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I ease the plug out. She hides her face in my hands, shy again now that it’s over, which is cute as hell after what she just let me do. I kiss her hair. Her shoulder. The finger with the ring on it.
“Bath,” I say. “Then I’m eating you again. Then I’m fucking you again.”
She giggles as I lift her into my arms. “Guess we’ll see how effective this shot is.”
I smirk against her temple. “I enjoy a challenge.”
Chapter forty
Blaire
The kids have been driving me up a wall trying to turn in assignments that were due the first week of the semester. Middle schoolers sound a lot like four-year-olds when you tell them no.
“But I have it,” Maisy says, holding a crumpled packet like it might still save her. “I just forgot it in my locker.”
“It was due in September. I can’t do anything about it now.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is very fair. You had until midterms to turn in things from the beginning of the year. I’m not taking anything from before midterms. If you have other assignments that you want to turn in now you can. I’m not taking a paper from September.”
She makes a noise I have also heard from Theo when I tell him he cannot jump off the furniture. I point at the door. She goes, dramatic, whispering to her friend in the hall like I personally ruined her life.
I’m just trying to push through till break. Then almost three weeks with my family, Theo, and my fiancé.
It still feels surreal to call him that.
My students lost it when I showed up a few weeks ago with the ring on.
I hadn’t even told them I was dating anyone. As far as they knew, I was very single. I’d shut down every “Miss Thomas, do you have a boyfriend” since August, and they had taken that as a personal challenge. Middle school girls are better than the FBI.
Before the third period bell even rang, a group of girls had found the engagement photos online and passed them around.
Kayla had her phone half under her desk when I turned around.
“Put it away.”
“I wasn’t even—”
“You were. Phones in the bin. Now.”
They groaned like I’d assigned detention for breathing. I waited until every phone was in the bin, then stood at the front of the room with my arms crossed and gave them a talk about respecting teacher privacy, not looking up your teacher’s life, and not sharing pictures of someone’s family around a group chat.
They were quiet for about forty seconds.
Then Jayden, who never talks out in class, said, “So is that your son’s dad? Or is that a different guy?”
“Jayden.” I had chastised him because it hadn’t really occurred to me that they wouldn’t also know that Simon is also Theo’s father.
“It’s the same guy. He looks just like the photo of her son on her desk.” Maya had chimed in.
I should have held the line. But their genuine interest and happiness for me melted my resolve. So I let them ask questions and look at my ring and try not to get flustered when they all start talking about my name no longer being Ms. Thomas.
It takes me fifteen minutes to get them back on task. My ring catches the light as I grade papers at my desk.
It means even more to me to know that he picked it before our lives fell apart, back when we were young and crazy in love and dumb enough that we both thought him getting my name tattooed above his dick was romantic.
Jamie shows up at lunch and drops into the chair beside my desk.
