Ollie’s stomach, which was where it had ended up in my sleep. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound awkward before,” I teased, my voice slightly smothered before I leaned back and grinned up at him.

  He sighed. “Well, I didn’t exactly know what to say to your mum,” he complained. “Parents evening is going to kill me. I’m giving you a lift home anyway. I’m not sure what you do about Lily though, aren’t you supposed to have like a seat for her?”

  “It’s only a five minute drive from mine to yours.” I told him. “I’m sure it’ll be fine if I have her on my knee. I should probably sit in the back though, just in case the police drive by or something.”

  “Your mum sounded fine, by the way,” Ollie informed me as I climbed into the back of the car, trying not to be too worried about having Lily on my knee. My mum mustn’t have minded since she agreed to let Ollie give me a lift. “Not that I really know what she sounds like normally, I guess.”

  “I hope so,” I replied with a frown. I wasn’t sure how my mum had gotten involved with this guy in the first place, but he definitely didn’t seem like a nice guy. “I’ll ask her about it when I get home. Oh God, please just drive off as soon as I’ve gotten out. There’s no way I’m explaining why I went to my teacher’s house.” It would really have been better if Ollie hadn’t picked me up from my house on the Newcastle trip. Then it wouldn’t have been an issue.

  Ollie smirked. “Yeah, don’t worry, I’m wanting to avoid that conversation as well.”

  As soon as we pulled up outside my house, I gave Ollie a wide smile. “Thanks for letting me stay,” I told him in a rush, warily looking at my door as I undid my seatbelt. Lily was still half asleep so luckily she was just giving me a lazy smile and not crying.

  “Thanks for keeping me company,” Ollie returned with a grin. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow.” As soon as I was out of the car Ollie had driven off, and just in time, too, since my mum opened the door at hearing Lily begin to cry.

  She frowned at the empty space and I shrugged, not bothering to explain why Ollie had driven off so quickly. “Are you okay? What happened?” I checked with her as she ushered me into the house and took my crying sister into her arms, silencing her almost immediately.

  “It was fine,” my mum dismissed, though she didn’t sound overly convincing. “I think I overreacted. Nick waited around for quite a while, he probably realised what I’d done after a while, but I waited ages before calling you too, just in case he was hanging around outside the house. I hope you weren’t burdening your friend, but he sounded nice enough on the phone.”

  “Oh, yeah, he didn’t mind. We both fell asleep anyway, so I don’t think we bothered him,” I laughed. “You’re sure nothing happened? Running away with Lily isn’t going to become a regular thing, is it? Because that’s not going to solve the problem.” I couldn’t just take Lily to Ollie’s every day. It wasn’t realistic.

  “I know,” my mum groaned, putting Lily in her walker and both of us frowning at the irritating song it began playing. “But what else can I do? He hasn’t actually done anything yet, so I can’t go to the police. And I don’t know if he actually will do anything.”

  I sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to see, then,” I acknowledged with a grimace. “But right now I’m starving,” I declared over the sound of my stomach’s loud rumbling. “I’m going to make some food.” I should have just told Ollie to go and pick up takeaway for us on the way home. I’d give anything for some fish and chips right about now, or a greasy kebab.

  Because for all the time we spent together, we seemed to admit something more about our feelings for each other and I couldn’t help but love it. It only spurred on the unrealistic daydreams that were distracting me so much from my lessons at the moment. It was only when I was actually in Ollie’s lesson and I was focused on his sexy accent and surprisingly good teaching that I seemed to learn anything at school any more.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My face paled and I knew my mouth was hanging open unattractively as I walked into Ollie’s classroom, my feet failing for a moment and causing Meg to give me a gentle shove from behind.

  One side of Ollie’s face was covered in a purple bruise that was centred around a black eye. I had to really bite my tongue to not rush up to him and demand what had happened in a very un-studentlike way. Instead, I watched him carefully as he refused to look up from the essays he was grading as more pupils walked in. My mind was whirring as to what could have happened to him.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long to find out, since some of the other students weren’t afraid to ask. “What happened to your face, Mr. Wright?” Nina, a girl who normally sat at the back of the classroom questioned in a sympathetic voice as soon as she walked into the room. “It looks sore.”

  He shrugged and offered her a small smile, then tried to hide his flinch at the apparent pain it caused. “I fell down the stairs,” he supplied before returning to his marking.

  I frowned. I was fairly sure that Ollie didn’t use the stairs in his apartment block considering how my floors up he lived. Maybe he’d just been mugged and thought t
hat was too embarrassing to admit, or something.

  “It really does look painful,” Meg commented to me in low tones. “Do you think he’s all right? He looks kind of upset.”

  “It’s probably because it’s embarrassing to have to teach with a bruised face.” I’d definitely be staying after class to find out what had really happened. “Oh, and do you want to do movie night this Friday? It should be fun.”

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Meg agreed with a grin, both of us putting Ollie’s injured face to the back of our mind for a moment. “We can ask Hannah at lunch, she’ll probably be glad to stop thinking about her apparent boyfriend problems too.”

  The lesson went awfully slowly. Ollie wasn’t in his usual teaching mood and left us to get started on writing our coursework. I was too preoccupied with wanting to know the truth behind his injuries to concentrate on Shakespeare, though, and found myself watching him with a worried frown for most of my time.

  Even Meg looked slightly concerned, but that was probably just because the attractive view we normally got had been spoiled slightly. Or because she knew how affected I was. “I’m just going to stay and ask Mr. Wright something.”

  “Obviously,” Meg chuckled. “I’ll go and ask Hannah about Friday. See you in the dinner hall!” She called as I stopped at my desk and she exited the room.

  Ollie looked like he really didn’t want to talk to me when I hovered around his desk after everyone had left. A couple of girls came and said they hoped he’d get better soon and he thanked them with tight smiles, but he didn’t bother to hide his grim expression when we were alone.

  I sat myself on the edge of a desk tentatively and considered what I should say. “What actually happened?” I finally inquired quietly.

  He sighed. “What makes you think I wasn’t telling the truth?”

  “You don’t have stairs.”

  “Well, maybe it was Jemma’s stairs?” He suggested.

  “I don’t believe it was from falling down the stairs,” I made clear when he finally looked up at me to scowl.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Can’t you just leave it?”

  I sighed. “But,” I bit my lip. Was it wrong for me to just say that I cared? I didn’t like seeing Ollie hurt and the way he was avoiding talking about it now made me think there was something I should know. “If you want,” I finally submitted. Maybe it would be better to wait until he wasn’t so angry.

  “Look, if I tell you, please don’t feel bad, or anything,” he blurted, causing my face to fall. Now I had a fairly good idea of exactly what had happened, and his next sentence only reassured me further. “I’m only telling you so you know to be careful.”

  “It was Nick, wasn’t it?” I checked, my gaze falling downcast as I pulled my knees to my chest, not really caring that I was probably showing Ollie my pants due to wearing the stupid school uniform.

  “I told you not to feel bad,” he complained. “It’s not a big deal, honestly. My face will heal and go back to being just as handsome as ever. But, yeah, when I went home yesterday him and his friend were waiting for me and they told me to never hide his daughter from him again and then they kicked me about a bit. It’s fine, Maddie.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears gathering in my eyes, though. Ollie had been injured because of me. And from the way he said it, I had to presume it wasn’t just his face that was bruised. Ollie’s hands appeared on either side of my face as they cupped my cheeks. “It’s okay, Maddie,” he assured me, glancing towards the door to make sure no one was around before embracing me in a quick hug. “I’m fine.”

  “But you got hurt because of me,” I returned, my voice catching. “And it’s not like they just gave you a warning or something, they actually hurt you.”

  He pulled back and leaned on the wall opposite me, because someone was bound to walk past the classroom eventually and I definitely wasn’t supposed to be hugging my teacher. “It’s not a big deal,” Ollie attempted to convince me again. “It looks worse than it is, and I’m not really that bothered as long as they didn’t hurt you.”

  “What if they do it again? If he’s willing to do that to you, then what happens if he actually takes my sister?”

  “I don’t know. You should probably warn your mum that her fears weren’t exactly unjustified.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, continuing to wipe my eyes where the tears just didn’t seem to stop coming. I refused to all out sob. “You don’t think they’ll say anything to you again, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Ollie replied immediately, filled with far too much false confidence. “Stop worrying and stop feeling bad. It’s not your fault.”

  “Well, it basically is. I’m the one who was stupid enough to come to your apartment when I knew it was someone who was willing to kidnap my sister. I don’t know why it didn’t even cross my mind that they’d be willing to beat someone up too. I should have just gone to Costa or something like a normal person. Then nothing would have gone wrong.”

  “You couldn’t have possibly known,” he told me, looking very much like he wanted to hug me again. “But I have news that might cheer you up!” He announced with a large grin, before flinching at the pain in his face, which caused my eyebrows to knit even closer together.

  “Go on,” I prompted, genuinely curious about this.

  “I broke up with Jemma. I think it was worth getting beat up just to get rid of her.”

  I couldn’t help my smile. “That does make me feel a bit better.”

  “Thanks for helping me realise what an awful decision I was making,” Ollie acknowledged with a weak smile. “I think I’ll just not mention this to my parents for a while, or something.”

  Despite me being happy that I no longer had to endure seeing Jemma and Ollie at the restaurant together, it didn’t really make me feel any better about the fact I’d gotten Ollie beaten up or the fact I couldn’t be with him.

  He sighed. “Well, at least I cheered you up for a little bit. And you stopped crying,” he noticed, approaching me again and wiping what I assumed was runny black from under my eyes.

  I chuckled, moving my own fingers to my eyes despite not being able to see.

  “Hey, erm,” Ollie scratched the back of his head slightly awkwardly and I raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you want my number, in case anything with that dickhead happens? I mean, I know you don’t have a car so I can pick you up or anything if something happens.” It was kind of cute how Ollie would repeat words and slip away from the extended vocabulary of an English teacher when he asked me something slightly embarrassing.

  I bit the inside of my mouth on a cheeky response and chose to just accept it. “Sure,” I agreed, allowing him to type his number into my phone, unable to stop myself smiling when he handed it back. “I’m going to go and see Meg and Hannah, or they’ll wonder what’s taking me so long.” It was more Hannah than Meg, since she still had no idea about Ollie and who he really was, other than my insanely attractive English teacher.

  ***

  “Mum!” I called as soon as I’d walked through the door, angrily striding into the house and going in search of her. It didn’t take me long, though, because she was sat in the living room and fixing me with a curious glance. “He beat up my friend, mum,” I informed her, my hands shaking slightly. I’d managed to contain my rage with the distractions of school, but on the bus home, I’d been allowed to sit and mull over how unfair it was that Ollie had been attacked.

  Her eyes widened. “What? What happened?”

  “He beat up my friend,” I repeated. “Him and a friend waited for Ollie to go back home and they attacked him.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I had no idea he’d do anything like that,” she exclaimed, getting to her feet and approaching me warily. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Maybe you should call the police,” I suggested in a flat tone. “He’s assaulted someone and you think he’s going to kidnap your daughter. Isn’t that enough?”

  She sighed and ave
rted her eyes. “I don’t know, sweetie. What did they say to your friend?”

  Scowling, I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean? What could possibly be stopping you wanting to just get rid of this guy? Unless-” my vision locked onto the small purple mark that was barely visible on my mum’s wrist. It was absolutely a finger bruise from where someone had been grabbing her. “He’s hit you?” I demanded. “He hurt you too, didn’t he?”

  My mum wasn’t even facing me now and had chosen to stare out of the window instead. “It’s not a big deal, Maddie,” she told me in a stern voice. “Just leave it.”

  I threw my hands up in anger. “You can’t let him get away with this!” I exclaimed. “Surely this is double the reason to go to the police. This is abuse, mum. You can’t just ignore it. It’s not just going to go away.”

  She rounded on me. “Do you think I don’t know that? But what do you expect me to do? Go to the police and then have him just get really angry and do something worse than slapping me about a bit? Because I’d rather just deal with it being small, like it is now.”