Lessons of the Heart (16 page)

“Moot point? And I thought I used old fashioned words a lot,” I joke as I enter the bathroom, shutting the door on his soft chuckle.

When I re-enter the room, I find him standing by the window. The bed is already made up and the small coffee pot is brewing the life-giving brown liquid that I know we both need.

“What time are you heading back?” he asks, pouring me a cup. I take it and sit in the chair at the small round table in the corner.

“I’m meeting the two lust birds at ten for breakfast and then we’re leaving after that. What about you?” I take a tentative sip of my coffee and wait for the burn to settle in my mouth.

“I’ll probably leave before you. I don’t think I could handle being here without you again.”

I swallow hard and brace myself for my next question. “What are we going to do when we get back home?”

“What do you mean?” James tilts his head to the side, taking a sip from his Styrofoam cup.

“I mean, of course, we won’t have days or nights like this again and it’s going to be hard to pretend that nothing happened between us.”

His fingers play with mine on the tabletop.

“Hey, look at me,” he says softly. I raise my eyes to his smiling ones and whatever tension I had leaves me instantly. “We’ll figure it out. Everything will be okay. You’ll be my assistant this next trimester so we have that at least. For one whole hour, I’ll have you to myself.”

“At school. Not exactly ideal I would say. Plus we’d have to have the door open the entire time. Do you know how much trouble we’d get into if someone caught us in your office with the door closed? You could get fired.”

“Let me worry about that. I told you I won’t let anything happen. You believe me, don’t you?”

I nod.

“Nothing will happen. We’ll find a way to make this work.”

He’s so optimistic about this whole situation. Maybe we really can make this work, whatever this thing is that we’re doing.

I glance at my watch. “Damn, it’s nine already. I need to get ready, which means you need to leave.”

He nods and moves to leave but braces himself against the opened door. “Text me when you get home, please? I want to make sure you get there safe.”

“I will,” I say.

James bends down to kiss my lips while my hand reaches up to cup his cheek, my thumb gently brushing over the crest of the bone.

“Bye, Britta,” he says, backing away to his door.

“Bye, James.” I blow a kiss to him as he enters his room. He smiles and places it against his heart, making mine beat that much faster.

When his door shuts, I back into my room and sag against my closed door. I’m not sure what happened this weekend between us, but I know that going forward is going to be challenging and yet exciting at the same time. I just hope we can make it work.

“S
O HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND?”
Chase asks me as we walk to our first-period class together.

I do my best not to be annoyed by his presence. So I turn a fake smile at him and shrug. “It was all right.”

“All right? Dude, you went and saw the Foo Fighters. It had to have been more than all right?”

“Of course that part kicked ass. I mean, it was a concert. You go there to party and rock out. Outside of the concert it was good, though.”

“Too bad I couldn’t make it. That would have been fun for us to hang out and do things together,” he says.

My heart clenches, thinking about how the weekend could have been different had Chase been there. If that had happened, James and I would never have been able to connect as we did, spend our time freely without worry of being found out or judged. Memories flood me instantly, remembering our day of shopping and sightseeing, of him stealing kisses on every street corner and holding me close at every opportunity. A smile crosses my face as I remember his lips on mine while we watched our movie and the feel of his hands as they traveled up and down my arm. All while my ear was pressed against his chest, listening to the calming beat of his heart, beating solely for me.

“Yeah, too bad,” I murmur. Chase looks fallen and I realize that I was still smiling when I said that.

“Well don’t seem so happy about it.” The hurt is evident in his words.

“Shit, Chase, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just remembered something that happened on Saturday and I guess I got caught in the moment.”

Chase steers us down a hallway and leans into me. My back is pressed firmly against the wall while I clutch my books in front of my chest.

“Go out with me?” He leans his head close to my ear and I want to shove him away. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I fight the urge to do so. I just want to get to class, get through the next few hours so I can see James.

“Chase, I-”

“Is there a problem here?” a strong familiar voice says to my right.

I turn my head and widen my eyes at the sight of James standing there, arms crossed and a less than pleased look upon his face. He almost looks angry. Definitely annoyed with his flashing eyes and lips turned down into an almost sneer. Chase backs away from me, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“No problem, Mr. Dumont. Britta and I were just talking.”

James’s eyes turn to me, softening slightly around the edges. “Is that true, Ms. Fosse?”

I nod and swallow hard while trying to stay upright. My legs are shaking so hard I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull off the wall and walk normal after this.

“Yes,” I whisper. “We were just talking before heading to class. Right, Chase?”

He nods and backs farther away from me. James is shooting daggers at his head, challenging him to try to come after me again. This must be the jealousy thing he was talking about before. In a way, it’s kind of hot but definitely not something that I want to repeat again in school.

“You two better get to class. The first bell is about to ring,” James says. His biceps flex under his dress shirt, making my mouth feel like the Sahara as I watch the muscles bulge and relax. Remembering those arms around me and feeling those muscles flex while holding me gently causes my eyes to close ever so briefly at the memory. My body tingles and slides marginally toward him, needing some sort of contact now that I’ve seen him. Anything will do. A touch of his finger, a press at my back, even a cordial handshake would suffice. I just need him.

“Come on, Britt. Let’s go,” Chase says as he turns to walk toward our classroom door.

I start to push myself off the wall, but I’m stopped by a hand at my elbow. My head twists to the side and I look at his troubled face, concern etched across his beautiful features.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

“I’m fine.”

“What did he want?”

“He asked me to go out with him.”

A disapproving noise can be heard and my heart flutters at his jealousy. “And what did you say?”

I tug at my elbow slightly. “I need to get to class.”

His fingers tighten around me. “What did you say, Britta?”

“James, not now. We’ll talk later, okay?”

He releases my elbow and walks away in a huff. No goodbye or retreating glance. Nothing. I can feel the blistering anger roll off him even though he’s already down the hall and out of sight. He wasn’t kidding when he said that he gets jealous. And I didn’t help matters any by avoiding the question.

“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.

I jog down the hall to make it to class on time and find the only available seat left is conveniently right next to Chase.
Double fuck
.

“What took you so long?” Chase whispers.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. What’d he want?”

“Nothing,” I hiss, needing him to drop it.

“Nosy bastard. Besides it’s none of his business what we were doing. Who the hell does he think he is?”

“Mr. Woodward?” Mrs. Thompson calls from the front of the class. “Is there an issue?”

Chase’s cheeks pink up as he shakes his head. “No ma’am. No issue.”

“Good.” She resumes writing the various poems and poets on the board that we’re to learn this trimester and I take out my notebook to start copying everything down.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I discretely check the message.

I’M SORRY.

It’s from James. I quickly type a response without garnering attention from either side of me.

IT’S OKAY.

His response is almost immediate, as if he was waiting for it.

FORGIVE ME?

As if he needs to ask.

ALWAYS.

I shove the phone back into my pocket and continue my note taking while following along in the book. Chase looks over at me several times throughout class and I do my best to ignore it, even going as far as angling my body away from his even though it hinders my view of the front.

The next few hours crawl by at a snail’s pace, even though they’re classes that I enjoy. Calculus and physics have always been exciting to me but today they were just okay, not holding a candle to what I know is waiting for me during fourth and fifth periods.

When the bell rings, I bolt out of my chair and practically run to my locker to deposit my unnecessary books and grab my lunch.

“Hey, Speed Racer, what’s your hurry?” Penny calls out to me.

I slow my pace, not wanting to seem overly eager to get to my assistant job and throw things off.

“Nothing. I just don’t want to waste any time.”

“So you’re really Mr. Dumont’s assistant for the trimester?” she asks, opening her locker after she dragged me back to it.

“I am. It was sheer luck that I got it too since Mrs. Davis is out on leave.”

“Isn’t that weird, though? I mean, he’s new and seems smart enough to not need an assistant. Not that I’m saying you don’t do a kickass job or anything.”

“Uh huh, sure. Nice backtracking. Love you too.”

She laughs and nudges my shoulder. “You know what I mean. But you are one lucky bitch to get to work next to him. I would give my left tit to be in his office for two hours. You think he’ll make a move on you?”

My spine stiffens, but I try to brush it off. “Oh, whatever. There’s no way he’d be interested in me. I’m nothing special.”

“Says the homecoming queen and the more-than-likely prom queen as well.”

I roll my eyes and start walking toward the teacher’s lounge. “If you say so. Look, I need to get in there because I have no idea what he’s going to need me to do. Catch you after sixth period?” I call out to her.

“Definitely.”

I give her a thumbs up and step quickly down the hall to the lounge. I don’t want to seem eager, but I’ve been dying to be here all day. To be in the same room as James without the watchful eyes of twenty other students is going to be a relief. We won’t have to pretend because we’ll have a fair amount of privacy afforded to us. It helps that his office is towards the end of the hall and the surrounding rooms are almost always vacant during the fourth period.

Various smells assault me right as I walk into the commons area from the handful of lunches being eaten by the teachers.

“Hi, Britta,” one of the teachers calls out to me.

“Hi, Mrs. Hamilton. How are the girls?”

“Oh, they’re good. Say, are you available to babysit in two weeks? Richard and I have theater tickets.”

“Sure. I don’t have anything planned that weekend. What time would you need me?” I walk closer to the table so we’re not shouting across the room at each other.

“Around five, if that’s okay? It will probably be a late one as our friends are coming with and they want to have drinks afterward.”

“That’s no problem. I’ll be over at your house by then. Saturday right?”

She nods. “You truly are a lifesaver, Britta. The girls will be so excited. They haven’t seen you for a while.”

“I’m excited to see them too.”

The air changes subtly and I know it’s because James has just walked in. My body’s recognition of his takes over, sending a delicious chill up my spine at the same time warmth covers my stomach before traveling further south.

“Well, Richard has been out of town so our date nights have been pushed to the side. But I’ve finally pegged him down so we’re able to do this,” she says before turning her attention to the man standing behind me. “Ah, James. Nice to see you. How was your weekend?”

The warmth of his body wraps around me, even though we’re not touching. It takes all that I have not to lean back into him and feel his hard chest against my body. I can hear his smile as he answers Mrs. Hamilton’s question.

“My weekend was excellent, Gail. It definitely turned out better than I could have expected.”

“How was your friend?” Mrs. Sanderson asks, stabbing at her salad.

“My friend was great. We spent a lot of time together catching up and I really enjoyed it,” he says.

I turn slightly to face him, so I’m not rude and acting like I’m ignoring him. His eyes catch mine out of the corner and his lip curls up slightly, giving me a hint of the boyish charm that has captivated me from the beginning.

“Well, that’s good to hear. It’s always nice to visit friends,” she says, placing her fork to the side in favor of the bottle of water.

“Yes, it is. But I’m afraid I must steal Ms. Fosse from you ladies. We need to figure out our working system for the next two hours.”