by Kris Jett
“What about you, hon’? What’s going on with you? You look troubled,” Wynn’s mom said.
Wynn weighed out whether to tell her mom about what was going on or not. She didn’t want to be a further burden on her, but she also didn’t think she could keep all that was going on hidden anymore at this point. It didn’t seem like Eric was just in town for a quick visit and then would disappear back into obscurity while still sending monthly checks like she had hoped.
Wynn sighed. “I am troubled, Mom. Very. It wasn’t a good night.”
Her mom stopped cracking eggs and joined Wynn at the table. She put one hand on Wynn’s arm. “What happened?”
Luci strolled into the kitchen just then. “Something smells amazing!” She looked at her mom and Wynn’s solemn faces and her own face dropped. “Uh oh, what’s wrong? Does it have to do with Eric?”
“Eric?” Wynn’s mom asked, her eyes quickly shifting between both of her daughter’s faces. “Have you heard from him?”
Wynn nodded slowly and thought about how to tell them what happened.
The front door opened and all three women looked up as Jessie came in carrying a tray of mocha lattes, the Foster sisters’ favorite coffee drink. Jessie took note of everyone’s somber expressions and said, “Oh great, what happened now?”
Wynn took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I may as well tell all of you at once.” She filled them in on Eric, his engagement, and the sudden desire to be a parent to Melody.
“What a prick,” Jessie erupted when Wynn finished talking.
“That’s not helpful, Jessie,” her mom returned.
“What are you going to do?” Luci asked.
“What can I do?” Wynn asked. “I don’t want him to go take me back to court. He’s the one with all the money and he knows it. He’ll hire a fancy lawyer that will give him joint custody and then next thing I know Melody will be spending weekends and summers in St. Louis with him. I’ll die if that happens.”
“That’s not going to happen. It can’t happen,” Jessie said.
“Are you sure a judge would award him joint custody?” her mom asked. “He’s been a hands-off parent since she was six months old, per his choice. He’s never made any contact until now.”
“Can’t you tell a judge that?” Luci asked.
“I don’t know,” Wynn replied. “I could try, but I won’t be able to afford a lawyer to fight him so his lawyer could walk all over me. They’ll point out how faithfully he’s paid child support and how she’s still young and there’s a chance to establish a relationship. Which, I mean, I guess there actually is. Melody is young enough to not remember that he wasn’t in her life. She should have a father.”
“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise then,” Luci said.
“Or a curse,” Jessie contributed.
“Jessie,” her mom warned.
“I know, I know. But Melody is still a baby. She’s not even two yet. Wynn can’t just put her on a plane and send her off to see Eric. Especially since he’s a total stranger to her.”
“I told him that when he first mentioned wanting to see her,” Wynn said.
“What did he say?” her mom asked.
“He agreed that I’d be part of their visits if I agreed to them.”
“Well, that’s positive,” Luci said.
“Yeah,” Wynn agreed. “But teen step-mom is part of the package too. I can’t believe he expects me to sit there and watch her and him and Melody together. He’s heartless. I don’t know how I was ever married to him.”
Wynn’s mom placed her hand over Wynn’s on the table. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I wish I could make this better for you.
“They’re seriously getting married?” Jessie asked.
Wynn shrugged. “That’s what he told me.”
“Where are Brittany’s parents in all this?” Jessie continued. “You said she was eighteen at the time all that went down, right? So, that’d make her nineteen by now. Who the hell lets their nineteen-year old marry a thirty-something year old with a kid?”
“I don’t know,” Wynn said. “I don’t know anything about this girl’s life or family and I don’t really want to know.”
“Well, if she’s going to be Melody’s step-mom, you better find out,” Jessie countered.
Wynn’s hands flew up to cover her eyes. “Don’t say that. I can’t stand to even hear those words.”
Jessie reached out for Wynn’s wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Luci put a comforting arm around Wynn’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, we’re here for you. We’ll help you figure it all out.”
“What does Eric want from you right now, Wynn?” her mom asked.
“He needs to head back home Sunday morning,” Wynn said. “He wants me to take Melody to meet him and Brittany at four o’clock at Jumping Beans. It’s this indoor toddler playground kind of place.”
“That sounds fine. Take Melody and let her play. Take things slow and see how it goes. Maybe if you’re amicable, he won’t push for more than this.”
“I’m calling Linda and getting her to cover my shift this afternoon,” Jessie announced. “I’m going with you and Melody.”
“Me too,” Luci piped in. “I’ll see if Anne can cover me just for an hour or so. You don’t have to be alone, Wynn.”
A surge of relief swept over Wynn and she felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. “Really?”
“Of course,” Jessie replied. “Foster sisters stick together.”
Chapter Eleven
Bryce stood two corridors away from the classroom where he’d be teaching in just a few minutes. He leaned against the wall and watched students rushing this way and that, trying to get to their classes on time, and he wondered if any of them could tell he was one of the teachers. He didn’t feel very teacherly or like someone who should have authority over a classroom of people, yet here he was. He took another sip of his double shot espresso and winced. It was his first day teaching at South Lake Community College, and while he’d taken a relaxed approach to the whole thing ever since he’d agreed to do it, and had told himself that it would be an easy, no-brainer way to make some extra cash, now that the time had come and he had to go in the classroom and actually start, he was feeling a hell of a lot of nerves. It was bringing him right back to his own college freshman year speech class when his palms would sweat and he would find himself swallowing repeatedly for no reason, just to have something to do.
It was just an Intro to Web Design class, he reminded himself. He designed web sites every day for a living. He should be able to teach this in his sleep. But maybe he shouldn’t have decided that just showing up and winging it was the best approach. He could really be an idiot some times. There was probably a good reason that, while not required, most college classes offered a syllabus. He should at least have an outline of what they’d be going over in class. Bryce mentally noted that he’d need to write up something when he got home later to bring to next week’s class.
He checked his watch again. All right. It was ten a.m. on the dot. He guess that he’d better get into the classroom before the students decided he wasn’t coming and left. Bryce walked down the halls until he reached room 142, took a deep breath, and walked in.
Bryce didn’t bother to look at the students, all filed in rows behind PCs, their eyes all following him as he strolled to the front of the room. He reached his desk, tossed off his backpack, and shrugged off his coat and scarf. He scanned the PC set up on the desk to see what kind of equipment the school gave him to work with. Bryce wondered what the students thought of him as they watched him settle in. He didn’t want to look fake and show up in a lame suit jacket or a goofy tie just to look professor-like. Instead he wore a clean forest green polo and a pair of dark jeans.
Bruce turned to face the class and leaned against the desk. He stroked his short beard as he looked the students over. Just as he’d thought. A good mix of teens and adults. There
was one woman in the front row who could have been his grandma. She was smiling at him widely like she was thrilled to be there in his class. He smiled back; he couldn’t help it. He already felt a fondness for her just from her apparent eagerness to learn.
“So,” Bryce had begun, “This is Intro to Web Design. Welcome and all that. I’m your teacher, Bryce Alexander.” He reached up and ran a hand over his short brown hair before shoving both hands in his pockets. He cleared his throat. “Let me tell you a little bit about me. “I’ve been designing web sites, well, for forever. Since I was a freshman in high school. But now I own and run my own web design company so I do it all. I design, create, and maintain web sites for all kinds of businesses and customers.”
Bryce scanned the room, looking at each students’ face to see if they were falling asleep already or what. When he got to the back-left corner of the room his heart about stopped. Holy shit, he thought. He reached up and rubbed both of his eyes and then looked again. No way. Sara. That Sara. Sara, from the bar and then back at his apartment Sara, was sitting in his classroom. Right there, just sitting, like all of his other students, watching him. How the hell did she find him?
Bryce’s mind raced. What was he going to do? How did she get in here? How did she even know he’d be here? Was she stalking him? Was she about to cause a scene? He wracked his brain, trying to remember if he ever told her he would be teaching a class at the community college. He was positive he didn’t. They didn’t talk much at all that night.
Part of him wanted to walk right over to her and ask her what the hell was going on. Why was she in his classroom? And another part of him wanted to ask her how she’d been since they’d last seen each other and if she wanted to go on a date with him. His mind suddenly filled with the image of her big beautiful breasts in his face and the luscious sucking on her nipples that took place mere days ago. He felt a warm tingle move throughout his body.
She grinned at him and he wondered if she was remembering it too.
Shit. He was in the middle of teaching his first class and he couldn’t be thinking about this stuff right now. He needed to focus.
“Mr. Alexander?” the older woman from the front row asked. “Are you okay? You look a little ill.”
“Um, huh? What? No, I’m fine, thanks.” He shifted uncomfortably, trying to readjust himself without anyone noticing. “And don’t call me Mr. Alexander. It sounds weird. Call me Bryce.”
“Everything all right, Bryce?” a cocky looking teen from the middle of the room asked.
“Yeah, I’m good…what’s your name?”
“Dillon,” the kid said with a smirk.
“I’m good, Dillon.” A thought suddenly occurred to Bryce. He had a student roster in his backpack. He jammed a hand into his bag and yanked out the roster. He searched the list. Sara, Sara, Sara, he thought as he read each line. But there wasn’t a Sara in the class list. Shit, she was stalking him. Which, he couldn’t lie, was sort of turning him on right now. But definitely wasn’t good for the task at hand: teaching the class. He had to say something.
He looked up from his list at the class. He had an idea.
“You guys should all already be registered for this course,” he told them. “The class is full and we have limited computers to work with so I won’t be giving any overrides this quarter.” He looked around the room and all the students were staring at him. “So, if you’re not registered, you can, you know, go now.” He looked pointedly at Sara but she didn’t budge. She was a little daredevil it seemed. Her rebellion was only exciting him more. Damn it, he needed to concentrate. She had to leave.
He had another idea. “Okay, so normally I don’t care if you show up for class or anything. I mean, it’s beneficial since I’m here so if you have questions, it’s a good time. But you’re going to be doing a lot of the work independently so come, don’t come, whatever. Just get me your assignments on time.”
Bryce scanned the students faces slowly again. “I am going to do roll call today though, just to get familiar with your names. So, as I say your name, please hold up your hand and say here, okay?”
Bryce began rattling off the names from his list, moving quickly over the male names and slowly over the female names, studying the face of each student. “Amy Dubow.”
A petite redhead near the back raced her hand.
“Bridget Evans,” he said.
A tired-looking woman in her mid-forties gave a sarcastic wave from the front and said, “right here.”
“Wynn Foster.”
Sara grinned widely at him and winked. “Here.”
Chapter Twelve
Wynn couldn’t believe it. The guy she’d met at that bar last week and hooked up with, the night she was pissed with Jessie and had to get out of the house, was her teacher. And she could tell that he was 100% freaking out right now.
She’d thought about him more than once since that night. He was gorgeous with his twinkly blue eyes and the kind of grin that creased his eyes. She had a flash back to him licking her nipples and briefly wondered what it would be like if he were to push her back on his desk right now and bury his face in her lap with that expert tongue.
She felt herself get a bit moist in her lower half and re-crossed her legs the other direction under the desk.
Nothing was supposed to happen further with him. She had, after all, put herself on a relationship time out; but, it wasn’t like she was entering a convent. People have needs. Still, she couldn’t believe he was actually her college professor. And from the way he was blushing and stammering about up there, he couldn’t believe it either.
Bryce tried to be clever and figure out her real name by taking class attendance, like they were in high school or something. He looked shocked when she responded to Wynn but of course she wouldn’t have given him her real name that night. She couldn’t believe he’d used his real name.
Bryce talked about what they’d be working on that quarter in class and how they would be creating and maintaining their own simple web sites. Wynn couldn’t wait for that. Each class, each step she took, got her closer to creating a stable life for her and Melody. One where she wouldn’t have to depend on her mom for a place to live or her sister for a job. She would get the Computer Information Systems degree and a world of opportunities would open up to her.
“So, tell me,” Bryce said to the class, “what avenue of web design are you all interested in pursuing career-wise?”
Wynn shot her hand up in the air.
Bryce shot her a nervous look, like he couldn’t decide whether to call on her or not. “Um, Wynn?” he said uncertainly.
Wynn sat up straight in her seat and folded her hands in her lap. “I see myself working at some place like Match.com.”
Bryce’s eyes widened. “You know the exact place, huh?”
“Sure,” she replied. “Or eHarmony, OkCupid, ChristianMingle, whatever. Shoot, I’d even work for that FarmersOnly.com site.”
Bryce stared at her with his mouth agape and Wynn heard a couple of stifled giggles from the class.
He gave her what Wynn could only describe as a smitten look and she returned a toothy smile.
Bryce slightly shook his head. “What I meant was, do you see yourself more on the design side of things and creating good user interfaces for customers or do you fancy doing the development work and creating HTML and CSS-based layouts?”
Wynn considered this. “All of it. I want to learn it all.”
Bryce nodded. “Okay, what about the rest of you?” he asked, turning his attention to the class.
Wynn didn’t care if the other students in class laughed at her. She was being honest. Why couldn’t she work in web design and be in a field she had a lot of invested interest in like internet dating? It was the perfect meshing of two worlds.
At the end of class Bryce asked her if she could stay after. She’d nodded and waited for the other students to leave before slowly approaching his desk.
“Yes, Mr. Alexander?” she sai
d in her flirtiest voice.
Bryce grinned at her. “See, when you call me ‘Mr. Alexander,’ I don’t mind at all.”
Wynn took a step closer to him and leaned against the part of the desk to the right of where he was sitting.
“So, you’re Wynn, not Sara,” he stated.
She nodded. “And you’re Bryce. Really Bryce,” she countered, teasingly.
“I was hoping I’d see you again,” he said. “I just didn’t expect it to be in my classroom.”
“I was pleasantly surprised myself.”
Bryce glanced out the door of the classroom and then back at Wynn. “I hate to say it but I think you have to transfer to another class.”
Wynn frowned. “Transfer? Why? I like this class.”
“I’m new to this teaching thing,” Bryce said, “but I think I’m supposed to like, recuse myself or something.”
“That’s only if you were a judge and I was a criminal. Are you a judge? Am I a criminal?” she slid across the desk so she was even closer to him, practically touching.
Bryce reached out and rubbed his palms on his thighs. “Wow, I don’t know how this is going to work out.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll stop flirting, I promise,” she said with a giggle. “It can work out.”
Bryce reached out a hand and placed it on her hip, tugging her closer. “What if I don’t want you to stop flirting?” he asked in a husky voice. As though he suddenly remembered where he was and what he was doing, he yanked his hand off her hip like he’d just touched a hot stove.
“Ugh.” Bryce’s voice quivered a bit. “Resisting you is going to be really hard.”
“So, don’t resist,” she whispered.
Bryce moaned. “You just promised you wouldn’t flirt.”
“I guess I’m a bad girl. You should give me a detention.”
“Oh, hell,” Bryce said. “I’d give you the best detention of your life.”
“Mmm, you would, huh?” she said, licking her lips. She moved in close, only inches from his face.