Then he stepped closer and pushed a loose strand of my hair back behind my ear. “I love your hair,” he said.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “It’s ridiculously untamable.”
“That’s what I like about it.”
Kiss me! I wanted to scream at him because the anticipation was just about killing me. “Are you ever going to kiss me?” I asked, breathless.
His eyes drifted to mine, crinkles at the corners as he smiled. “I’ll get there. I just wanted to savor the moment. I want to remember every second of the first time I kiss you.”
“That is so dorky,” I said. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t dorky at all. It was so incredibly romantic, it felt like my heart was going to burst from romanticness.
“Well if you don’t hurry up, Jared, I may die of old age before that ever happens.”
He cocked his head at that.
“What now?” I asked, exasperated.
“You called me Jared. I wasn’t even sure you knew my name.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d used his first name. My face heated up, which was stupid, I mean, it was just his name. “I read your memoir. I watched your show. Of course I know your name.”
“So why use it now?”
The smile left my face because nothing seemed funny anymore. “Everything’s different now. You’re different to me now. I think I should be on a first name basis with a guy who kisses me. If it ever happens, which I’m starting to seriously doubt.”
He didn’t answer, but stepped closer. His eyes were intent on mine, his pupils huge as he stared down at me. “I can’t believe I’m going to kiss you: Seychelles. After all this time, it’s finally going to happen,” he whispered, making my heart stutter around in my chest.
“Are you? Or are you just going to talk about it forever?”
Then, without another word, his big palms were on my face and his lips were pressed to mine. My hands moved to his chest and I felt him trembling beneath my fingers. I inhaled and smelled his cologne and felt surrounded by him and it felt good. Safe. Comfortable. Like he knew me. And I wanted him to.
Then he moved his lips against mine and it felt a lot more than just comfortable. He groaned against my mouth and licked my bottom lip. “God, Chelly, I...” he whispered, but then didn’t finish, the kiss taking over. His hands moved, his fingers twining in my hair as he gently pulled me closer to him until our bodies were pressed together.
It was good. No. More than good; amazing the way we fit together perfectly. And his lips, his tongue, God, I could really get used to kissing Jared Abramovich.
Finally, we parted, breathless, and I wondered just how long it would be until we could do that again.
“So?” he said, looking down at my mouth as though he was wondering the same thing. “Your conclusions?”
“Well,” I said, clearing my throat and giving him an assessing look. “We’re definitely going to do that again. But as for the overall experiment, I’d say that it was quite successful. My conclusion is that you totally have a shot with me. More than a shot, actually. In fact, I think we owe it to the experiment to take our findings and start being a couple immediately.”
He grinned and I couldn’t help myself; I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me.
“I freaking love science,” he said just before I kissed him.
False Positives
Monday morning, we were back in physics class and while I prayed for Mr. Stratton to return, I wasn’t surprised when a new teacher who definitely wasn’t him came in and set his briefcase on the desk.
I sighed.
“When is Mr. Stratton coming back?” Emmie said.
Felicia, the girl on the other side of her spoke up. “Didn’t you hear?”
My ears perked up at that and I looked over at Felicia. “Hear what?”
She glanced down at the front of the room, but the teacher was still getting himself sorted. She leaned closer to Emmie and me. “I heard from Andrea Gant that she was in the office the other day and heard Mrs. Andrews talking on the phone. Apparently she was telling someone he hit on a student and got fired.”
My mouth went instantly dry.
“What?” Emmie asked. “That can’t be true.”
Felicia nodded earnestly. “She swears that’s what she heard.”
“What student?” I asked, my voice cracking, so I coughed to cover it up.
She shrugged. “She didn’t hear that part. We figure it must be a senior. I mean, he wouldn’t be interested in someone really young, would he?” She cringed. “Sucks. I always liked him. I never would have thought he was that kind of teacher, even if he’s young and hot.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said, the wheels turning inside my brain. What really happened? I knew it had something to do with me—it was too much of a coincidence for it not to be related—but how? What was going on?
Felicia shrugged and opened her mouth to say something, but the new physics teacher cleared his throat and introduced himself.
“Good morning, girls. I’m Mr. Moore and I will be your physics teacher for the rest of the term.”
A rumble went through the classroom as we all realized that meant Mr. Stratton wasn’t coming back. Mr. Moore took a stack of papers out of his briefcase and handed them to Naomi, who was sitting rigidly in the front row.
“Please hand those out,” he said to her and then looked out at the class. “This is an updated syllabus for the remainder of the term. Once everyone has a copy, we’ll go over it.”
“I can’t believe Mr. Stratton is gone,” I said.
“Something’s fishy,” Emmie said. “He would never hit on a student.”
“Who?” Naomi said as she got to us. She put a page on each of our desks, moving slowly.
“Mr. Stratton,” Felicia whispered. “Apparently he hit on a student but we don’t know who.”
Naomi glanced at me but then she quickly turned back to Felicia. “It doesn’t matter who it was. That he preyed on a vulnerable girl is all that matters. I’m glad he’s gone,” she said with a huff.
“Miss,” the teacher called out. “Pass out the papers, please. Talk on your own time.”
I stared at Naomi as she continued down the row of desks. She knew something.
But what?
~ ♥ ~
At the end of class, I jumped out of my seat and cornered her at her desk before she could escape.
“We need to talk,” I said, grabbing her arm and tugging her toward the hallway once she got her backpack over her shoulder.
She didn’t say anything or resist, so it was obvious she knew what this was about. My first instinct was to take her into the bathroom, but that would be the busiest place in between periods, so instead, I dragged her into a maintenance closet.
I flicked on the light and my fear that she knew something was confirmed when she looked at me with sympathy in her eyes and said, “I didn’t tell anyone it was you, but are you okay?”
Crap. “You didn’t tell anyone what was me?”
She frowned. “That you’re the student Mr. Stratton kissed.”
I exhaled and closed my eyes. This can’t be happening, but when I opened my eyes up again, she was still there staring at me. It was so happening.
“Naomi,” I said. “What did you do?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, like she was confused about why I might be mad. “I...I told the dean that he made an inappropriate advance on you.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” I asked. “Why would you go to the dean before confirming with me what you saw?”
She blinked several times at me before speaking. “I...know what I saw. I didn’t want you to have to feel ashamed of what happened. I thought if I told the dean and she took care of it, you wouldn’t feel...”
“Naomi,” I said, interrupting. “You didn’t see him kissing me.”
“Chelly, I...”
“I kissed him. Do you understand? I ma
de an inappropriate advance on him. Did you not see that?”
Her eyes went really wide. “I...”
“What a mess,” I said. “We have to go to the dean and get this straightened out.”
Naomi seemed to pull herself together in that second, her spine going rigid. “Chelly, I know you think you kissed him, but he’s your teacher. A man in a position of authority. He pressured you into it.”
“Are you cracked? He didn’t pressure me into anything. I kissed him. He pushed me away. I begged him not to tell the dean.”
“Because you didn’t want him to get fired.”
Are you listening at all? “Because I didn’t want her to call my father.”
“Chelly, I know you put on a big show a lot of the time, but I know deep down you’re not like that. It was wrong of him to take advantage of you.”
All I could do was stare at my roommate, incredulous that she wasn’t listening. At. All.
“Never mind,” I said reaching for the door.
“Chelly, I’m trying to help. He shouldn’t be a teacher at this school if he’s going to prey on girls.”
I managed to bite my tongue, knowing no matter what I said, she wasn’t going to listen anyway. “Later,” I said and left her there in the closet.
Time to go see the dean.
~ ♥ ~
It was probably only about three minutes that I had to wait, but it was enough to send my heart racing because I had no idea how this was going to go down, but there was a good chance that I was going to be in capital T trouble. Big Trouble.
Although now it made sense that I hadn’t gotten into trouble before. The dean thought I was the victim and was giving me a safe way to open up to her if I wanted.
God, I felt like such a horrible person. I’d gotten a teacher—a good teacher—fired because I’d been stupid. Well, and because Naomi had been stupid, too, but I’d deal with her later.
“She’ll see you now,” Mrs. Andrews said, making me startle because I’d been so tight in my own head, I’d forgotten she was even there.
“Thanks,” I said, standing up and taking a deep breath as I approached the dean’s door.
I knocked twice and reached for the handle when I heard the muffled, “Come in.”
“Ms. Spencer,” she said, waving toward one of her chairs.
I was too nervous to sit; I shook my head. “If it’s okay with you, ma’am, I’d rather stand.”
Her eyebrows rose, but she didn’t say anything, just nodded as she waited for me to begin. Her jaw was set, but her eyes were full of sympathy, which was kind of nice. That’ll change in about two seconds, I thought.
No point putting it off. I took a deep breath and forced the words out that I’d been rehearsing in my head for the last several minutes. “It’s come to my attention that you were told about an incident involving Mr. Stratton and me.”
She just stared at me, obviously waiting for my point, so I went on. “Naomi got it wrong.”
The eyebrows went up again, but still no words came out of her mouth.
I swallowed and then blurted it out. “I was the one to kiss Mr. Stratton. Not the other way around.”
My knees suddenly felt like they were going to buckle, so I dropped into the chair I’d initially refused.
“What are you saying?” the dean asked.
“He did nothing wrong. I was the one to kiss him. Out of the blue.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Has he been in contact with you?”
“No,” I said. “I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since that day. Naomi must have seen us and misunderstood the situation.”
Without another word, the dean turned toward the computer on her desk and started typing.
What is she doing? I thought. Is she updating her blog or something?
But then it became crystal clear and I wished she had been updating her blog. “I am looking at your current marks and I see that you are and have been a solid B minus student. Except for physics, where I see you recently got one-hundred percent on a test.”
At first I thought she meant I had cheated and then I realized what she was really saying; that I had bought my mark with favors.
I was suddenly angry on several levels. “I studied for that test. Really hard.”
“You don’t need to cover for him. What he did was inappropriate at best and illegal at worst. Having met your father, I understand your wanting to improve your marks and I do not tolerate any kind of untoward behavior toward my girls.”
The dean looked so mad I swear she was just about ready to froth at the mouth. It was intimidating, but I quickly realized she wasn’t angry with me. She was angry at Mr. Stratton and what she thought he’d done to me.
“Dean Haywood,” I said. “I understand why you’re angry. But I promise you, Naomi was wrong.”
“She said she saw him kissing and pawing at you.”
Pawing at me? That must have been when he was pushing me away. “He wasn’t kissing and pawing me.”
She screwed up her face in confusion. “What could she possibly mistake for kissing?”
I sighed and looked down at my hands as I smoothed out my kilt along my thighs. “I kissed him.”
“Because he asked you to.”
“No,” I said, getting angry. “Because I was stupid and he was comforting me after...after what had happened at the talent show. And it just happened. I shouldn’t have, it just happened.”
I could feel her gaze on me but I was so ashamed of what I’d done that I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. That I’d gotten him fired made it a thousand times worse.
“You don’t need to cover for him, Seychelles.”
Oh. My. God. My hands fisted as my frustration threatened to boil over. “I’m not covering for him. I kissed him. Did you even ask him what happened or did you just assume what Naomi said was true?”
She looked offended when she said, “Of course I asked him what happened. I’m not a dictator.”
“So how is any of this happening? He had to have denied it.”
She looked at me pointedly and shook her head. “On the contrary. When I confronted him, he admitted that he’d kissed you and he agreed to leave quietly so there would be no press.”
“What? How could he say that?”
“Ms. Spencer, I understand that you girls seem to all have something of a crush on Mr. Stratton; he’s certainly young and handsome and I worried about that when I hired him. But please don’t feel you need to defend him or his behavior. What he did was indefensible.”
Knowing I wasn’t going to get any further with the dean, I nodded and asked to be dismissed.
As I left her office, I just couldn’t get over all this. Why would he lie? Why would he admit he’d kissed me when that was the exact opposite of what had happened? Why would he do that when he had to know it would cost him his job?
There was only one answer I could think of: he was protecting me. And to think, I’d assumed I couldn’t feel any worse about all this. So wrong.
As I walked down the quiet hall to join my next class, I had an idea. And I sure hoped it worked, because it was my last chance to fix this.
I took my cell out of my jacket pocket and scrolled through the address book until I found the number I was looking for. I hit it and held my breath for the three rings it took to get an answer.
“I need your help.”
Defend Your Findings
We all sat in the dean’s office—me, the dean, my father, Mr. Stratton and Naomi (I’d insisted she be there)—and I swear I’d never been more nervous in my entire freaking life.
Surprisingly, my father began, his stern but even lawyer voice making my insides quiver. “My daughter tells me there’s been a misunderstanding about something that happened.”
I chanced at glance at Mr. Stratton, who also looked very nervous. And a lot younger than usual.
“Sir,” he said, but my father waved him off.
“I want Seychelles to speak first.” He
turned to me. “Go ahead.”
“Dean Haywood,” I began. “I know you don’t believe me, but um...I acted completely on my own when I...” I glanced at my father and then back to the dean. “Kissed Mr. Stratton. It was stupid and impulsive and I was feeling very vulnerable at the time and he was just being a nice person. A nice teacher and I misunderstood or was projecting my own feelings or something. I don’t know...anyway, he didn’t give me any reason to do it, I just did.”
I took a breath, but I wasn’t done. Now that the hard part was out, I wanted to say my piece. “When it happened, he pushed me away really quickly and wanted to come tell you right away but I begged him not to. I didn’t want...well, this to happen.” I looked at my father. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re disappointed in me and I...” the tears came then and I looked down at my lap, trying to get a hold of myself.
“Is this true?” the dean asked, making me lift my eyes, but when I did, I realized she was talking to Mr. Stratton.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh.
“Why did you lie about it?” the dean asked. She was pissed, but not as mad as she’d been before when she thought he’d taken advantage of me.
Mr. Stratton glanced at me and then at my father before he looked at the dean. “She’d already been through enough. I heard what even some of the faculty said after the incident at the talent show and didn’t want...”
My stomach sank as I thought about even the teachers thinking I had done it on purpose.
“You were protecting her,” the dean said.
“I went about it the wrong way, obviously,” he said. “But yes.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking him in the eye because I wanted him to know I really did appreciate that he’d put everything on the line for me.
He nodded.
“And her test score?” the dean asked.
“That was all her,” Mr. Stratton said and I could hear the pride in his voice. I almost started crying again just from that.
“I studied,” I said. “I even got Kaylee Bennett to help me.”
My father turned to me. “You did well on a test?”
“She got a hundred percent. Best in her class,” Mr. Stratton said.
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