by Lucy Lambert
I started to step aside to let him in when it struck me that there hadn't been a man in my apartment since Brady left. Not my father, not my superintendent. And here I was about to let one of the most well-known playboys in America into my home.
"Something the matter?" he said.
I was about to give him an excuse when I saw Rufus poke his head into the hall from the kitchen.
I remembered what I said about him not liking the man. I remembered how he always growled at people who gave me bad vibes.
"And who is this?" Crossley said, unaware of the danger.
"Rufus!" I said, just as the dog bounded into the hallway, bearing down on the intruder.
I pictured him leaping into the air, slamming into Crossley's chest and bringing him to the floor, all white fangs and snarls.
"This is Rufus?" he said.
Then Rufus jumped. Except he didn't slam into Crossley like a living cannon ball, instead of whined and wagged his tail and sent his long pink tongue on a quest for Crossley's smooth, just-shaved cheeks.
"Rufus!" I said again, not sure whether I should be disappointed or relieved.
"Good boy," Crossley said, making firm eye contact, "Down. That's it. He's a nice dog, isn't he?"
And the thing was, Rufus listened. He sat down on his haunches, his dust-brush tail slapping back and forth across the floor while Crossley knelt down in front of him and scratched behind his ears.
"He... He normally doesn't take to people like that," I said, shell-shocked. My mind reeled. What does this mean? What could this possibly mean? I trusted Rufus's character judgment implicitly. In normal cases, anyway.
"Dogs like me," he said, "We have an understanding. Shake."
Rufus lifted a paw and placed it on Crossley's offered palm. Then Crossley stood and checked his watch. "We need to go if we want to make it on time."
I snapped out of my stupor, though I still couldn't quite bring myself to believe what I'd just witnessed.
Maybe I misjudged him, I thought, looking at Crossley. But he was right about leaving. My internal clock, so used to routine, told me right about now I needed to hop into the Camry if I wanted to beat the morning rush.
"I just need my briefcase."
He didn't wait at the door for me, instead coming deeper into my apartment. I found myself feeling self-conscious, wishing I'd pushed the sofa cushions back into position, made my bed.
At least all my laundry was in the hamper instead of strewn about the floor.
Though why what Alexander Crossley thought of the way I lived mattered to me was beyond me.
He leaned against the door frame, one hand tucked into a pocket, while I gathered the marked papers and class notes and put them in my sturdy old briefcase.
"You look nice today," he said.
I paused, a few sheets of paper halfway to the briefcase. Here in the corner of my desk it was still dark enough to hide the way the color crept into my cheeks. "Thanks."
"You've done something different with yourself. You're different from yesterday."
"It's the same me as yesterday," I said, wondering what he could mean. Then I remembered. He had changed the way he dressed, and so had I.
My pants weren't quite so loose fitting as my normal ones. This blouse came in more at the waist. To put it briefly, I'd put on a more flattering outfit without really thinking about it.
But that went against my habits. So I had to have thought about it, on some level.
"No, you're different," he said, shutting down any argument to the contrary.
"Thanks. I think."
Oh God please don't tell me this is because of him! I don't need this, not right now. Not ever. And I'd just begun to really settle into my new, post-breakup routine.
It's just lust, I told myself. He was handsome and famous and rich. It was okay to have these sorts of feelings. They were natural. Just don't act on them.
Except I thought that I already had.
And Rufus likes him. I couldn't shake that little tidbit of knowledge, either.
"I parked my car out front. Let's go," he said.
My vision slid across my desk to my phone and guilt surged through me. I snatched it up before Crossley could ask about it.
He has no reason to ask about it. Stop being so weird, I thought. But still, when he looked at me sometimes it felt like he could see right through me. Could see what I was hanging onto, stored in this phone's memory.
"Okay, ready. But if we're late it's your fault," I said. I shouldered past him and gave Rufus a quick pat on the head when I passed the doorway to the kitchen. The sooner we got out of my apartment the better. I'd started to become all too aware that there were no other people around.
He drove a Mercedes. One of those sporty ones all sleek and curvy without any corners for the air to grab and offer any resistance. And it floated down the road.
I hadn't known what to expect. A stretch limo and chauffeur waiting with white gloves and a hat, or maybe some sort of enormous and stately SUV, or something else entirely. So the little sporty roadster had been nice.
I thought I would have to tell him to avoid the normal snarl of traffic around O'Hare but I didn't need to, which was nice.
And when we parked in the lot at school—which, I have to break in here to say that Stockwell had given him his own spot with a sign and everything—he stepped around and opened the door for me.
I stopped short at taking his offered hand. I didn't need help standing up. This amused him and he shook his head at me.
"Suit yourself," he said.
I noticed the way he noticed my body and again thought about what a mistake it was to choose this particular outfit.
At the same time, his noticing me that way sent little tingling tendrils all up and down the front of my stomach.
We're at school now. It's time to be a teacher! That's what the students here need. Not some starry-eyed little girl. Get a hold of yourself!
That helped. Being a good teacher was my number one priority. Focusing on that cleared my head if not my body of all those feelings.
"So what's on the docket today?" he said, keeping pace alongside me while we bee-lined for the side entrance. We were still a bit early, just like I liked, so the halls were still empty.
Our shoes squeaked on the linoleum. The halls smelled of cigarette smoke, especially around the bathrooms, and decades’ worth of floor polish applied in vain.
"You went to school, didn't you? The same thing as yesterday. I teach three courses a day with a lunch break in the afternoon. Are you sure that you can keep up?"
"Stamina is not something I have a problem with," he said, again leaving me wondering if I just had a dirty mind or if he had a dirty mouth. It was hard to tell with him.
We arrived at my classroom and I immediately started going through my papers, pulling out my desk copy of Great Expectations.
"What am I supposed to do?" he said.
I realized that we hadn't actually spoken about any of this yet. That would have been a great conversation to have on the drive over. Another thing to kick myself over, I guess.
"Well, Mr. Crossley," I said, again feeling the weight of this extra responsibility on top of all the others. I just prayed it wasn't the proverbial straw, "I can tell you what I don't want you to do. And that is undermine my authority in front of the class again."
"It's Alex. Your dog and I are on a first name basis. We should be, too."
"Don't undermine me again, Alex," I said. He smiled when I said his name and I knew that I lost another point to him.
He nodded as though to say he'd give the request careful consideration.
But he was right. What was he supposed to do?
It was then that Mr. Stockwell chose to appear in the doorway. "How is everything going? Was the drive in pleasant and productive?"
"It was a learning experience," Alex said.
"Yes," I chipped in, feeling Mr. Stockwell's eyes flick to me in anticipation, "In fact, we got a
long so well that we're only just now discussing Mr. Crossley's place in my classes."
Concern wrote itself across Mr. Stockwell's high, shiny forehead. "Ms. Morgan! Have you still not read those guidelines I emailed you? I am sorry, Mr. Crossley. I know this hasn't gone as the program outlined..."
Alex held up his hand and Mr. Stockwell stopped talking as though someone had switched his vocal cords off.
"I've never really been one for guidelines, Stockwell. Things are moving along fine. Or they would be, if we didn't keep getting interrupted."
Mr. Stockwell licked his lips, his eyes shifting between the two of us. "Yes, well, all right. I suppose if you have any concerns... You know where my office is. My new one, I mean, since you of course have full use of my normal one..."
"Thank you, Stockwell," Alex said. He walked over and swung the door shut, cutting off the rest of the principal's apologetic rambling.
I didn't know whether I should feel grateful at that moment. On the one hand, I usually liked Mr. Stockwell. On the other, ever since this whole thing started he'd been buzzing around my like a bee around a spilled Slurpee.
Still, I felt the need to defend him. "He's not always like that. Mr. Stockwell, I mean."
"I believe you," Alex replied. He came closer to my desk and stood in a relaxed manner, one hand stuffed into a pants pocket.
I was so used to fidgeting, high-energy teenagers that his calm demeanor really hit me.
"You do? That was... easy," I said. I guess I'd been expecting some more resistance.
He shrugged. Unbidden, my mind started thinking about all the muscles required to shrug. The way they probably rippled beneath his skin.
I took my mind off that by rifling through my briefcase contents.
"People tend to act that way around me. I'm used to it."
I paused, a couple of marked essays in my hands, the ink of the letter grades visible from my peripheral vision. Was he boasting? I didn't think so. There hadn't been any pride in his voice.
He'd said it like he'd been telling me that ice is just frozen water. A matter of fact.
"And what about me?" I said, the curiosity too much to resist. I tried pretending as though the answer didn't matter to me. I shuffled through some papers without really seeing them, tried to keep my voice casual, my expression neutral.
I didn't think it worked.
"What about you?" Alex said.
"Do I act that way around you?"
I didn't have to see him to know that he smiled. It was the perfect expression to go along with his little snort. "No. No, you don't. I like that about you. Among other things."
Among other things. The words echoed in my head. What other things? I had to know. At the same time, I didn't want to know. I'd been getting too friendly with him and I knew that, too.
The silence hung in the air, heavy and smothering as a wet blanket. He watched me and I knew he could see the wheels and gears whirring in my skull, trying to dissect what he told me.
I bet he liked that. Liked being mysterious, liked making women try and figure him out.
And the worst part was my urge to try and do just that!
So I took my phone out, pretending to check my email.
"What are you hiding on that thing?" Alex said. He couldn't come up behind me. Not enough space between the desk and the chalkboard, as we've already seen. But he did come up beside me, craning his neck to better see.
"I'm not hiding anything!" I snapped. Too fast, I knew. It didn't help that I pressed my screen down against my thigh. And I swore he could tell the way my heart started racing.
He didn't try and take the phone from me. Instead he shook his head. "We've only known each other a little while, but I think I know you well enough to tell that you are hiding something. And I think you're hiding it from yourself."
I looked over his shoulder at the clock over the door. Still a few minutes to class. Couldn't it start already? Anything to save me from this.
"That's bold, even for you," I said, "You don't know anything about me."
"Not true," Alex replied. He straightened up. "I know that you teach a few English courses here, and that you apparently actually give a damn about your students. I know you have an old dog named Rufus. I know you try to seem older than you are. I know that you're hiding something. And I know that your name is Charlie Morgan. What is Charlie short for, anyway?"
He'd said it all in that matter-of-fact way he'd used a few minutes earlier. Guilt trickled down my stomach, accompanied by some measure of irritation at myself for not deleting that stupid text message already.
Still, I wanted to deflect us away from that course of conversation. "My name?" I said.
"Charlie. Is it Charlotte? Charlene? ...Charlize?" he hazarded.
The door opened and Tyler walked in, pausing when he saw Alex. Cool and pleasant relief washed away the guilt. "Hey, Tyler."
"Hey..." he said, still watching Alex. He took in his casual clothes, the easy confidence with which he held himself.
Alex watched him back, a touch of curiosity in his otherwise inscrutable features.
"I'll explain when everyone's here," I said. Once more Alex and I had failed to discuss what his place in my classroom was.
It had happened too many times to be a coincidence, too. Alex preferred spending his time here trying to get to know me better. And the more I resisted him, the harder he tried.
There was something flattering in that. Flattering and incredibly annoying.
"Good," Alex said, "Because that's an explanation I would like to hear, too." His eyes met mine and we sparked again, the electricity of it tickling my skin and tightening the pit of my stomach.
Even Tyler noticed. He frowned at us, gave a little shake of his head, and went to his customary seat near the front of the room.
Chapter 11
ALEXANDER
My God, Charlie looked hot today. She'd picked something a little more flattering to wear, and when I'd first seen her at her apartment a pang of desire had run all the way down the front of my stomach.
And now she sat here in front of me, a touch of color in her. Some strands of hair rested against the side of her face, and I wanted so much to reach forward and brush them back behind her ear.
Maybe if that kid hadn't come in, I thought with some regret.
And now Charlie sat there in her chair, curiosity and annoyance battling inside her. If she'd been a cat, her tail would be flicking back and forth with agitation.
More and more teenagers spilled into the classroom from the hallway. The class filled up, but the flow of students didn't stop.
They came until every cramped desk was taken, sitting so close together that they'd barely have to shift their arm to touch the people beside them.
I could recall similar scenes from my own life. They had a strange quality to them, those memories I thought I'd discarded. They seemed not so long ago at all, yet also impossibly different. Like they were from someone else's life.
Luckily for me, Charlie saved me from the bumpy trip down memory lane.
The bell rang and she stood up, careful to avoid brushing her back against the chalkboard again.
"Everyone, I'm sure you've all noticed our guest today. I'd like to introduce Mr. Alexander Crossley, founder and CEO of CrossFire. He's here to take part in the CEO-in-Residence program."
"...the what?" I heard a few kids mutter. I liked them more for that.
"And what does that entail, Miss Morgan?" I asked. I'd toyed with the idea of calling her Charlie, but I didn't. I understood the importance of establishing authority, whether it be in a boardroom or a classroom.
She glared at me for putting her on the spot. I smiled back at her, turning my head so that none of the kids would see. Unable to resist, I also added a wink. This was going to be good.
Charlie swallowed, her eyes flicking from me to the class. She tugged at the front of her blouse, smoothing out the wrinkles.
For a moment there I thought
she would drop the ball. That maybe she wasn't as interesting as my first impression suggested.
She handled it admirably, though. I thought to myself that if she'd chosen the private sector over the public she'd have no problem running a meeting in a boardroom.
"Today, and for the next two weeks," she began, "We will be devoting a few minutes of every class for a few words from Mr. Crossley on how to aim for success in your career. A few words that I'm sure he'll have prepared in advance.
"He will also be telling us how, at the end of every class, what we learned today can apply to more than just school, and why learning about things, even Charles Dickens, is important."
My smile wilted a little. She gave me a tiny one in response. Gotcha, that smile said.
And now I definitely want to learn more about you, Charlie Morgan, I thought. I knew that sentiment showed up in my expression when the smile dropped from Charlie's face.
Gotcha, I thought.
The end of class approached faster than I recalled it ever happening when I went to school.
Maybe that was because whatever affect Charlie had on the kids also somehow cast its spell over me.
It was Dickens again. I guess that they'd just started reading it. I could see why Charlie had picked it from the selection on the curriculum.
She wanted a character that the kids could relate to in Pip. That boy who came from nothing who somehow got everything thanks to a wealthy benefactor.
The came from nothing part I had no trouble identifying with. But that was a part of my past with which I didn't like to grapple.
Charlie glanced at the clock, her eyes touching mine on the way. She had the kind of eyes that a man could get lost in, and would be happy to. They weren't the sharp, hawkish, predatory-but-beautiful eyes like Alisha had. They were something else.
"Now, before class ends, has anyone read far enough ahead to have any thoughts of Miss Havisham?" Charlie asked.
I swallowed my scoff. She'd be lucky if more than half a dozen of these kids had so much as read the cover of the book.