“How?” he asked, circling my wrists. “How could this ever work? We’d have to sneak around. We’d barely see each other outside of school.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe he was even contemplating it and touched me under the chin. “Do you want that? Can you
live
like that? Always watching what you say and when you say it? Not
ever
being able to tell anyone anything?”
“I just want to be with you, is that so wrong?”
“No. But the law says otherwise. My position as your teacher makes this impossible. Right or wrong? I don’t know which is which anymore.”
“
This
is right. Right here. Just you and me. Anywhere else and it wouldn’t even matter.”
“Yes, but we aren’t anywhere else, Addison. It is what it is.”
Grayson caressed my hair and then repeated the gesture several times without saying anything.
How could something so simple be so comforting?
“I wish it were that easy. There’d be no problems if you were out of school.”
Sitting back slightly, I placed a hand against his chest. I was starting to feel frustrated. I couldn’t help my age any more than he could help his occupation. “But I’m not, and you’re here anyway.”
His eyes latched onto mine, and the beating of his heart sped up as if I’d just reminded him of whom he was with.
“Yes. I’m still here. That should show you how much I’m willing to risk.”
I traced one of his brows and promised, “I will never betray you. Not
ever
.”
Grayson closed his eyes and tipped his head back to face the sun, and I couldn’t help but lean in and place my lips against his throat, trying to soothe his obvious agitation.
“I never knew.” He took my lips in a kiss that was as tender as it was passionate before he spoke again in a state of astonishment. “I never knew that I’d risk everything, even my freedom, just to touch someone. Just to touch you.”
“And now that you know?”
“Now I have a choice to make.”
* * *
One year.
If I’d met her only one year later or
waited
a fucking year—none of this would be an issue. But that wasn’t the case.
As I held the girl sitting in my lap, I knew I’d crossed lines and broken laws. The shocking thing was, I didn’t care anymore.
“What are you thinking? Tell me,” she encouraged as she fingered my hair gently.
“I’m trying to decide what we should do.”
Addison frowned. “We? I can make my own decisions, Grayson. I don’t need you to make them for me.”
“Yes, but they may not be the right ones.”
“And yours are?” she accused as she moved off my lap and away from me. “You’re not doing anything differently than I am.”
Lunging forward, determined to make her listen, I pushed her back on the grass and hovered over her.
“
No
. I’m not. I’m naked in the middle of a field with a student.
My student.
I need to think for a fucking minute. I feel like I’m three steps behind because I never thought I’d be standing here to begin with.
God
, when did this become my life?”
“Let me ask you something,” Addison posed, her blue eyes full of sincerity. “If I
wasn’t
your student, what would you want?”
After the story she’d just told, my answer was easy and honest. “To take you away from here and start over somewhere new.”
A beautiful smile, one that I’d never seen, appeared on her lips. She seemed like a completely different person. “I’d go with you.”
“For a day?” I asked skeptically as I played with her hair.
She covered my heart and vowed earnestly, “Forever.”
I blinked down at Addison and was reminded that by law she was still a girl and ultimately…
“You
are
my student, Addison.”
As she nodded, I wondered where we would go from here.
“So, what do you want?”
Before I knew what I was saying, “I want Brandon gone” was out of my mouth and hovering between us.
She lifted up and kissed the corner of my mouth. “That’s easy.”
“I want you to graduate.”
Kissing the other corner, she promised, “That I can do.”
I tangled my fingers through the back of her hair and held her in place as I looked her in the eye and made it very clear. “I want to
help
you.”
“I want that too.”
She touched my cheek, and as her eyes fluttered closed and her black lashes swept her creamy skin, I couldn’t help but kiss it and confess, “I never want you to stop needing me.”
When her eyes opened, she softly kissed my mouth and asked, “Then what choice do you have left to make?”
She was right, what choice was there?
Right or wrong, it had already been made.
Chapter Nineteen
Past…
“Addy! Hey! Wait up, would you?”
Brandon.
He’d been calling out and running after me in the parking lot, and I’d been pretending not to hear. With my earbuds in and my iPod off, I was safe. When we reached the west corridor, however, he grabbed my arm, and I was out of options.
“
Hello!”
he shouted, waving his hand in my face.
I pulled the white cord of my earbuds so they popped out and flashed my failsafe sweet smile.
“Brandon? I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
“Obviously,” he sneered and pulled his bag strap up over his shoulder. “Where the hell have you been?”
How to answer that? Hmm...with Grayson, you know,
Mr. McKendrick?
“I’ve been slammed with homework and then training for state. Plus Mom—”
“Shut up.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise, and I put my hands on my hips. “Excuse me?”
“Stop lying.”
He’s right
. But he didn’t know that, and he had no proof. I didn’t like his mood, so when he took a step forward, I backed up.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he accused. “Ever since the weekend.”
I raised my chin and fired back. “That’s not true. I text you last night.”
“
We need to talk?
That doesn’t count!”
“Well I’m sorry you don’t think so. I’ve been
busy
.”
“Too busy for me?”
“Too busy for anyone!” I yelled back, drawing the attention of the other students. One who just happened to be a smirking Jessica.
Scoffing, Brandon replied, “Yeah, right.”
“What did you say?” I demanded, and then he slammed a fist into the locker by my head, causing me to jump.
He leaned in close, his tone menacing as he whispered, “I said
yeah, right
. Are you fucking someone else?”
I swallowed and made sure to keep my eyes on the pissed off guy in front of me. Never one to back down, I lied. “No. But I won’t be fucking
you
anymore.”
Brandon rammed his other hand beside my head and hissed out, “You’re a liar. Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”
“I’m not lying.”
Brandon laughed, and the sound was mean. “I followed you.”
Oh
shit
. Immediately, I thought of Grayson.
“What do you mean you followed me? Do you know how creepy that sounds?”
Act calm,
I told myself.
Don’t say anything incriminating.
“Creepy? I’d rather be creepy than a fucking idiot because my girlfriend is screwing around. So who is he?”
Shaking my head, I tried to imagine what he might have seen yesterday, but I couldn’t ask without sounding guilty. So instead, I feigned ignorance. Maybe if he was annoyed enough, he’d tell me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yesterday, Addy!”
Again, he slammed his hands by my head. A few people stopped, but when they saw us together, they mustn’t have wanted to get involved because no one bothered approaching.
That was nice to know if I was in danger.
“I didn’t do anything yesterday. I went home.”
“No, you didn’t. I told you, I
followed
you all the way to the highway.”
Fuck
, this was not good.
One, two three. One, two three.
This was not good at all.
“But I had to turn around and go to practice. I sent you
ten
messages, and all I fucking got was,
we need to talk!
” He punctuated his angry words with another punch to the locker door.
“
Brandon!”
The voice that boomed down the hall was so familiar to me that I would have known it anywhere.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Back up!
Now
!”
Brandon looked me up and down with contempt. “We’re
done
. This is over, slut.”
That was when Mr. McKendrick stepped between us. He didn’t even bother acknowledging me as he pointed to the opposite wall and ordered, “Shut your mouth and back off. Move it!”
Brandon’s eyes never left mine as he walked backward to the other side of the hall, where his ass hit the lockers.
“You stay there and be quiet, we’re going to have a little talk in a minute. Everyone else, get to class! This is not your morning entertainment program.”
Seeing his broad shoulders in front of me made me feel at ease. As always, with Mr. McKendrick I felt safe, as if nothing could hurt me.
“Are you okay?”
I focused on his face when he turned and walked closer to me. I touched the strap of my bag, needing something tangible to anchor me as I bit my lip.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I managed.
“Okay.” His eyes silently inspected me, and I could tell he wanted to say more but couldn’t. “Do you want to tell me what happened here?”
“She’s a liar. That’s what happened.”
I saw my teacher’s jaw flex as he gritted his teeth. Looking over his shoulder, he said in a voice that was hushed, yet still one hundred percent effective, “I thought I told you to be quiet. I will get to
you
in a minute.”
My eyes locked with Brandon’s as he crossed his arms, clearly pissed off that I was getting to talk first.
He thought I’d been sneaking around with one of his buddies, which would make him a fool, or worse, bad in bed. I wondered how he’d feel to know it was this
man
who’d come between us.
“What happened here?” Mr. McKendrick asked as he looked down at me.
I wanted to tell him that Brandon was now gone, but I didn’t want to risk the boy in question overhearing and speculating, so I shrugged nonchalantly.
“We broke up, he got angry.”
For a minute, his eyes softened and Grayson slipped through, before he was quickly pushed aside and my history teacher resurfaced.
“Anything else?”
“Like?”
“Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head and shifted uncomfortably on my feet. No, Brandon hadn’t hurt me, but he’d scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t the rough handling but the thought that he may have caught
us
, and more importantly—would he continue following me?
“No. I’m fine.”
I could tell he didn’t believe that for a second, and just as he was about to say more, he was interrupted.
“Addison? What’s going on here?”
Turning my head to the sound of the voice, I saw Miss Shrieve hurrying down the hall in our direction. She was dressed in a black pencil skirt and a pastel blue blouse, not her usual sweatpants—and suddenly, I felt like the student I was.
I was saved from having to answer because Mr. McKendrick did instead.
“Could you walk her to her next class, please? I’m going to have a little chat with Brandon over here.”
I knew there was nothing to worry about with him talking to Brandon, but that didn’t stop my anxiety and automatically I raised my arm to look at my watch.
Without missing a beat,
his
voice cut through my nerves as he promised in a soothing voice, “You’re fine. You have plenty of time. Go with Miss Shrieve, okay?”
I did as I was told and dropped my arm before walking toward my coach. She reached out to touch my arm as Grayson turned and stepped in front of Brandon.
“Come on, Addison. Mr. McKendrick will get to the bottom of it.”
Yes
, I thought, but the problem was
he
was the “it”
in that particular statement.
* * *
It was wrong that I wanted to challenge a teenage boy, but I was honest enough to admit that I was in the mood to work this out with my fists.
That wouldn’t be happening though. Right now, I needed to reign in my baser instincts and act like the mature adult I was supposed to be.
“So,” I started out, crossing my arms over my chest and mimicking Brandon’s stance. “Want to tell me what that was all about?”
“Not really.”
The answer was surly, and as Brandon looked at his feet, I tried to forget the image of him slamming his hands beside Addison’s head.
“It wasn’t really a question. Stand up straight, and start talking,
now
.”
Brandon pushed off the lockers and stood up to his full height, which was a couple of inches shorter than my 6’4 frame. It was obvious he wanted to tell me to fuck off, but he was out of luck.
“We had a fight, okay?”
“Clearly, but why would you ever think it’s okay to treat a girl like that?”
“Like what? She likes it rough, just ask whoever she’s been fucking around with.”
“That’s quite
enough
, Mr. Williams.”
Brandon’s pride was wounded. I could see it in the slump of his shoulders and the way he wouldn’t look at me, and that right there was as effective as any punch in the mouth.
“Look, I don’t care what happened between you two.”
That’s a fucking lie.
I was more than happy they were over. “What I do care about is the safety of my students. You will not treat anyone that way. Do you hear me? And you especially will not slam a young lady up against a wall and yell at her,
ever
. That’s not how a man acts. You should be ashamed of yourself.”