AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But now...well, now, I supposed, I was starting to believe it.
I had never felt so wanted before in all my life. I think that was what did it for me. Every time he looked at me, I knew what was running through his head, and it made me wild to think of being wanted so much. Other guys, they had treated me well, but not like I was some prize to show off every chance they got. Joseph, though? Joseph seemed to want the world to know about us. Which made things pretty tricky, given that I didn’t want anyone to find out what was happening between us.
I had even kept my mouth shut around Mallory – it just seemed better to make sure I didn’t have anyone at all to worry about when it came to this. Better to be on the safe side and keep it all wrapped up to myself. She had only gotten a glimpse of him on my phone, too, so I had every hope that I would be able to sneak what was happening between us right on by her. I had told her that I had spent the night with him like she had suggested, but I had figured that it was just best to go ahead and leave it there. No need for her to hear any more of what had happened. It would just have been too strange for her to wrap her head around, after I was so certain that things were over between us before.
When in real life, of course, things were just starting to really hot up.
He would come down to my place every chance he got – his place was small, he said, and scant, given that he spent so much time out of the city – and we would lock the doors and curl up in bed together and forget that a world outside existed.
It wasn’t just sex, either – no, he would hold me and let me talk to him about everything. How work had been that week, the song I had gotten stuck in my head and hadn’t been able to shake. The fact that the new coffee shop across the street from me had these special artisan roasts and I was so worried about messing up the names of them that I just avoided saying them out loud at all.
Of course, there was one thing that I had decided it was just better that he wasn’t aware of. Everything to do with my fertility. He knew that me and my last ex had broken up because we’d had different ideas about what we wanted for the future, but I had declined to go into any more detail about just what those things were. It didn’t seem important for him to know, not yet. I would have been assuming that he was interested in more than he had expressed interest in so far, and I was the last person who wanted to jump the gun. I needed to stay careful with him, make sure not to get too invested or too involved, not until I had made it clear what I wanted from him, and figured out, once and for all, what it was he wanted from me, too.
"Ugh, I’m sorry I can’t spend Saturday with you," I told him, about a month after we had started our little affair behind closed doors. I was lying in bed with him, my head on his chest, thinking about the next weekend that was to come.
"If it wasn’t for this school trip, you know I would," I assured him. "I know you don’t get long back on the mainland..."
"Don’t worry about it," he replied, brushing his lips over my forehead. He would be going away for a few days midweek, and then I wouldn’t get to see him again till Monday, because I had this school trip to handle. Though I would much rather have been spending time with him. I had signed myself up for this trip all those weeks ago because I had been hoping that it would keep me busy over the weekend so I wouldn’t be tempted to spend any more time with him, but here it was, getting in the way of the very same thing.
"I need to find some parents to help chaperone me, too," I groaned. "And nobody ever wants to do it, not really. It’s always so hard to find someone who’s actually keen..."
"I could do it," he replied simply, and I raised my eyebrows at him.
"You mean that?"
"My sister goes to the school," He pointed out, and I winced – that was something I tried not to think about too much, if I could avoid it.
"I could help you out," he offered, and there was such a simple kindness to his voice that I felt my heart twisting up with joy. I liked the thought of that. I knew that it might be a bit of a pain getting the paperwork in hand, but it would be worth it.
To my surprise, it didn’t take much effort on my part to get everything sorted. There were so few people offering to help chaperone the class trip that anyone who was willing to was practically a holy grail. I texted Joseph to let him know when and where to meet me, and he replied with a smiley face and a promise that he wouldn’t let me down.
I was taking my class out to the local museum – there was this one-time exhibition going on with re-enactors of the period of history we were looking at, from around the time of the battle of Culloden. Normally, I would have been stressed out of my mind getting everything together for a big trip like this, but with Joseph there to help out, all of it seemed a whole lot easier to handle.
We met at the school in the morning, and the couple of dozen kids that I was taking care of today were already milling around excitedly waiting for the day to get started. I counted them all in and out, made sure that I had all the permission slips and money in hand for what we were doing today, and headed out the door. I had one other teacher and another chaperone helping me out today, and they ushered the children out of the classroom and into the waiting minibus; we only had the one that served the entire school, and it was a little battered, but it did the job.
"Hey," Joseph murmured, before I could get out of the classroom to join them. He caught me by the arm and pulled me in towards him. I grinned. I knew that someone could catch us at any moment, but I didn’t care. I just wanted the excuse to be close to him again.
He kissed me, softly, quickly, his hands on my waist, his fingers teasing playfully at the bottom of my shirt; I managed to pull back before he went any further, but damn, it took everything I had in me not to tell him to just keep going the hell on.
"We have to get out there and catch up with them," I reminded him with a grin, pulling back with a moment to spare before it reached the point of critical mass. He brushed his nose against mine.
"Whatever you say," he replied, and I knew that this was a challenge – he was challenging me to keep going, to play his game with him. And yeah, okay, I would have been lying if I’d said that I wasn’t more than a little tempted by the idea. But I had to keep my head in the game as long as I was out here on this trip.
Well, that’s what I told myself, anyway.
I did exactly as much as I needed to in order to keep everything ticking over. I sat in the front of the bus with Joseph, and he pressed his leg up against mine, the pressure and weight of it more than I could take; I had to keep getting up under the guise of checking on how the kids were all doing, but I felt like everyone could see through me. He put his hand on the small of my back when the bus hit a pothole and almost sent me sprawling. Did anyone else see the way that my cheeks flushed red as soon as I felt his hand on me? I hoped not. If anyone caught wind of this...
We got to the museum, and the kids soon scattered, leaving us to chase after them and get them all together again in time for the performers who were meant to be coming in. The museum was old and dusty and looked like it had last been updated around a hundred years ago, but I still liked it. There was something to be said for places like this, places that felt like they were part of the history they claimed to contain.
We managed to get the kids in the same room again, and me and Joseph and the other two took our seats in the back of the performance space and watched as they began to re-enact in front of us. Joseph wound his fingers around mine, a little secret just for the two of us to enjoy, and I couldn’t help but smile. He wanted me to know that I was his. He wanted me to know that he was mine. Even at a time like this, when we were risking a whole lot by doing this in the real world, it was worth it.
By the time that the re-enactment was over and the kids had had the time to poke around the exhibits and artifacts, I was getting tired, ready to head home and catch some rest already. The kids were all buzzed on the pop they had been sipping on their lunch break, and I knew that their parents would hardly be delighted to get them back in such an overexcited state. But it was hard to care, not when I knew that Joseph and I had the whole evening ahead of us once this was over.
We drove back to the school in that battered-up minibus, and I carefully counted all the kids out and saw them off to their parents once again. They were sweet kids, they really were, and they thanked me for taking them out that day. I smiled and nodded and told them that it had been my pleasure, even though the only thing on my mind in that instant was how soon I could get out of here so that Joseph could drive me home and I could pull him back into my bed.
By the time that everyone was gone, it was just starting to get dark outside. I liked this time of year; it was still warm enough that you could actually get out and do things without freezing your rear end off, but it got dark soon enough that I could steal away under the cover of night to do anything I wanted to.
"You ready to go?” Joseph asked, and he put his arm around my waist as we headed for the door.
