Her Teacher's Temptation (13 page)

It was all a
bit too much for me to just take in right now. “I’m still not sure whether I
should’ve told you or not,” he admitted, watching me carefully. My mixed
emotions were probably obvious. “And I think that’s me done. I’ll see if anyone
recognises the description, or anything,” he acknowledged, the scary smirk
twisting its way onto his face again.

“Okay.” I
replied, gulping down the last few mouthfuls of my drink and glancing at Ollie.
His uncomfortable posture was enough to let me know that he wanted to get out
of here as much as I did after this revelation. “Well, I might, erm, see you
later then, I guess,” I fumbled, frowning. Did that mean my dad would want to
see me more, now that I knew? Or did everything continue as normal? I just
wanted it to go back to summer.

“See you later.
Thanks for the info. I’m going to stay and have another coffee, but I’m sure
your mother will be wondering where you are.”

“Right,” I
agreed, whilst Ollie gave an awkward sort of nod to my father. “Thanks for
telling me the truth.”

“You deserved
to know.”

“Well,” Ollie
dragged out the syllable when we were both strapped into his car, the engine
running. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure. I
don’t think I’ve processed everything yet.”

“I guess it’s
like you said, you didn’t really know him that well. Maybe this is a chance for
you to get to know him better, if you wanted to.”

“My dad’s a
criminal,” I said it out loud. “What am I even supposed to say to that? And
then I feel like I’m kind of being a hypocrite considering I do drugs
sometimes. I mean, do you think I can really afford to judge?”

Ollie shrugged
and we finally set off driving. I figured he’d been waiting to see if he needed
to hug me, making me realise I probably should have pretended to be more upset
to reap the benefits. “I suppose. He did go to prison, though,” he let out a
long sigh. “I guess it’d be kind of hypocritical for me to judge, too.” Then he
snorted. “I slept with my student, so I’m in no position to say anything.”

I smirked. “I
think I’m going to be okay,” I assured him with a small chuckle. “It’s just
going to be hard to not say anything to my mum. I’m glad Nick will hopefully be
out of her way now.”

“Yeah,” Ollie
agreed. “It’ll probably all work out okay.”

I was almost
certain he couldn’t have picked a more ominous sentence.

Chapter Nineteen

"I need
advice," Hannah declared as soon as I'd opened the door to let her into my
house. "Help me."

I chuckled.
From the small quirk in her lips I knew it was nothing too serious, but my
interest had been piqued. "We're watching in my room since my mum's in,"
I ignored her request for a moment. "Meg's already here. I hope you
brought your nomination for DVD because I really don't want to watch
Bridesmaids again."

Hannah groaned.
"Why does she bring that to every single movie night?"

I smirked.
"Ask her. I'm convinced it's just the only DVD she owns."

In my bedroom,
Meg had made herself comfortable on my double bed, stealing all the pillows and
the covers. I fixed her with a flat look. "Move."

"But I'm
so comfy," she whined childishly. "You guys can just sit on the
floor.” The fact I had a double bed in a tiny room meant there was barely
enough space for me to walk, never mind sit for the whole of a movie.

Hannah and I
shared a look before diving onto the bed and grabbing pillows and settling in
either side of her. Now squashed between us, Meg grimaced. "And you're not
even going to let me watch Bridesmaids.”

"Hannah is
in need of advice," I explained to a now disgruntled Meg.

"Ooo, is
it something interesting?" She questioned eagerly. "There's not been
enough juicy gossip recently."

Hannah bit her
lip before blurting, "I kissed the Scottish guy."

Meg and I
shared a surprised look. "You're still with Mike though, right?"

She groaned.
"That's the problem."

Meg smirked.
"Well was the kiss good? How did it happen?"

"It was
amazing," Hannah gushed. "He came round to my house because we're
doing a group project together in physics and we were just talking and stuff,
having a laugh, it was all normal. Then he just kind of blurted that he liked
me and I was shocked, I mean, I didn't think he'd thought about me like that,
it was so cute how embarrassed he looked."

"Boooring,"
Meg drawled. "Get to the hot details."

Hannah grinned.
"Well then we kissed. And of course we were on the bed where we'd be
revising and we may have done a bit more than just kissing, but no sex. And
yes, it was very hot," she teased, beaming.

"So what
about Mike?" I was forced to put a slight downer on the whole situation.
"Does this guy know you have a boyfriend?"

"His
name's Ewan by the way," Hannah informed us. "And no, he doesn't. I'm
going to break up with Mike, though." Her tone was resolute, but Hannah
had never been decisive. "It's just not working and I know it was awful to
cheat, I'm going to feel so guilty when I see him, but it's the right thing to
break up."

I couldn't
really argue with her, especially after what Ollie and I had done, even if that
wasn't really my fault. They weren't together anymore, anyway. I tried
desperately not to show how much that made me cheer mentally. I was in far too
deep with Ollie.

"Now Meg's
got someone you need to get back out there, Maddie," Hannah teased.
"You can have Mike if you want."

I snorted.
"You've not done a very good job of selling him so far," I joked
back, hoping that I'd skilfully dodged the main point of her statement
effectively.

"But
seriously Maddie, all you talked about last year was Connor. Haven't you got
someone new?" Hannah inquired, beginning to flick through my small
collection of films. I was momentarily horrified. Surely I hadn't been as bad
as Meg and I always joked about Hannah being. I dreaded to think what my
company had been like.

"Not
really," I lied, ignoring Meg's annoyingly smug look. "Besides, after
I slept with Connor it kind of made it harder to get over him." The fact
it had actually had the opposite effect was kind of worrying.

"I suppose.”

"She's too
busy crushing on her English teacher." Meg couldn't help but chime in, not
even attempting to hide her shit-eating grin. She just loved to make me
miserable.

"He is
fairly dreamy," Hannah sighed, thankfully not even reading any more into
it. "It's really making me wish I'd taken English."

I chuckled.
"It wouldn't be worth it because of how frustrated you'd get at not having
a 'right answer'."

Hannah scowled.
"Yeah, I still have no idea how you can enjoy maths and English."

"Agreed,"
Meg coincided. "Now, let's get on with picking a DVD that isn't going to
be Bridesmaids, despite what an epically awesome and uplifting film it
is."

“Horror!” I
called immediately. “It’s the only genre.”

Two groans
sounded from either sound of me. “Why are you so sadistic?” Meg complained. “I
just want something nice and cheerful. Can we at least compromise on something
a little bit funny?”

“Scary Movie
3?” I asked hopefully. That was a favourite.

“Okay,” Hannah
conceded. “I actually quite like that one.”

“I’m going to
see if there’s popcorn,” I announced, clambering from under the covers and
knowing that my spot wasn’t still going to be there when I got back.

“You invited us
over for movie night and you don’t even know if there’s popcorn?” Meg cried in
outrage. “What
are
you?”

I cackled and
headed downstairs. I was fairly sure we had popcorn. At least I hoped we did,
otherwise I’d be just as irritated as Meg.

My mum was
making a cup of tea in the kitchen when I went to sift through the cupboards.
“It feels like ages since I’ve seen Meg and Hannah. They seem just as lively as
ever.”

I flushed
slightly. “You can come and tell us off if we’re disturbing you.”

She smiled.
“No, it’s fine. It’s nice to see you all so happy, so I don’t mind.”

My expression
faltered slightly as I considered whether I wanted to risk ruining her
seemingly good mood. It was important to know. “Have you spoken to Nick since
Tuesday?” I asked reluctantly.

Her face
changed quizzical. “Actually, he had a sudden change of heart,” She confessed.
“I meant to tell you, but I just think it’s a bit too good to be true.”

It certainly
sounded like it. But maybe my dad had been more threatening than I’d been
anticipating. More likely was that he’d either had a weapon that had been
scary, or his friends had made up for the fear-factor he was lacking. Either
way, I was more than happy that he’d apparently come through on his promise.

“He probably
realised that raising a daughter wasn’t actually on his list of priorities.” I tried
to ignore the stab of guilt. I didn’t like lying to my mother. I could accept
that it was for the greater good when it came to going out and doing drugs,
because it would save her worrying unnecessarily. This was something important,
though. She was involved in this. And it was more that I felt like I should
tell her I knew the truth about my dad.

My mother
chuckled. “Don’t hold your breath, but I’m oddly optimistic.”

I beamed,
despite her warning. I knew more about the situation than her, so I could be
more than hopeful that he’d been properly scared away from her. “Me too,” I
agreed, retrieving a two bags of toffee popcorn. “Anyway, I’m going to watch
this film, I’ll try to keep them a little bit quiet.”

“Have fun
sweetie,” my mother laughed in response, her head disappearing into the fridge
to retrieve the milk as I exited the room.

“You got an
e-mail,” Meg traded the popcorn for my phone as I shoved my way back into the
bed, feeling like I was precariously close to falling off if anyone made any
sudden movements.

I allowed
Hannah to start the DVD playing whilst I checked my phone. I was pleasantly
surprised when it wasn’t some boring spam like I’d been expecting. I bit my lip
and grinned. “I got an interview at Newcastle!” I exclaimed to my friends.

“That’s great,”
they chimed together, their timing nowhere near as good as in the movies. “When
is it?” Hannah inquired.

“Two weeks,” I
read from the e-mail. "15th November. Wow, have we really been at school
two months already?"

Meg chuckled.
"Yeah, it's gone surprisingly fast, but at least we have next week off for
half term. Party all day and all night."

I groaned and
made myself playfully acknowledge that my body probably couldn't take that.
Internally, I worried whether this meant Meg's 'staying away from it for a
while' had only really meant this weekend.

"Seriously
though, Rob invited me to this party on the Wednesday where I'm not going to
know anyone and he said I could bring friends so it wouldn't be awkward. Are
you guys interested?" She gave us big sad eyes and I rolled mine.

"I'm
always interested in a big party, Meg," I teased in reply, hiding my
apprehension well.

"I will if
I'm not doing anything else," Hannah assured Meg. "You know what my
parents are like in the holidays."

"How are
you going to get there?" We didn't mind talking over the film. We'd seen
it so many times that it was easy to pick up from wherever we started watching
again from.

I shrugged,
Ollie's offer immediately popping into my head. "I'll probably get the
train, if my mum can't take me."

“Just a shame a
certain attractive teacher couldn’t just take you again,” Hannah chuckled. “You
never told me much about that by the way. Did nothing interesting happen at
all?”

I refused to
meet Meg’s eyes and share the knowing look she wanted to give me. “Not really,”
I dismissed. “I met his sister, but that was about it. She was nice. She’s
doing journalism, so that was pretty interesting.” I should tell Hannah,
really, but the thought of having to go through the pain of explaining
everything was a bit too much to handle right now.

Hannah pulled a
face. “Boring,” She dismissed. “I was hoping he’d tell you some juicy details
about his life.”

As if by magic,
my phone buzzed and I subtly hid it beside my leg as I saw Ollie’s name flash
across the screen. I smirked as I read it.

I refuse to
give you full marks on this essay. Did you copy this off the internet or
something?

I’m just
that good.
I quickly replied, being able to picture perfectly the way he’d
roll his eyes at my response. I suppose it had turned out that us having each
other’s numbers wasn’t necessarily a good thing. This was all going to come to
some kind of messy end soon, I was sure. It was just the way something illegal
always ended. Ollie and I wouldn’t ever work. But for now, I was surprisingly
happy to play along with this happy supposed friendship we had going on. I was
going to make the most of it before he decided he didn’t want me risking his
career. I definitely wasn’t worth it.