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“Nova,” I said gently when I finally got her on the line.
“Mr. North,” she said stiffly.
I shut my eyes. “You can tell them, Nova. They know about us. The damage is done. What they’re worried about is whether . . .” I had a hard time even saying the words to her. “Whether you were a willing participant. They’re worried I was forcing you in that video.”
She made a little noise on the other end, a sound of distress, and Anna snatched the phone out of my hand. “That’s thirty seconds,” she told me sharply.
She was striding from the room when she barked at me, “Don’t move.”
I waited alone in that room for hours. I’d never felt more helpless in my life.
I felt a brief punch of panic in my gut when Anna finally came back, this time with two LEOs in tow.
The principal lectured and berated me for a good twenty minutes before I realized I wasn’t being charged with anything.
Just fired and humiliated.
I knew I was getting off light.
Sharon and the two silent LEOs walked me out all the way to my car but at least they didn’t arrest me.
When I got to the house it was more torturous waiting. Nova didn’t come home when she should have after school, and she wasn’t taking any calls.
She was hours late, but she did come home eventually.
I snatched her up and gathered her to me in a bear hug the second she walked in the door. I ran my hands over her back and kissed the side of her head. “Thank God. It felt like they were going to keep you indefinitely. They even claimed I couldn’t see you again.”
She was nuzzling into my chest. “I’m so sorry, Carter. This is all my fault—”
“Don’t say that. Of course it isn’t.”
I was holding her as the relief of having her home wore off, and suddenly, jarringly, I felt a sense of distinct discomfort.
She tried to kiss me. I turned my head away. “Not now. We need to take a break . . . from this. Just for now. It’s not your fault. It’s not you at all, it’s me.” I knew how it sounded, so pat and cliché, and I could tell by her arrested expression what I was doing to her, but it was still necessary. “I need some space. Just some time to think, okay? We’ll stay in our own sides of the house, out of each other’s way, while I sort things out.”
She looked crestfallen, but I didn’t know how to comfort her just then. I was just so disappointed in myself and still coming to terms with how much my life had just been turned upside down.
No more teaching. No more coaching. Ever again. It was sobering and frankly gutting. I hadn’t thought I’d teach for the long haul, but I’d never planned to let go of coaching.
That night she ignored what I’d said and crawled into bed with me.
For the first time ever, she touched me, and I didn’t get hard. I felt no desire at all, in fact. I had too much inner turmoil going on to think with my dick, for once.
I kissed the top of her head and pushed her away. “I meant it. I need some time.”
She hadn’t spoken since she’d entered the room, and she left without a word, her posture dejected.
I didn’t even feel bad. I felt numb. I simply knew I couldn’t go there now, not for a few days at least, while I processed all that had happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NOVA
I’d known the instant I was pulled into the office at school that everything was going to change for us, but even so it felt like I watched us end in slow motion.
The whole mess felt like all too many patterns in my life so far.
It felt like things were breaking, coming apart, like my foundation, never steady, was disintegrating into barest crumbs once more.
