Her Teacher's Temptation (10 page)

I frowned. What
was wrong with him? I honestly thought it was a bit understandable that he’d
want to see his daughter that he’d apparently only just found out he’d got. I
decided it was best not to say that right now, though. “He’d never get full
custody of her, whatever the situation,” I tried to assure her. “And he
probably wouldn’t bother, right? I mean, he looks too young to actually want to
be raising a kid right now.”

“Hopefully,” she
muttered, milling around the kitchen, presumably trying to occupy herself. “I
guess I’ll just have to wait and find out. Anyway, how was your day? Anything
eventful?”

I wasn’t going
to worry her with all the information I’d actually gotten today. “Nothing,” I
smiled innocently at her. I’d find a way to deal with my feelings for Ollie and
Meg’s impending drug problem myself.

Chapter Sixteen

It wasn't until
the end of school the next Monday that I worked up enough courage to speak to
Meg.

"Hey,
Meg," I began awkwardly, scratching the back of my head as we lit up. We'd
decided to walk home today since the weather was so nice. And Rob apparently
lived on the way to my house. "Can I talk to you about something?"

Meg frowned.
"Of course you can," she said as if I was stupid. "You can tell
me anything."

I gnawed on the
inside of my cheek. I'd been basically going over this moment for the past four
days, and I still didn't know how to begin, despite the several hours that I’d
spent trawling the internet for ideas when I should have been doing homework.
"I'm kind of worried about how much E you're doing," I blurted,
really hoping that hadn't been too direct, or anything.

Her face
dropped, though I knew it was the likely response. “Why?” She questioned,
managing to keep any anger she probably felt out of her voice.

“You got high
at school, Meg,” I reminded her seriously, unable to meet her gaze. “You know
it’s not good for you to be doing it this much. And you’d never have normally
done this.”

She scowled,
crossing her arms defensively. “So, what? You think this is because of Rob?
Just because you have perfect Mr. Wright doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have
someone too.”

Words died on
my tongue. Well, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting. “Ollie and I are far from
perfect. We’re far from being anything at all.” It was painful to have to admit.
“And no, I don’t think it’s completely to do with Rob.” I couldn’t say that I
didn’t think he was a bad influence, because I’d be lying. “I think it has to
do with your mum.” I’d refrained from asking recently, so I wasn’t even sure
what her condition was.

“That has nothing
to do with anything.” Her voice had dropped cold now. “My mum’s fine.” I highly
doubted that from the way she stumbled over the word. “You’re overreacting.
Just because you’re being boring doesn’t mean that I’m doing anything wrong.
I’m just having fun, Maddie. I’m seventeen. This is what I’m supposed to be
doing, not working at a boring restaurant and crushing on my teacher that I can
never be with.” That stung.

“I’m just
looking out for you,” I muttered, still hurting from the Ollie comment. Of course
I knew we were never going to be together. Somehow that didn’t stop me
daydreaming about him leaving Jemma for me at least three times a day. I really
was a loser.

“I don’t need
you to babysit me, Maddie,” Meg snapped. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not doing
anything wrong.”

“Right.” I
agreed. I was going to have to rethink my approach to this, since it clearly
hadn’t worked out so far. “Sorry for mentioning it.”

Meg let out a
groan. “And I’m sorry for being a bitch. I’m just cranky and hungover and on a
comedown. I know I’ve been a bit irresponsible lately, but it’s nothing
serious, honest. It’s just been coincidence with what my other friends have
been doing and the cheap stuff they’ve got in. I’m not an idiot,” she insisted.
“And I know the risks. This is the last weekend in a row, I promise. I don’t
even feel like doing it again for a while anyway.”

I forced my
mouth curl up in a small smile. “Good,” I responded. “I’m glad.” Meg’s words
had stung and I’d probably go home and have a cry about them, but for now there
was no point in making anything worse. I didn’t want more insults slung in my
direction from my best friend.

“We should do a
movie night soon,” Meg decided. “Me and you and maybe Hannah, depending on what
her decision about Mike is. It’ll depend on how interesting her conversations
are going to be,” she teased.

I laughed.
“That sounds really awesome,” I stated truthfully. It’d be nice to do something
just the three of us that didn’t involve some kind of alcohol. “We’ll talk more
about it at school tomorrow.”

“I’m going this
way,” she explained, gesturing down a side road that led onto a cul-de-sac.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. And thanks for caring,” Meg beamed, giving me a small
wave and setting off in the opposite direction to me.

I almost whined
in annoyance when I got home. It took forever to walk home and now I had to
come straight back out with the dog. Only as soon as I got in, my mum was
shoving my sister into my arms. “You’re late,” she accused, fretting about and
then handing me Lily’s favourite soft toy. “I need you to go and take Lily to
your friend’s, or something. Just to anyone’s as long as she’s inside and
fine,” she was speaking so fast I could barely understand her. “I wasn’t
expecting you to be so long getting home.”

“What’s going
on?” I demanded, my heart rate spiking.

“Nick is coming
round and I’m worried that he’s going to do something stupid like try and take
Lily, so I just want her as far away from here as possible.”

“He’s not going
to hurt you, is he?” I was finding myself in somewhat of a panic now, too. This
had all suddenly got a lot more intense than I was anticipating. I was
expecting a court case at the most, not some kind of attempted kidnapping.
“Because if he is then you should be calling the police.”

“He’s not going
to do anything like that,” she dismissed, waving me off and calming down a tad
now that Lily was safely in my arms. “He’s just angry about not getting to see
his daughter. Go on the bus. Don’t just be walking about. And stay wherever you
go until I call you, all right?”

I nodded,
realising that it’d make my mum feel better if I just did what she said. “Okay,”
I agreed. “I’ll keep my phone next to me and off silent.”

“Thanks, love,”
she offered me a tiny smile and kissed both Lily and I on the cheek. “Be wary
on your way there,” she shoved me straight back out the door before I’d even
had time to put my bag down.

Thinking over
what she’d said, I figured it would be best to go through the jitty to a
different street, so that I wasn’t just sat at the bus stop outside my house.
The only problem now was where I was supposed to go. Meg was at Rob’s, so that
wasn’t an option, and Hannah lived on the other side of Sheffield. Plus, she
was no doubt spending time with Mike.

Which left
Ollie.

It was
completely inappropriate and I definitely shouldn’t have gone to his house, but
I really couldn’t think of anywhere else. I wasn’t close enough friends with
the other people in my year to even know where they lived.

Entering his
apartment block, I finally felt my heart rate slow down a bit. I’d been on edge
the whole way here and it had made it worse that Lily only stopped crying when
we finally got off the bus. A crying baby was definitely one way to bring
attention to myself, especially when everyone assumed I was just a really young
parent.

After double
checking my memory that I’d got the right apartment, I gave a soft knock. It
would be so embarrassing if I’d gotten this wrong now.

A frowning
Ollie opened the door and his eyes widened when he saw me. “Maddie? What’s
wrong?”

I noticed that
Jemma was stood beside him, her shoes on and bag in hand. It looked like she
was just leaving and my thought was confirmed by her next words. “I’ll see you
later, darling,” she gave him a gentle kiss on the lips and me a distasteful
look before pushing past me and strutting down the hallway.

“See you later,”
Ollie called after her, inviting me in and allowing me to sit down on the
couch. “So, what’s happened? Why are you and your sister here?”

“My mum said
Lily’s dad was coming around and she didn’t want her around him. She told me to
take her to a friend’s house, but Meg is with Rob and Hannah lives really far
away.” I glanced away as he took a seat beside me on his extremely comfy couch.
“I wouldn’t have come here unless I could think of somewhere else.”

“It’s fine.”
Ollie dismissed. “You think your mum will be all right?”

I sighed,
concentrating on Lily’s happy face as I bounced her up and down on my knee. “I
don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, if she was worried about this guy kidnapping
Lily, I don’t imagine he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t hurt her.” Surely my
mum would do something if it would like that?

“It’ll be okay,”
Ollie assured me, his eyes also studying Lily’s giggling face. She was an
extremely cute baby, I had to admit, and she’d reached the age where she was
really chubby and just walking around. She couldn’t say many words yet, but she
was particularly good at making incoherent noises.

“You want to
hold her?” I asked Ollie cautiously. I didn’t want to make him feel like he had
to take her off me, but he looked kind of like he wanted to. Watching him play
with a cute baby was likely to take my mind of whatever was happening at home,
too.

He hesitated
only briefly before nodding. “Sure.”

I couldn’t help
but watch with an affectionate smile as Ollie interacted with Lily. He chuckled
as Lily wrapped her whole hand around one of his fingers, but then let out a
heavy sigh. “She is adorable,” he admitted. “But I just really don’t want kids
right now.”

I raised a
surprised eyebrow. “Well, yeah, I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re only 24,” I
reminded him, as if he was stupid.

“My family, is,
erm, very traditional. They expect me to be married and have kids within the
next year, like my perfect brother did.”

“Ha.
Traditional as in they want a perfect family, but not that they want their son
to go to Oxford?” I questioned, trying not to sound like I didn’t approve of
his parents
too
much. I didn’t know what his actual opinion of them was
and offending Ollie definitely wasn’t my aim.

“I’m not going
to attempt to explain it,” he grumbled. “But yeah, basically.”

“So that’s why
you’re with Jemma,” I predicted. “She’s older than you, right? She’s probably
actually ready to settle down.”

“How did you
work that out so quickly?” He whined. “But, yeah, pretty much. I mean, she’s
pretty much perfect in that respect. Plus, she has tons of money,” he supplied
with a small smirk.

“It’s a shame
she’s not perfect in any of the ways that will actually matter to you,” I
retorted before I could stop myself. I felt fairly sure that Ollie didn’t
actually care about her that much anyway. “You know you’ll regret it forever if
you marry her.”

He ran the hand
that Lily wasn’t clinging to through his curls. “I know,” he conceded. “But
what am I supposed to do? I don’t want to let down my parents any more.”

Frowning, I
very much wanted to scoot over and rest my head on his shoulder, though I knew
it wasn’t a good idea. “They won’t be disappointed in you,” I spoke as if I
knew what I was talking about. “And even if they were, it wouldn’t be worth
making yourself really unhappy for.”

Ollie smirked.
“You just want me to break up with Jemma anyway.”

I flushed.
“True, but you know I’m being honest about everything else too. I even tried to
give you advice about staying with her, so don’t you dare complain that I’m
being selfish.” My voice was bitterer than I’d intended by the end and I
glanced away.

“I’m sorry,
Maddie, for asking you for advice. It was really shitty of me.”

I chuckled. “I
don’t care. You couldn’t exactly ask anyone else.”

“I suppose,” he
said, though I was secretly glad he’d actually acknowledged that it was a bit
of a dick move, even if I’d had to prompt it. “How long do you think Lily’s dad
will be?” He questioned. “We can watch a film, if you want.”

“I’m not sure,
my mum said she’d ring me. I’ve got a feeling she’ll leave it a while to make
sure, though. She doesn’t know I’m here, obviously. I’m pretty sure we have
time to watch a film.” Maybe we could snuggle, though I was seriously doubtful.
I wondered if this meant Ollie was going to break up with Jemma. “But you’re
picking,” I quickly stated. I was really bad at making decisions like that. I
didn’t like the pressure.

He pouted, but
nodded, handing me back Lily and going to switch the TV on and flick through
the movie channels. “You’re not even going to give me a hint on genre? Can we
take this as some kind of bonding exercise where you tell me what kind of
movies you like?”

I smirked.
“Horror, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea since Lily’s here. I don’t know
whether babies are affected by that kind of thing.”

Ollie shrugged.
“I don’t know anything about kids. I’ve kind of put off trying to know anything
about them. Plus, I’m not good with children. I always just feel kind of
awkward around them, like I’m going to say or do something wrong.”

“Well, I guess
you are a bit creepy,” I teased. “Sleeping with a minor.”

“Hey!” He
countered. “You’re technically not a minor since you’re over 16, right? Like if
it weren’t for the teacher thing, it wouldn’t be illegal.”

I chuckled.
“No, you’re good, don’t worry. And just put a comedy on or something,” I
suggested. There wasn’t likely to be anything great on the movie channels anyway
and Ollie didn’t seem to have any DVDs in plain sight.

We settled on one
of my favourite comedies, much to my delight, and Lily fell asleep almost
immediately. “I’m going to go and just lay her on the chair,” I whispered to
Ollie. “She’s heavier than I thought.” After putting a cushion in front so that
it was almost impossible for her to roll off, I returned to the couch and sat
beside Ollie. “I talked to Meg earlier.”