Rock Me Gently (4 page)

Jill shook her head and slunk down farther into her seat and flipped open her binder.

Mr Westlake placed the irrefutable coffee cup on his desk along with a paper bag from the coffee shop and his briefcase.

“Hey, what’s in the bag Mr W?” Boyd, one of the boys from the football team asked.

“Croissant, Boyd—my breakfast.”

“Can I have it?”

“I just said it was my breakfast.” Mr Westlake observed the kid, as he shucked off his sport coat, eliciting a long sigh from Tammy as his muscles flexed under the mauve-colored cotton.

“Who could get away with wearing that color and still look so hot?” Lisa said in awe.

“
Duh!
 Jason Westlake!” Tammy chimed in.

Boyd walked right up to the desk and picked the bag up and peeked inside. He took the pastry out, stuffed half of it in his mouth, taking a huge bite, then slid it back in the sack. “Huh, looks like someone bit it, Mr W. Can I have it now?”

Mr Westlake gave the teenager a look of bemused tolerance. “Fill your boots, kid.”

“Thank you, sir, I will.” Boyd gave him a mock salute, then walked back to his seat.

“Good morning, everyone!” Mr Westlake addressed the class before his gaze landed on Jill, who contemplated the front of the room through her fingers.

“Good morning, MrWestlake,” the class sing-songed in unison.

Tammy threw up her hand. “
Oh!
Mr Westlake?”

“Yes, Miss Tremblanc?”

“Did you stop for coffee this morning?”

Jill groaned.

“Um, it would appear as though I did, Tammy,” he said, motioning toward the coffee cup.

“Were you running late perhaps?” Lisa asked.

“Oh God!” Jill looked up at the ceiling and rubbed her forehead.

“No, as a matter of fact I was early so I actually had time to stop for a change.”

“Early, huh? Like maybe you had a
really
good night last night and you were happy to roll out of bed?” Lisa continued Tammy’s line of questioning.

“What’s with all the questions, ladies?”

“Nothing, sir, just trying to figure out the new bounce in your step. You seem awfully chipper this morning.”

Tammy snorted, covering her mouth as Lisa continued to stare at him innocently.

“It’s Friday, isn’t that explanation enough?” he said slowly.

“Yes, a nice long weekend ahead to lay around…in bed and…sleep.” Lisa giggled. “I can see why that would excite a guy.”

* * * *

Jason watched the girls and wondered at their odd behavior. “Open your textbooks to page sixty-three. Now, yesterday we began to discuss the influence of British customs and how they have shaped our own,” he spoke as he walked to the door and closed it, quieting the noise and distraction from the hallway so that he could teach the class. Fridays were difficult enough to keep people focused. He paused at Jill’s desk, noticing that she was still slumped in the seat, looking at her textbook, her hand cupping over her forehead, shielding her eyes.

Pausing, he tapped his knuckles on her desk. “You okay, Jill?” he asked, with true concern.

“Fine,” she said in a clipped tone, dropping her fingers back over her eyes.

By now, he’d learned enough about teenage girls not to pursue that line of questioning any further. He continued on but not before he had heard one of the other girls say, “Ahhh, real
fatherly
concern, Jill, how sweet.”

“Fuck you both!” she snapped.

Jason would have reprimanded her any other time for the language in his classroom, but for one he’d never heard her use that kind of language before, so he knew that she meant business, and for two her friends must have deserved it because it shut them up and made it easier for him to continue his lecture. But he was sure that somebody had seen Lainey and him at the coffee shop this morning—either Lisa or Tammy—and they’d been teasing Jill about it. Well, better she get used to it, because if he had his way, Jill and Lainey would be seeing a lot of him in the near future. But it put a little kink in his plan to grill Jill for more information about her mom and more specifically if she had any plans for the weekend.

Jason persevered with the lesson with only half his mind on what he was saying. More than once, he realized the students were laughing not with him, but at him.

“Hey, Mr Dub?” Finally one of the guys in the back piped up. “Is your mind someplace else today?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, like on a specific someone, maybe?” Lisa chimed in.

Jill sighed and dropped her head onto the desk.

“Why do you ask?” Jason asked.

“Well, let’s see. Maybe the fact that you just read the same paragraph four times, and stumbled over the same word all four times.”

“I did? Why would you let me repeat the same passage that many times and not tell me?”

“Because it was freakin’ hilarious and you are wasting our time,” Henry explained.

Jason mentally gave himself a kick. He needed to shake himself out of this Lainey fog. It was quite ridiculous. He’d had women crawling all over him, sometimes more than one at a time and once or twice too many to handle at once. But that was also in a fog, a drug induced one. So what was it about this little woman that had so captured his attention? She wasn’t even his usual type. “What did I say?”

“It says ‘to best the British’…” Tammy supplied.

“And you kept saying…” someone else spoke up.

“To breast the British,” the whole class, except for Jill, sing-songed his gaffe, in unison.

He actually felt himself blush. Him. Blushing. The group erupted in uncontrollable laughter.

Jason dug his thumbs into his eyes but couldn’t help but appreciate the humor in the situation. Yeah, he was obsessed with her breasts. He could still see, behind his closed lids, the plump fullness thrusting nicely out of her dress. Laughing too, he smoothed his hand from his eyes and down over his face, stopping to cover his mouth. But it wasn’t just her stunning attributes that had piqued his interest.

“Okay, ya caught me. Not that it is any of your business but since I’m sure you are all mature enough to appreciate and may have even been in this type of situation before, where you can’t keep your mind on task because of a girl or a guy,” he encompassed the ladies in the class as well. Jill’s eyes were huge and she sat up straight in her chair for the first time. “But yeah, I think I’ve met someone that makes me forget what I’m doing sometimes.”

“At the coffee shop perhaps?”

Feigning ignorance, he gave a little shake of his head. “The coffee shop?”

“Yeah, did you meet her at the coffee shop?” Lisa asked.

“No, I didn’t meet her at the coffee shop.” He noticed Lisa’s and Tammy’s faces drop with that announcement. He didn’t dare look at Jill for her reaction. But he heard whispered condolences from her friends. At least that little tidbit had gotten the desired effect. They now thought he was involved with someone other than Lainey and they would keep off Jill’s case about it.

“I’ve never been to that particular café before. One of the other teachers suggested it.” He decided to stick with that particular lie. “What is everyone’s deal with the coffee shop today? I stopped for a cup, what’s the big problem? I won’t do it again, if it’s such a serious issue, people.”

“Now don’t be hasty, Dubya,” Boyd crooned. “I personally would enjoy a croissant every morning.”

“Not gonna happen, Mr Tanner,” Jason retorted. “You can have breakfast at home from now on, ‘cause I’m starving.” He placed a hand over his stomach for effect.

“So where’d ya meet her?” Tammy asked.

“Again not that it’s any of your business, but I met her here at school.” It was not a lie. He’d met Lainey here.

“Oh, is she on staff?” someone else asked.

“Maayyybee,” he drawled. “But that’s all you’re gonna get from me, so let’s get back to work and I apologize for my lapse and lack of professionalism.” He hazarded a look at Jill. She squinted at him with a combination of suspicion and maybe even hurt. Perhaps she didn’t want him to date her mother but she now wondered what he thought was wrong with her mother that he didn’t want to date her. He couldn’t win here. He skipped over her as if he had no idea what she was thinking. Although he wondered if it would all blow up in his face if Jill actually believed his little lie and told her mother that he was interested in someone here at school. But he also knew how smart Jill was and if she thought about it, she’d realize that he’d met her mother at school, during the interview. All the subterfuge was giving him a headache.

“Henry, since you were so kind as to call attention to my lack thereof, you may continue reading, please.”

“Ahh, frig,” he bellyached but did as he was asked. They passed the rest of the class without any more ribbing, but he sure heard it all as they trooped out after the bell rang.

Jason made it through second period without incident. At least he thought so—he couldn’t actually keep his mind on anything. And at lunchtime he did something he’d never done before. He withdrew a student’s personal file for information about something other than the student. After pulling Jill’s file he went back to his classroom to leaf through it and eat his lunch.

“Mother’s name Lainey Clarkson.” His stomach twisted in that crazy way it did when you had new-found feelings for someone. He already knew that she’d gone back to her maiden name. He wondered how long it had been dragging on. She still seemed quite raw over the whole thing and so did Jill at times. “Occupation store owner. Father Thad Markham.” Something pulled at Jason’s memory. “Thad Markham,” he repeated. “Why does that name seem familiar to me?” He pulled out his laptop and flipped it open, Googling ‘Thad Markham’.

“Wide receiver for the Jaguars. Huh, impressive, I guess, if you like the athletic type,” he said aloud.

“Wow, Teach, you are seriously losin’ it.” Henry walked into the classroom. “Now you’re talking to yourself. This woman you met must make Megan Fox look like my Mrs Hightower.”

“Mrs Hightower?”

“The lunch lady.” He indicated her short stature with his hand. “Looks like a troll.” He shuddered dramatically.

Jason laughed. God he loved these kids. It was times like this that he knew that he’d made the right decision to become a teacher. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Henry.”

“I know but let’s face it, you and I were both at the head of the line in heaven when the looks were handed out. Seriously, I think we went back for seconds.”

“Wow, but you missed the modesty line, son.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look it up. What are you doing back here?”

“I forgot my binder.” He sauntered to the back of the class and retrieved it. “Hey, Dubya,” Henry said, coming back up the aisle. “I’ve been scoping out the ladies in the office, the female teachers, even the student teachers and EAs. Seriously, dude, I think you were yankin’ us. There are no babes in this school.”

“I didn’t actually say she was on staff.”

“Ya kinda led us to believe that.”

“I said I met her here at school. Lots of people come and go in this place.”

“Come and go, nice choice of words there, Teach. The way you were mooning over her breasts this morning leads me to believe you haven’t exactly hit it yet.”

“Enough, Henry. My love life or lack thereof is not public domain anymore.”

“Yeah, you sure did alotta chicks over the years.”

Jason crossed his arms and gave Henry his best censorial frown.

“You’ve mastered that one, Dub. I’m reasonably chastised.”

When Jason gave him another glare, Henry laughed and said in his
wise-ass
way, “Look it up.”

“You are smarter than you let on, Henry.”

“Yeah, well, ya know sometimes the ladies dig it when you use big words. See ya, Dub.”

“Have a good weekend, Henry,” he returned, on a chuckle.

“You too, Romeo.”

“Smart ass.”

Henry snorted. “Hey, Teach? Did I hear you say Markham when I first came in?”

Jason wasn’t sure how to handle this one. He had said it, but he didn’t want Henry telling Jill that he’d had her file.

“Is something wrong with Jill? Like you’re not gonna call her Dad, are ya? I mean, I
know
she and her mom have been through it since that fuckin’ bastard did what he did, but—sorry for swearin’ in your class, man—but seriously, he’s an asshole. Don’t call him, that’s the last thing they need. If Jill needs tutoring or something, I’d be more than happy to help her out or find someone who can. She’s just getting back to being like she used to be—don’t bring him here to fuck with them, or give him any more ammunition.”

Wow. Jason had never seen Henry so serious about anything.

“What do you mean, Henry? What’d this guy do to them?”

“What, do you only read your own bad press?”

“No, I don’t read that crap at all. I try not to even notice those rags when I’m in a store. It was awesome when I first started out—any publicity was good publicity—but then it just got to be a damn nuisance. They build ya up just to tear you down.”

“Jill’s dad, he plays for the Jaguars.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“He fucked around on Jill’s mom with anything that moved and not just like you did in your heyday, and at least you were never married or anything. And then when it all came out in the fuckin’ papers the press dragged them all through the mud. Even Mrs Markham, er, well, I guess Jill says she goes by Clarkson again.” The boy shrugged. “But they crucified her and made him look like a goddamn hero. Even now, he’s selling their house out from under them, he’s trying to say that the boutique was totally funded by him and that Jill’s mom has no right to it, and I’m not sure about the custody thing anymore, but at one time, he was trying to take Jill away.”