Her Teacher's Temptation

by Vos, Alexandra

  Grinning, I nodded. I knew what he meant. The high was wearing off slightly by now and I wanted to make the most of having Ollie to myself. “Sure. You’re staying with Rob tonight, right?” I checked with Meg. “You weren’t planning on staying at mine or anything?”

  “No, that’s cool,” Meg gave a tinkly laugh. “Have fun.”

  Ollie and I shared a smirk. We would definitely be having fun.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A scowling Meg slouched into the seat beside me. I gave her a wary sideways glance. “You okay?” I checked, hoping I didn’t say anything to provoke her apparent annoyance ever further.

  “Just hungover and on a come down,” Meg explained, burying her face in her hands and groaning loudly. We were a bit early so there were only a few other people in the classroom so far. Ollie was nowhere to be seen. “Feeling rough,” she clarified.

  It was a good job that Meg was too busy scrubbing at her eyes to notice my immediate scowl. Meg had said she wasn’t interested in doing drugs again for a while - I’d really hoped she was telling the truth. Evidently Ollie had been right in thinking she’d just been saying it to appease me. “I thought you didn’t want to do any E for a bit,” I reminded her, twirling a piece of hair around my fingers. I wasn’t sure when I’d become scared of what I said around her.

  “I hadn’t done it for a while. I hadn’t done any since that party in half term,” she dismissed easily.

  I sent her a flat look. “Two and a half weeks isn’t ‘a while’,” I assured her sceptically. “You know it’s supposed to be two or three months between taking it.”

  “Oh come on, you know that’s excessive. It’s just to scaremonger, or whatever.” I wasn’t sure whether Meg actually believed that or not. If she did, then it really was a serious problem.

  “Not really,” I argued. “I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t say it on like every website you checked if it was wrong.”

  Meg unleashed a full glare on me, which was only amplified by the black bags under her eyes. “Stop being so bitchy about it. It’s not a big deal, okay? And besides, it’s my life, not yours. Stop pretending to be so self-righteous.”

  My eyes widened and I was stunned into silence. “Okay,” I agreed quietly. Clearly I wasn’t going to accomplish anything here other than to provoke Meg even more. When it came to this situation, I was never sure what to do. My mind went blank on normal conversation, so it was hard for me to even pull us out of this argument. “I got an offer from Newcastle,” I supplied with a small smile.

  “Oh, well done you.” I was shocked my Meg’s sarcastic and bitter tone. “Congrats. Obviously you were going to get all your offers. I bet you haven’t already been rejected from two unis like someone.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I’d apparently made another mistake, then. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.” Meg was hardly stupid and she got fairly good grades last year - I wasn’t sure what would make universities reject her. “Which ones?”

  “St. Andrews and Bristol,” she supplied, before sighing. “It’s not even that I particularly wanted to go to those ones, it’s just a bit demoralising, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I agreed. I hadn’t applied to anywhere that required super high grades or an interview like I knew both of those universities did (Newcastle was nowhere near as high up on the league tables), which was probably why I’d gotten an offer already. “You’ll definitely get an offer from Nottingham, though.” That was where Meg had her heart set on.

  “I really hope so,” she muttered. “Otherwise I don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

  I was on the verge of getting it over and done with and asking Meg how her mum was doing when Ollie entered the classroom and told us to get our texts out. I’d ask another time. In the classroom probably wasn’t the best place anyway since it was such a sensitive topic.

  Ollie was slightly off his game today, and I frowned as tried to concentrate on what he was saying. The fact that he was so obviously preoccupied with something else meant that I was automatically not focusing on the lesson as my mind raced with possibilities.

  The first was that he’d met a girl who he liked and she was occupying his mind. I attempted to dismiss this, though - I was just being irrational, as I tended to be when it came to Ollie. I was kind of stumped when it came to anything else, though. There was always the chance it was something to do with his parents, since they might be pressuring him after breaking up with Jemma. Or maybe Jemma herself was doing something to irritate him. Perhaps Nick was back and had threatened him to get around my dad. I frowned at that idea. Surely if it was something like that then he’d tell me.

  But despite how insanely curious I was, I knew I couldn’t stay at the end of the lesson to find out. After the party we’d made a firm agreement to stay away from each other and I was really doing my best to honour it. We had to acknowledge that it was for the best, no matter how depressing.

  I was therefore incredibly surprised when Ollie asked me to stay back at the end of the lesson. I’d given up on talking to Meg about my Ollie issues. It had gotten too personal for me to joke about it any longer without feeling sad, so she continued to think that there was something going on and didn’t look at all shocked by Ollie’s request.

  It must just be something to do with my last essay, I decided. It had been an awkward question and I knew my writing hadn’t been particularly good. My lack of concentration in his lessons was starting to actually have an impact.

  “What’s up?” I inquired with a frown after everyone had filtered out of the room and just the two of us were left. “Was my essay really that bad?”

  “What? Your essay was fine. It wasn’t your best, but it was still good. That isn’t why I asked you to stay behind.”

  My eyebrows knitted closer together. So this was a non-school related thing. He’d broken our agreement first and that had me smiling inside. “What’s up, then?” I inquired hesitantly. It was bound to be bad news.

  Ollie shifted awkwardly on the spot for a moment, so I took that time to sit atop one of the front desks. We were apparently going to be here for a while. “I have a really big favour to ask.”

  It turned out that Ollie’s puppy eyes were far better and more effective than mine. I was fairly sure he could have asked me anything and I would have agreed just from the look he was giving me. “Sure, what is it?”

  After running a hand through his thick curls, Ollie rushed his words together. “My cousin is getting married next weekend and my mum says that I have to bring a date and since I messed it up with Jemma I don’t really have anyone to ask. I’ll buy you a dress and everything. Please?”

  I found myself laughing. Ollie was just too cute when he was being this nervous. “I’ll come with you,” I assured him, before pausing and biting the inside of my cheek. “This kind of goes against everything we agreed on, though.” I had to remind him, no matter how much I wanted to just roll with it.

  “I know,” he agreed, sighing lightly. “But this is the last time, I promise. It’s just this is a pretty big deal to my parents and they’ll be really mad if I don’t bring anyone now.”

  “I would have said yes without the dress thing, I don’t mind buying my own clothes.” I assured him.

  Ollie waved me off. “I want to,” he assured me. “It’s at a pretty fancy place so I don’t want you to have to pay loads for a dress you’ll probably only wear once.”

  I considered my response briefly. “Okay, but as long as you're going to come shopping with me and not expect me to just give you a receipt.” The knowledge that I was just wanting to spend time with him was obvious to the both of us, but thankfully he didn't bother to question it.

  “That was what I was going to suggest anyway. So I'm glad we've got a deal. We'll have to go somewhere like Nottingham where we're not going to see anyone, though.”

  “I don't mind.” That just meant we got to spend lots of time together in the car, too. “Do you really think your mother is goin
g to approve of me?” I was forced to inquire sceptically. From what I'd heard about his parents, I wasn't exactly the ideal fit for Ollie right now. I certainly wasn't ready to get married. Plus, it was slightly illegal.

  Ollie ran a hand through his hair and avoided my eyes slightly. “Well, obviously I'm not going to be telling anyone you're my student and we're only going as friends, but I might tell everyone you're a couple of years older than you actually are,” he confessed with a small blush. “Like, nineteen maybe? I think you could pass for that.”

  I chuckled. “That's what I figured” I understood that it was for the best – not only for him but for me too, so that his parents wouldn't just automatically dismiss me as being not good for Ollie. “Just text me the date and stuff closer to the time,” then I smirked, “and looking around to see which city has the best dress shops.”

  Ollie rolled his eyes slightly. “Of course.”

  I gnawed on my lip slightly before speaking again. If we were going to be going to a wedding together, then there was no reason I wasn't allowed to ask him for advice now. “Meg's still doing drugs a lot. I don't know what I can do about it. She got really mad with me for mentioning it again. I think I have to ask her about her mum.”

  Ollie pondered this. “Maybe that's what's wrong. Maybe she just needs someone to talk about her mum to, you know? Instead of just bottling it up, or whatever.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “I wasn't sure whether it was better to just avoid it and try not to remind her of it or to talk about it.”

  “I don't think she'd be being so irresponsible if it wasn't on her mind most of the time.”

  “I suppose I have kind of been selfishly avoiding talking about it because it's awkward.” My face fell completely. How else was Meg supposed to deal with it if her best friend was being useless and patronising rather than actually helpful?

  “It's not your fault,” Ollie quickly assured me. “It might not even be true, but I think you should at least try talking to her. It might help.”

  “I guess so,” I allowed. “Thanks, I'll talk to her soon,” I tried to promise myself. I was so bad in these situations, though. I tended to put the talking thing off as long as possible. “I'm going to go and get some food,” I told him, grateful that my stomach hadn't made any embarrassing noises yet considering how hungry I was. “Send me the details soon.”

  “Sure thing.” As I was about to exit the room, though, Ollie began speaking again. “And it's less of a wedding and more of a whole weekend in the middle of Cornwall where they're getting married,” he rushed out. “But you already agreed, so I'm taking your word for it now.”

  I gawked and he gave me an impish grin. Well, that was certainly likely to be more interesting than the few hours I'd been anticipating.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You like this one?” I spun around so that Ollie could see the formal cream dress from every angle. “Please tell me this one is okay.” We’d been wandering around various shops for at least two hours now and found nothing. And there were an awful lot of shops in Nottingham.

  Ollie rubbed a hand against his stubble as he considered it. “Spin again,” I was instructed.

  I did as I was told and smoothed out the relatively tight dress to make sure it was perfect. I actually liked this one, I had to admit. Whilst it was tight, it was also close to knee length and showing only the smallest amounts of cleavage. It was classy, which couldn’t be said about the majority of dresses I owned.

  “I like it,” Ollie acknowledged critically, before grinning. “It’s really nice.”

  My expression mirrored his. “Great. And I even have some shoes that go with it, which means I’m not going to have to drag you around more shops.”

  “That’s good, then. It’s not too expensive, right?” He checked, pulling a sudden face. On our journey around the various shops in the city we’d gone in a couple of boutiques that had dresses we couldn’t afford if we piled all our money together.

  I strained to check the price tag, but couldn’t quite reach it. Ollie moved closer and pulled back the material, fingers brushing ever so slightly against the skin of my back and causing me to shiver. There was no way I was going to last a whole weekend if such a simple gesture had this much of an impact on me. “It’s fine, it’s not too expensive,” he assured me, though I’d make sure to check when I took it off that it wasn’t anything extravagant.

  “So, since you’ve been particularly lacking in information so far, are you going to tell me about this wedding whilst we go and get food?” I demanded teasingly. “I’m really starving. Shopping stresses me out. Let’s get McDonald’s.”

  “There’s not really much else to tell. We’re supposed to go down on the Friday after school, it’ll probably take the rest of the day to drive there, since it takes like five hours,” we both groaned at the idea. And I thought driving to Newcastle was tedious. “Then there’s just a dinner and everyone can kind of do what they want on Saturday. The wedding is Sunday morning and we drive home in the evening. It might end up being pretty late.” He admitted. “Most of my family are staying Sunday night apart from my brother and us, because we have work.”

  “It does sound pretty fun,” I had to admit. “Annabel is going, right? And how well do you know this cousin?”

  “I saw her a lot when we were growing up, but not much since I went to Oxford. I’m actually quite looking forward to seeing her again,” He admitted as we wandered along the streets hoping we’d come across a McDonalds. Neither of us knew our way around Nottingham. “And yeah, Annabel is going, so at least I’m not going to be stuck with you all weekend,” he shot me a breathtaking grin. “Just stay away from my parents.”

  I raised a slight eyebrow. “You don’t think they’re going to be too unimpressed with me, do you?” I checked sceptically.

  Ollie shook his head immediately. “No, it’ll be fine. I’m only messing with you. I mean, they’ll probably be too busy with Laura anyway, I think they still see her often.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure that would be true, but then again, if we were just going as friends then it wouldn’t really matter anyway. I was technically his date, but he was going to assure everyone that I was filling in for the weekend. “Oh sweet, we found it quicker than I was expecting,” I commented, pushing open the door to the relatively quiet building. Since we’d promised not to quit shopping until we’d found a dress, it meant we were eating in between meal times.

  After getting our food, I insisted we sit on one of the high chairs. They’d always been my favourite, ever since I was little, but normally it was too busy to get them. I wasn’t going to voice my reasoning, though, Ollie might decide I really was too childish and refuse to speak to me again. “I got some more uni offers.” I made conversation, becoming instantly paranoid about how disgusting I might be eating in front of Ollie. “From York and Leeds.”

  Ollie grinned. “Well done,” he congratulated. It always gave me a warm fuzzy feeling when Ollie was proud of me.

  “Whoa!” A familiar voice greeted my ears. “Maddie! What the hell?”

  My cheeks flamed and Ollie shifted uncomfortably as Hannah materialised beside me. “Hey Hannah,” I greeted her with a visible wince. I resisted the urge to frown when I noticed that Mike was stood beside her. Wasn’t she supposed to have broken up with him at least two weeks ago?

  Hannah gestured between Ollie and I wildly, demanding answers with her disbelieving splutter. “What?” She finally managed to demand.

  “Erm…” I considered my next words carefully. More because Mike was stood right there rather than because of Hannah. “I’m just friends with Ollie’s sister and she invited me to this wedding and told Ollie that he had to buy me a dress and stuff,” I explained. Maybe Hannah wouldn’t even mention the fact he was my teacher in front of Mike.

  Hannah looked disbelieving. “When did all of this occur?” She questioned, her tone almost amusingly condescending. This definitely wasn’t the time to laugh, though. I
’d kept this from Hannah too long for it be amusing by now.

  “I met Annabel when we went to Newcastle for the writing thing and we just kept in touch,” I explained, which was partly true. I had added her on Facebook at least, even if we hardly ever spoke. “Then she needed someone to come to this wedding with her since all her other friends are going to some festival thing.” I wasn’t sure what festivals would be going on in winter, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

  The look Hannah gave me made it clear I would be giving her the full story later, but I didn’t mind that, it was what I wanted more than anything. Mike looked less than satisfied with any of this, though. “What’s the big deal?” He butted in.

  “He’s her teacher!” Hannah exclaimed without the slightest hesitation. I wanted to whack her round the forehead.

  Mike’s eyes widened comedically before changing into an expression that gave away just how much he was judging me right now. “You’re involved with your teacher?” He questioned disbelievingly.