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He just hadn’t realized that he wasn’t cut out to be a loner until recently.
For some reason, that brought Lindsey to his mind. He wondered if she had figured that out about herself yet. And if she had possibly considered the fact that maybe the two of them, as the outsiders, the loners, might in fact be a perfect match. If only it weren’t for their jobs.
5
ALTHOUGH LINDSEY HAD never taught kids, she’d put in plenty of days as a teacher’s assistant throughout her academic career. That meant subbing for professors a lot of the time. Before starting this new job, she’d figured teaching college freshmen wouldn’t be that much different than teaching high school seniors. And really, it wasn’t.
These kindergartners, though? Oh, man. They were going to be the death of her.
“Miss Smiff, Maffew took all the gween cwayons so nobody else can color their twees.”
Blinking as she interpreted that rare dialect known as six-years-old-and-toothless, Lindsey sighed and swiped her hand through her hair. It was only first period, and she was a teacher, so a margarita was out of the question. But oh, could she use one.
After being on the job for only five days, she had already decided Callie should be canonized. Lindsey had no idea how her friend—or any of the teachers at the Wild Boar School—did it.
First off, she taught six classes a day and only had one brief planning period that wasn’t long enough to catch her breath, much less grade papers or prepare lessons. During the first period, this one, she taught all the K–3 kids. In the classroom, the kids were separated by grade into smaller work groups, and she spent the entire class period revolving between them, giving mini lectures to one while praying the others would stay on task with what she’d asked them to work on.
The kindergartners rarely did. And her classroom “assistant”—one of the moms—spent more time helping her own kid with his classwork than she did keeping things running smoothly when Lindsey’s back was turned.
After this period, she would move on to the fourth through sixth graders. Same setup. Then seventh and eighth. Ditto.
This afternoon, she’d get ninth grade biology, then tenth grade chemistry. Finally, at the very end of the day, advanced chemistry, which had eight students, all seniors, all vying to be valedictorian of their seventy-five-person graduating class.
Frankly, she’d rather have all seventy-five of those seniors in her physics class than try to have four eyes in her head to keep track of grades K-1-2-3.
“Miss Smiff, did you heaw me? Maffew’s not being vewy nice. Do you think it’s nice to keep all the gween cwayons?”
“No, it’s not very nice,” she admitted, turning away from the third graders. Again.
From the beginning, her strategy had been to connect all of her class lessons so that each group’s subject was somehow related to the others. Today, she’d been talking to the kids about plant life. Nothing along the lines of oxygenation and photosynthesis...strictly, why some trees have flowers and others don’t. But the blank expressions on the faces of the kindergartners this morning, and their fidgeting bodies, had made her give that up and go right to the old I’m-not-a-parent-and-have-no-idea-how-to-handle-little-kids standby: coloring. Specifically, coloring sheets printed with bushes, trees and flowers, most of which required green. It appeared Maffew hadn’t remembered that whole “sharing” thing.
“I’ll talk to him, Sarah.”
“I’m Emily.”
Oh. Right. She had only been on the job five days and hadn’t memorized all the kids’ names. That would have been impossible in so short a time, of course. But considering in this room alone there were four Sarahs and five Emilys, one of those two was usually a good bet if she was at a loss. For the boys? Jason and Michael.
Mike.
Even during the day, there was one Mike who just wouldn’t get out of her head... The one who’d seen her sex-toy collection and then kissed her like he wanted to use every item in it with her. The encounter they’d shared—that embrace, that kiss—wouldn’t leave her mind. Nor would the memory of the expression on his face as he’d wondered what she did with those toys when she was alone.
She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told him she wasn’t in the market for romance or relationships. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t imagine having fabulous sex with him.
It had gotten so bad that at night she’d been tempted to actually use one of those vibrators, to take the pressure off. She might have written about the Thinkgasm, might have interviewed women who could think themselves off, but she hadn’t mastered the art herself. Lying in bed fantasizing about that strong body of his, that great laugh, the amazing mouth and that hot, wonderful kiss, only made her more frustrated, and certainly didn’t do anything to relieve the tension.
