Professional Development (Benchmarks)

by Kate Canterbary

I laughed. "Oftentimes, yes." I thought back to the coffee station. "If there's some other side I'm missing, this is your chance to show me."

  He considered this for a moment, nodding his head in tiny, tiny bobs and moving his fingers over my skin. Then, "You are—you're so fucking beautiful, Tara. And my god, your pussy is the best place I’ve ever visited.”

  "If you're good, I'll let you lick it."

  Chapter Nine

  Drew

  There were many problems with blizzards.

  They always resulted in power outages and property damage. They shut down highways and stranded people at hole-in-the-wall inns. And, for a time, they slowed life to a standstill.

  Everyone stayed huddled inside and the world as we knew it stopped for a moment. Even Dunkin Donuts shut down during the worst storms.

  But the storm always cleared. Blindingly bright sun reflected off sparkling snowbanks and filled the space once held by low, dense clouds, and life started up again. If the hum of a snow blower in the distance wasn't adequate proof, the fact Tara had rolled away from me in the night and huddled up to the edge of the bed, the blankets tucked around her like a burrito, did the trick.

  The only way for me to survive after this colossal misstep was leaving the school. I couldn't envision my world without Bayside. That place was my life but it wasn't about the job. It was the people, the community, the purpose. It was my place and yeah, I was a bit feral when it came to protecting it. I didn't know how I could ever leave.

  But we'd crossed some serious lines in the past few hours. If I thought it was difficult to share an office with Princess Rainbow Sparkle before wearing her thighs as ear muffs, the cloud of vanilla was the least of my problems now.

  Unfortunately, I had a long road of suffering between now and June as I wasn't about to ditch my teachers and students midyear. I was all for dick moves—clearly—but that wasn't one I was making.

  I stared at her dark hair fanned out on the pillow. I ran my fingers through the strands one more time. "Tara," I said, not at all softly, "we need to get going."

  She shifted in her blanket burrito, her chin tucked against her shoulder as she regarded me with slow, sleepy blinks. And then—fuuuuuuuuck me—she smiled the dirtiest little grin in the world, saying, "After last night, that is not how I expected you to wake me up."

  I yanked at the covers, unraveling them, and dragged her back to the middle of the bed. I wasn't thinking about the ramifications of her comment. We had a long drive back to Boston to be distant and awkward and whatever we were to each other now.

  "Then you shouldn't have barricaded yourself."

  She wrapped her arms around my torso. "That's how I sleep."

  I settled between her legs. "It's the wrong way to sleep."

  She hooked her legs around my waist. "For fuck's sake, Drew. It's not up for debate."

  I pushed inside her and we groaned in unison. "Maybe it is when you're sleeping with me."

  She drove her heel into my ass cheek. "Maybe you should give it a try. You might like it."

  I rested my forehead on the valley between her breasts. She was delicious here. And everywhere else. "I guarantee you I'm not going to like being swaddled up beside you."

  She ran her short nails up my back. "I didn't say anything about being beside me. Swaddle with me. If you were as smart as you claim, you would've done that from the start. Instead of all this reorganization, you could've fucked me from behind. We'd be having warm, lazy spoon sex rather than slightly chilly, energetic sex. Just so you know, I'm all about the lazy morning spoon sex."

  I gathered the blankets tight around us and scooped a hand under her ass to keep her even closer. "Let's test this hypothesis by trying both."

  "Hey, so…" she started, shooting me a sidelong glance as our bodies cooled, "my family does a big Christmas Eve event. It's a huge party with all our friends and neighbors. It's my favorite thing and I look forward to it all year."

  "I know," I said, nodding.

  "You know?"

  "Yeah," I replied, still nodding. Thinking about the Treloff family holiday celebration always pinched me in a strange way. "You told Shay and Emme, and the rest of the early elementary people, all about it last year. It's the only time you eat ham and only because it's doused in your grandmother's special pineapple sauce."

  Her lips quirked up as her brows fell. "How do you know that?"

  "How do I know that," I muttered, glancing to the ceiling. I couldn't do this anymore. Whatever I was doing with this woman, it was over. I couldn't hate her, not really and not for pretend either. I wasn't strong enough, not when I knew the feel of her body and the way her skin tasted and all the glorious ways she loved to be snuggled. "How do I know you eat ham on Christmas Eve and have nine pairs of shoes straight from a crayon box and dump fucking cinnamon on your coffee and listen to the Artemis Fowl books in audio all the goddamn time? How do I know you're the oldest of three and your next sibling is eight years younger than you, and you were the full-time babysitter in your house by the time you were ten and you've basically been a kindergarten teacher your entire life because of it? Or how do I know that you curse all the time but think no one notices because you do it quietly? How do I know any of this, Tara? How do I know? How do I know you like pineapple sauce and why the hell would I devote hours to searching for a recipe even though the only thing I know how to make is reservations? Why would I schedule the parent conferences for your grade levels or try to ban leggings? Why would I wait outside your door with coffee? Why would I die a little when you fell in the snow and then pick you up rather than letting you sort it out on your own?"

  She blinked up at me, shook her head. "I—I don't know."

  "Because I've been in love with you since the minute I met you," I said, all the frustration of the past two years seared into my words. Her eyes widened, her lips parted. It was a fine reminder I'd done everything in my power to run far and fast from my feelings for her, to be as repellant as possible, to make her hate me so much she didn't notice any of the ways I fawned over her. "I wasn't especially thrilled about it."

  "Why not?" she whispered.

  I stared at her kiss-swollen lips. I’d never be able to look at her the same way again. I’d never see those lips without thinking of being here with her.

  "I had all these reasons. Explanations. It made sense to me, it really did. But now I can't remember any of it. I just knew I didn't want to feel that way."

  "You wanted me gone," she replied, heated. "And this has been fun but I'd be a massive fool to think you don't still want that."

  "Yeah, I did," I admitted. At one time, showing Tara the door was the best option available to me. I didn't want to want her and I wasn't prepared to make room for her in my life. No more than the room she'd already claimed with her quirky voices and rainbow shoes and all that vanilla. "But not anymore. I swear, that's not my intention. You're right; I don't want to deal with early elementary. I'm sorry about—about everything."

  "The King of Dartmouth apologizing? Wow." She bobbed her head, her eyes wide as she considered this. "You know, I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt."

  "Oh, did you?" I replied, immediately suspicious of this announcement. "Really? When was that? When you were inventing Fun-bruary and incinerating my entire school spirit schedule? Or was it when you developed a new observation and debrief cycle protocol and destroyed my perfectly good system of pluses, minuses, and deltas and replaced it with some fucking glows and grows? Or generally making the entire staff fall in love with you—myself included—because you're so warm and generous and you make everyone feel like a special sunbeam while I'm busy scheduling the delivery of our quarterly inquiry science kits since I don't do songs and skits and Fun-bruary?"

  Lifting her chin and giving me the most ruthless little scowl she could manage, she said, "Yesterday. Coffee station. While you were assessing the milk and sugar situation despite your allegiance to Team Black and Bitter."

  "What are you
talking about?"

  "You didn't like the mix and mingle portion of the morning. You were over there, studying up on sweeteners and trying to avoid the world."

  How the fuck had she noticed that? "What are you talking about?" I repeated.

  "I tried to save you from that situation." She jerked a shoulder up as if it was perfectly ordinary for her to see straight into my weaknesses and soft spots. "Tried to get between you and the awkward introductions, the small talk. That and the gals angling to be the bread in a Drew sandwich."

  "The bread in a—what? Now you're just inventing stories the way you invented your Dr. Division character who made my fourth graders obsessed with math surgery."

  "You really must be more careful about those gray trousers, sweetie. Yesterday was not the first time you had eyes all over your ass. And it wasn't the first time you slaughtered my willingness to give you a chance."

  "I don't understand anything you just said," I started, "but I am sorry about how I responded yesterday. At the coffee station. I was a dick and you didn't deserve that."

  There. That wasn't so difficult. Truthfully, everything was easier when cozied up in bed with Tara. If needed, I could confess all of my mistakes and errors so long as I could keep both hands on her naked body.

  She brought her hand to her chest, which gave me a grand opportunity to study her outrageously perfect curves. "I don't know how to handle all these apologies. I'd like to believe them but—"

  "Tell me more about Christmas Eve," I said, resting my head between her breasts because everything was better there. "Tell me about pineapple sauce."

  "Why?" she asked, sliding her fingers through my hair. "Why do you want that?"

  "Because I don't want to think about the terrible things I've said to you and the inexcusable way I've behaved. I know what I've done. I want to pretend I'm allowed to love you and maybe, in some wild version of my life, you love me too."

  "Why aren't you allowed to love me, Drew?"

  "Please reference the previously mentioned terrible things and inexcusable behavior. The rules of thought don't allow for those types of incompatible events, not unless you're a true nihilist. Even then, a true nihilist never would've fallen down this rabbit hole. Nah, a nihilist would've walked away a year ago. More. A nihilist would've bailed out after a week of watching you play with your hair every afternoon. Would've known better."

  She was silent for a moment, her nails lightly scraping my neck and scalp. Then, "We don't actually do anything on Christmas. That might be weird but I've never thought of it that way. Just a big feast on Christmas Eve and a drunken stumble down the block for midnight mass. That's the part that matters to my mother. She's a purist when it comes to Christmas Eve mass. The rest is flexible." She laughed, twisting my hair around her fingers and tugging just a bit. "You're going to have to be on your best behavior since I've spent two years telling my parents you're a nightmare to work with."

  "I can do that," I said because why not keep this imaginary love story going a little longer? I pressed a kiss to the underside of her breast. Fuck, I wanted to live right here. All day, every day, under the sweetest set of tits I'd ever tasted. "You're gonna need to do the same when we fly to Pennsylvania on Christmas morning. I didn't use the word 'nightmare' but I've implied you're a handful." I gave her ass a squeeze for emphasis. "Which is the damn truth."

  "You think I'm joking," she said.

  "Of course you are," I replied. "We're going to have to leave this cabin or cottage or whatever the fuck it is soon and make our way back to civilization. I know better than to expect this means anything."

  She tipped her head back, scowled. "This didn't mean anything to you?"

  This was what drowning felt like, right? There was no other explanation I could gather for this overwhelming sense that I could kick and fight but I'd never reach the surface, never properly breathe again. Because there was no way out here. I was the villain in her story.

  Even if she'd enjoyed my dick several times last night and this morning, she didn't enjoy me.

  And I'd fucked up everything with her. If I took a minute to step back and survey the damage I'd done by being—unfortunately—a full-blast version of myself, it became obvious I couldn't fix any of it. Sharing a bed for one night wasn't going to make up for all the times I'd made her feel small and incompetent—and it shouldn't.

  Some good sex didn't heal those wounds.

  Because there was no reason to hide anything anymore, I answered, "Tara, sweetheart, I've sliced myself open and bled myself dry in the past eighteen hours. You know exactly what this has meant to me. What I'm saying is I know it doesn't change anything for us because we can't—we don't—"

  "I'm taking you home, Drew Larsen. I'm dressing you in an ugly sweater and feeding you ham and introducing you to my parents."

  I shifted to face her. "What? How is that going to—I mean—what?"

  "What if I just…let you love me? Would that be so bad?"

  "It wouldn't be bad at all," I sputtered. "But I don't know if I deserve it."

  She shrugged. "You'll earn it."

  "Ah. I see. I'll spend the next seven hundred years in your debt. Sounds grand," I murmured.

  "That's not what I mean at all," she snapped. "Let's just…start over. From last night. We're both going to do better and be better than we were before this blizzard. We'll earn it, okay?" Before I could offer my resounding agreement or, I didn't know, propose marriage, she continued. "It's not like we'll ever stop fighting, so let's take that off the table right now. And it's not like we're going to agree on every pedagogical issue we encounter. We'll drop that too. But maybe we could channel all the energy we'd devoted to hating each other into something a little"—she wiggled beneath me and my cock perked up with a hearty Yes, please—"better?"

  "My parents are going to adore you," I said. "They'll have no use for me."

  "That's understandable." She pursed her lips, nodding. "You are insufferable."

  "I'm going to need you to wear proper winter boots if we're stumbling to church at midnight, Tara," I continued. "My heart cannot take a repeat of last night and I don't know how your family will react to me carrying you to midnight mass.”

  "I'll agree to boots if you agree to those gray trousers," she said. "We'll need to find a dry cleaner."

  "You want to check out my ass that bad?"

  "Honey, if you think I haven't been checking out your ass all this time, you haven't been paying attention."

  Chapter Ten

  Tara

  It was afternoon by the time we gathered ourselves together and exited the cottage, plus another half hour of assuring the innkeeper we'd managed the night without incident.

  I couldn't believe Drew maintained a straight face through that conversation when I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling.

  Now we were headed back to Boston, my hands curled around a hot cup of coffee as I settled into the passenger seat beside Drew. The same Drew who kept glancing at me as if he expected me to snap out of it and realize I'd mistakenly given him the green light to be my guy.

  Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I'd have a different mindset on the matter in a few weeks, a few months. Maybe I was offering him far more than he deserved and it would come back to bite me in the ass and put me out of a job.

  And maybe none of that was true.

  The absolute facts were limited but I was certain Drew wasn't faking any of this and neither was I. Either we'd learn to work together or we wouldn't.

  Because there was no time like the present, I said, "Let's go over the game plan."

  "You know the game plan. We're stopping at your apartment first and then—actually, can you settle something for me? Do you have dried macaroni in a jar somewhere? Like, in your living room? For craft projects and shit?"

  "I'm not answering that." I waved that question off. "I wasn't referring to our game plan for today. I meant our plan for returning to work in two weeks and being around our friends and colleague
s. What's our plan for that?"

  I watched as he scanned the highway ahead, only the firm set of his jaw giving away his reaction.

  When he didn't respond, I continued, "We need some ground rules."

  "Operating procedures."

  "Basically, yes. Most of all, we need to be professional."

  Drew snorted out a laugh. "Because we've done such an exceptional job at that so far."

  He was right on that count, however—"We can't have sex in our office. Or anything in the periphery of sex."

  "Oh." That was his only reaction. Then, "Oh. Right. That's what we're talking about."

  I peered at him. "What did you think I was referring to?"

  He shook his head in the rushed, impatient way he did when he wanted to sweep my comment to the side. "I don't know. Let's just say I don't know what to think about any of this. I'm just happy we moved the holiday party from this weekend to New Year's Day and we don't have to see anyone from school for two weeks because I want you all to myself for once.”

  My resentment and loathing of Drew Larsen were like a clear sliding glass door and I'd walked into it too many times to count, always staggering away with an egg on my forehead and some wounded pride.

  Until he'd kissed me and cracked it right down the middle. After everything we'd shared and experienced together, it was a cobweb of fractures.

  And now, with his words simmering between us, that door needed little more than a flick of my fingers to shatter all the way.

  "I'm not ready to tell everyone," I started, "but we should tell Lauren. It's the responsible thing to do."

  "You're not ready because you're preparing yourself for me to be an ass to you all over again and fuck everything up," he said under his breath.

  "I'm not ready because I want us to figure this out without a captive audience," I replied.

  "And you're expecting me to be an ass to you," he added.

  "Will you?"