Finding My Forever (36 page)

Sarah & Emily: I thank you for once again bringing my stories to life. Sarah, when you sent me the cover
Finding My Forever
, I yelled YES, loudly! I love staring at this cover. Emily, your vision and talent for making the insides look all pretty is amazing. Thank you both.

Ellie at Love N. Books: how do I begin to thank you? I probably can’t in all honesty. You pushed me to make a decision that I’ll forever be in debt to you for. You probably don’t hear this enough, but you were right – haha! Any author who gets to work with you in the future should consider themselves lucky. Without your constant “trust me” my cover wouldn’t be as fabulous as it is.

Brandyn Farrell: thank you for putting a “face” to Jimmy. To say you fit him perfectly is an understatement. The only thing missing is a British accent. Can you master that before a signing?

Denise: You’ve grown into such a good friend. I know I can count on you to be blunt and matter of fact.

Can’t wait for the world to see what’s up your sleeve.

Eric Heatherly: How you can supply the perfect song is beyond me, but I love it. Thank you for being on this journey with me and providing my guys with the music that they needed to complete their stories.

Indie Inked: You’re friendship and support is unwavering for that I thank you.

To my family: Thank you for your continued support. Thank you for encouraging my crazy ideas and for helping create new ones.

To my girls: You’re both so creative and your imaginations are wild. I can’t wait to see what you do. You both have your own amazing stories ready to be written and I can’t wait to help guide you through the process.

Heidi is the author of USA Today, Kobo, Digital Book World, Amazon and Barnes & Noble Bestselling novel, Forever My Girl

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in picturesque Vermont, with her husband and two daughters. Also renting space in their home is an over-hyper Beagle/Jack Russell and two Parakeets.

During the day Heidi is behind a desk talking about Land Use. At night, she’s writing one of the many stories planned for release or sitting court-side during either daughter’s basketball games.

Find Heidi on

Twitter:
www.twitter.com/HeidiJoVT

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/HeidiMcLaughlinAuthor

or her blog:
http://heidimclaughlinauthor.blogspot.com/

Against The Wall

By Julie Prestsater

Chapter One

Love Quarrel Stirs Violence among High School Teachers. I can just picture the headlines if I were to lose control and hit that hussy square in the jaw.

But there she goes looking all superior, and I feel the urge to rip out her dark brown extensions and shove them straight down her throat. As tempting as it may be, I know for the sake of my career, I can’t just haul off and knock someone out—and especially not over a guy. What kind of example would I be setting in a hallway full of hormonal adolescent students? So I guess I can understand why dating someone at work is not encouraged, especially when I want to punch that man-stealing whore. If she wasn’t such a floozy, maybe I could move on. Maybe I wouldn’t want him back so badly if he had left me for someone less sleazy. Not this waif in six-inch stilettos, acrylic nails, smothered in every possible product from the MAC counter. But this is who—or what—he chose. And yes, I still want him so bad it hurts.

A group of chatty kids snap me out of my frenzy.

“Check her out. I’d like to tap that ass,” a squirrely freshman boy says, raising eyebrows at the previously mentioned man-stealing whore, my colleague—a science teacher—walking down the hall as if it were an America’s Next Top Model runway. If she were in my class, I’d send her out for dress code violations on a daily basis. There’s no doubt she heard him too, and liked it. If only I was a student again, I’d be tempted to stick glue in her body lotion during gym. That would wipe the smile off her face.

“I know right, if she were homework, I’d do her every night,” his friend replies. They slap hands wildly in agreement. Great. Not only do half the male teachers here want her, the students are even drooling over this hoochie.

“Gross,” one of the girls in the huddle says, smacking Boy #2 in the chest.

Another young lady chimes in, “Dude, she’s a teacher. That’s so wrong.”

“So,” Boy #1 retorts. “I’m sure teachers like to get it on.” He pumps his hips back and forth, reminding me of Peewee from the old Porky’s movies. Sucking back the urge to gag, I have to stop myself from going over to them and smacking him in the back of the head. Little pervert.

“Eww. They’re so old. That’s just nasty on so many levels.” Girl #2 shudders at the thought. Now, I want to smack her.

“Yeah, it’s like admitting our parents have sex. There’s no way teachers do it,” Girl #1 adds. Okay, I’m about to do a whole heck of a lot of smacking. These children are going to need ice packs when I’m done with them for all their stupid talk. We’re teachers, not nuns and priests. No vow of celibacy here.

“Thanks,” he pauses, staring her down. “You totally killed it.” Boy #2 stalks off into class. The others follow, snickering.

Brats!

The bell rings. A few stragglers rush through the door just as I’m about to close it, and I have the overwhelming desire to change my welcome back spiel.

Good morning losers! Just an FYI. Teachers do have sex. Just like we eat, shit, and sleep every day. We also have to go to the grocery store so don’t be in shock when you see me at Albertson’s and I have a box of Tampax in my cart. I also have to buy clothes, so you might also see me at the mall and if you even make a face when I hit the dressing room with a year’s supply of Spanx, I may be forced to mark your papers with a big fat bleeding F for the rest of the year. So, yes, teachers have sex! And it’s not gross and it’s not like your parents doing it either. But for crying out loud, gentlemen, don’t go blind fantasizing about that skank you saw in the hall. She doesn’t have sex. She just fucks—excuse my language.

Damn it. Listening to student chatter before class has totally thrown me for a loop. I’m totally off my first-day-of-school game. My students are looking up at me like little puppies wanting table food, and I don’t have any scraps. I can’t think of shit to say.

The ridiculous conversation between a bunch of sex-crazed teenagers should really have little affect on me. I wouldn’t be bothered if those skinny little boys were talking about anyone else. But no…, they’re poppin’ chubs over Ms. McGallian. And, while teachers do have sex, and Ms. McGallian is having plenty, I for one, am not. I’m not even fucking for Christ’s sake. Oh shit, I just said Christ and fuck in the same sentence. Scratch that. I just said shit, Christ, and fuck in the same sentence. Twice.

One more thing … we fucking cuss too, bitches.

***

While I wait for my Lean Cuisine to cool down enough to not cause first degree burns in my mouth, I notice my lunch isn’t the only thing sizzling. The anger boils in my gut, and I wish it wasn’t. I honestly wish I didn’t care so much.

“Come on, Shel. It’s the first day back and you’re already showing your fangs. You look like you wanna rip off her head, shred her to pieces, and burn her hoochified remains,” my bestie tells me, hand on her hip in disapproval.

Lowering my head at her, I try my hardest to give her the look. “Mel, the Twilight references are getting old. Besides, you’re thirty-two. Can you please move beyond YA books and fantasize about guys who are legal?” I ask my best friend of twenty-two years.

“Edward is legal. He’s over a hundred years old.” Melissa, who I’ve called Mel since the fourth grade, tosses her lunch on the table and sits next to me. “And I’m married. I dream about every man I see, or read about. Thank God for fantasies or I’d never get the chance to be manhandled by so many beautiful men.”

Allowing a grin to form, I have to try to stop full-blown laughter so I won’t encourage her antics. “Yeah well, you’re a slut in your fantasies.”

She takes a huge bite of her sandwich and says, with grape jelly oozing out the side of her mouth, “I guess that makes me a fantastic slut.” She winks at me and I can’t help but laugh. She always manages to make me feel better. “Oh shit, here we go, Shel. Be cool.”

“What?” I ask, watching Mel tense up and take a deep breath.

“He’s here.”

He’s here?

And by he, she means my ex-boyfriend. My ex-loveofmylife. My ex-almostthefatherofmychildren. My ex-happilyeverafter. My ex-fiancé. My ex who left me for that Kim Kardashian butt double, Ms. McGallian. He’d argue he didn’t leave me for the curvy brunette with the million dollar highlights, big boobs, and scary acrylic nails. Of course he didn’t. I mean, they started dating less than a month after he called it quits. Yet, I’m supposed to believe she had nothing to do with it. She’s had practically every single man, a few of them married, on this damn campus and she couldn’t let my guy escape her claws. No. She dug right in and he didn’t even try to run from little Ms. Fake-Everything-From-Head-To-Toe.

I don’t see him, but I’m sure he sees Mel’s sneer. She’s practically stabbing a dagger through his chest with her eyes. Maybe she could will his pecker to fall off. That seems like a fair punishment for dumping my ass after ten plus years.

But, that was last year. Summer vacation should’ve been enough time for me to lick my wounds and get over the bastard, but one look at him and my heart turns to mush all over again. His thick black hair is getting long and wavy, and I want to go over there and grab a handful of it. He must have gone shopping. I’ve never seen that shirt before. It actually has bling on it. She probably bought it for him. The Chase I know would never wear a shirt with wings on it. But, whatever. The Chase I know would have never dumped the woman he was engaged to either.

“Stop with the eyes already,” Mel whispers, kicking me under the table.

“Ow. What the hell?”

She glares down at me, big Betty Boop brown eyes, with unnaturally long lashes, bulging from their sockets. Her eyes are the only things big about my best friend. She’s this petite little thing: barely five feet tall, having stopped growing in the sixth grade. “Don’t even look at him with those sad, pathetic eyes. It’s been four months. Don’t let him see you like this. Don’t let her.” Too bad her mouth isn’t small and gentle like her frame. Her brash, sassy talk more than makes up for her elfin size.

I can’t help glancing over at their table again. My eyes meet the tramp’s and I’m certain I see a smirk on her face. Give me five seconds alone with this bitch. She’ll be declawed in three, and with the other two, I’ll punch her in each tit just for fun. I know I shouldn’t take it all out on her, but Mel has Chase taken care of. Right about now, his balls are being hacked off with an ax in her mind.

Four months is clearly not long enough to get over someone you’ve been with half your life, I want to tell Mel. But I don’t. My shin still stings from her swift kick and rubbing it like crazy is keeping me from looking in the happy couple’s direction, again. I must look like an idiot massaging up and down my leg, but it beats the alternative. Repeatedly seeing Ms. McGallian and my ex together will make this first day of school the worst in my career. Although, I’m pretty sure this entire year is going to kill me.

I may need to rethink my profession. Or maybe consider a transfer, at the very least. When people break up and go their separate ways, the dumpee is bound to get over the dumper after days and days apart. There’s just one huge problem here: the dumpee and the dumper will be seeing each other five days a week, along with the ho bag who is now shacking up with the dumper. Now, the dumpee is feeling even dumpier.

“I’m gonna start eating in my classroom.” It seems impossible to handle another day like this one, where I have to concentrate on not letting my eyes wander.

Mel shoots me another irritated look. “Don’t you dare. You are not going to let them force you to hide out in your room all year. They should be the ones who hide in shame. But that bitch wants to rub it in your face.” She’s right. She always is. I shouldn’t let her get to me.

“FYI… if I can hear this conversation on the other side of the room, so can they,” a voice whispers in my ear. I look up and I’m eye to eye with Matty. He gives me a sympathetic look, squeezes my shoulder, and walks away.

“Dang, that guy wants you so bad,” Mel says quietly, fluttering her brows at me.

“Mr. Fuller is a good friend. It’s not like that,” I remind her.

“Well as I’ve heard on many Lifetime Movie Originals, ‘the best way to get over a man is to get under another one.’ I doubt Matt Fuller will mind being on top if you know what I mean.”

“You’re scandalous.”

Get under another one? Is she crazy? I guess if I ever did manage to get under another man, Matty would be high on my list of choices, if only we didn’t work together. Whose list wouldn’t he be on? The man is delicious with his bright blue eyes that twinkle every time he smiles, and his well-built physique and bronze skin. Every inch of his six-foot body is beautiful, inside and out. If I had to choose between him and Chase based solely on looks, Matty would beat him every day of the week. Chase is great looking and uber sexy. Women check Chase out all the time. But Matty, he’s absolutely gorgeous and there’s not an arrogant cell in his entire body. Now, there’s the major difference between the two men.