Page 37 of The Teacher

My home, not Skipper’s hotel room.

I won.

I grab my handbag and stand up from the table whilst Skipper calls over the waiter for the check and places cash down on the table.

“You win, Sandy. I can’t take any more.”

“Great. So, I get to choose the next date, then.”

“There’s going to be a next date?”

“If you behave yourself,” I reply. “But I’m sick of restaurants and bars. The next date, if it does happen, is gonna be something real.”

I wave goodbye to him mockingly and turn to the front doors of Rockpool, feeling quite sick but also incredibly happy.

Skipper Deep has apologized to me. Skipper Deep really, really wants me. Skipper Deep lost to me in a drinking competition. All in all, that was not too bad of a date.

We’ll just have to see if I’m up for a second one.

I step outside and call a taxi home.

12

SKIPPER

I wonder what the next date will be with Sandy Finn.

Miss Finn, I like saying it like that.

My sexy teacher.

I’m pretty hungover the morning after our so-called not-date.

Fuck me.

Sandy really took it out of me last night. She really screwed me up at that restaurant with that little, but deadly, drinking competition of hers. What was even in those tequila shots, anyway? I’m so hungover this morning that I had to lean over the toilet bowl as soon as I woke up, ready to throw up the entire contents of last night. And I rarely am hungover. It usually takes a lot for me to wake up feeling sick like this and needing a big fry up like the one I’ve ordered from room service, but that’s exactly what Sandy’s made me feel when I got out of bed this morning. My bodyguard nearly had a heart attack when he saw me with my pale face and disheveled hair, thinking he’d fucked up his job and I was a goner. I had to reassure him it was merely a hangover before he could freak out too much. Well, technically, Sandy practically did actually poison me last night, just with alcohol instead of anything sinister. She really fucked me up, and she knew exactly what she was doing.

That little witch.

Yep, she really knew what she was doing.

She was a beast at drowning those shots, I bet she’s had a lot of practice with Cove. Sneaky girl. She really wanted to prove something to me last night. The entire time she was so damn sexy and confident and competitive.

It only makes me want her more.

Yeah, and I apologized to her. It was truthful. From my heart. I am not a sentimental guy; I rarely show my emotions. In my line of work, you’ve got to stay masculine. Composed. Stoic. Showing what I feel doesn’t come naturally to me, but I still let my guard down for Sandy. I showed her what I really felt. I exposed myself to her.

And it was terrifying.

But it needed to be done. I wanted her to see how sorry I am. How the memory of that house party and what I did really has been eating away at my soul every day of my life.

Which just leaves me to wonder, what will our next date be?

It’s gonna be something real.

That’s what she said.

If she even asks me out again.