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When he didn’t immediately let them go when I tried to take them, I dropped my hand.
He frowned.
What, was he expecting me to play tug o’ war with it?
He shook the papers impatiently this time, and I resisted the urge to take them on general principle at this point. “You can set them down on the desk.”
He narrowed his eyes.
I skirted around the desk and walked to the door, waiting there patiently for him to leave.
Once he was gone, I’d lock the door—just like school policy dictated.
Until then, I waited while he stared me down like I was in trouble.
“Is there anything I can help with?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He blew out a breath. “In that case, I’m going to go.”
Good for you.
Instead of saying my inner thoughts aloud, I only smiled serenely.
Or tried to.
I think it came out more as a grimace.
When he hesitated next to me in the doorway, I had to fight the urge to squirm.
He was giving me his coach stare, the one I’d seen him pull out for wayward students that miss-stepped in his presence.
I licked my suddenly dry lips and looked at him.
I saw the moment that recognition lit his eyes, but then a woman called his name.
The slut bag, Coach Casper.
“Hey, McDuff. You ready?” Coach Casper called out, sashaying down the hallway. “I got you a coffee and a cookie from the coffee shop in town. Your favorite! Black with one sugar, and an oatmeal raisin cookie.”
Ezra hesitated, his eyes still locked on mine, but then the bell rang.
“Coach McDuff?”
He made the decision then and stepped out of the doorway.
I took the opportunity for what it was and went to lock the door with my ring of keys, only I dropped them. When I bent down to pick them up, I slapped my forehead onto the door handle.
Ezra stopped, turning back around, but I hastily picked the keys up, closed the door, and then locked it before he could make it back to me.
I looked at him through the small window pane of glass and saw that he was worried and amused.
I looked away and found the class staring at me.
“Your head’s gonna have another bruise tomorrow,” Johnson pointed out.
I shrugged it off. “If all I get is a bruise on my forehead today, I’ll count myself lucky.”
Normally it was worse.
The class laughed.
Then they continued to laugh as I bumbled my way through the first lesson.
Apparently, I wasn’t doing them any good—which they shared with me.
All of them knew everything that I’d taught them.
Shit.
It was sad when sixteen and seventeen-year-olds were more experienced than their sex-ed teacher.Chapter 4Guess what? Chicken butt.
-Text from Raleigh to Camryn
Raleigh
I smiled at the parent, waiting patiently with my hand on the door as the little boy—Alfred—muddled his way to the front seat coming up from the very back. Then, just when he’d gotten to me and I reached out to lift him from his mother’s van, he turned around and said, “My backpack!”
I glanced at the mother who was on her phone and clearly didn’t want to be bothered.
Some parents really had this drop-off line shit down. Their kids were dressed—with shoes on—and waiting patiently with their backpacks on their shoulders to be let out of the car.
And then there were people like Alfred and his mother. Alfred had to put on his shoes. Then he had to put his papers in his bag. Then he had to find the pencil that had rolled out of his seat and onto the floor somewhere. Then, finally, he’d come up to the front only to have to turn around and go back to the back for the backpack that he’d left behind.
I had to question why I was even over here in the first place.
I taught at the high school. But, once a week, I was forced to come over here since I was what was considered the ‘float teacher.’ After my morning classes, I was floated around to all the campuses.
Since the high school and the elementary campus were so close together, they didn’t see a problem with me having to come all the way over.
No other teacher had to do it.
Just me.
“Go, Tit!”
I blinked, then shook my head, thinking I was hearing things.
“All right, Tit!”
Tit?
Who was he calling Tit?
Alfred jumped down out of his mother’s van and landed straight on my foot.
I closed my eyes and tried not to cry out in pain, taking a step forward just as the boy’s mother practically peeled out of the parking lot in her haste to leave.
“Sorry, Tit,” Alfred apologized. “I didn’t mean to.”
I didn’t bother to ask him to clarify the ‘Tit’ name. There was no time.
I smiled through clenched teeth. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay.
But I’d get over it.
After walking Alfred up to the front walkway, I went back to my car lane and realized that Alfred was the last of the morning drop-offs.
