Dream On (Stories of Serendipity #2) (5 page)

Alyssa stood on the gym floor, gyrating her hips, with the hoola-hoop lying on the floor at her feet.
 She couldn’t hula-hoop to save her life, so she was hula-hooping with an invisible hula-hoop for the benefit of all 500 teenagers who were staring and laughing at her.  She was going to kill Sheryl.  Sheryl Faye, the cheerleading sponsor, was also in charge of putting together the Friday pep rallies.  She had worked here forever and got away with a lot.  Since Alyssa never outwardly complained about anything, she was always chosen for these stupid contests, whether she liked it or not.  So, here she was, refusing to repeatedly set the hula hoop on her hips, only to watch it fall to the floor.  She was using an invisible hula hoop, and it was working quite well.

She didn’t win the contest, even though her imaginary hula hoop didn’t fall down once, but that was okay.
 Her face was beet red the whole time, while she envisioned ways to get back at Mrs. Faye.

Pep rallies were before school started, so Alyssa still had an entire day’s worth of classes
.  In addition, she had the football game to go to before she could begin her weekend.  Fridays were so long.  Especially this one.

Fridays were writing days in her classes.
 She had an essay assignment on the board, and she treasured the relative silence as the class either struggled furiously to write something, or just slept.  She didn’t care which today.  She tried to grade papers as they were turned in, so she didn’t have a ton of stuff to do this weekend, but circumstances weren’t allowing her to do that.  

Second period, while she was grading first period’s papers, there was a knock on her door.
 Coach Ripley was standing in her doorway.  

Uh-oh.
 Coach on a Friday at the end of the grading period, before the game.  Not good.  She took a deep breath and walked to the door.

“You gotta minute, Ms. Fuller?”

“Sure, Coach.  What can I do for you?”

“Did Nick fail for the six weeks?”

“Yes, he did.  Two zeroes for test grades will tend to do that to someone.  I even drop a test grade.  I’ll print out his grades for you, if you want.”

“Yes, please.
 Has he come in for tutorials?”

“Nope.”
 Alyssa walked to her desk and printed out a copy of Nick’s grades to give to Coach Ridley.

“Nice hula-hooping, today, by the way.”
 His eyes grazed down her body.

Alyssa blushed furiously.
 “Thanks.”  

“I’ll take a look at these
and get back to you later today.”

“Um. Coach?
 He failed.  As in past tense.  It’s done.”

“I’ll get back to you.”
 With that, he was walking down the hall at a fast clip.

Alyssa huffed a harsh breath as she walked back into her classroom.

Ten minutes later, there was another knock at her door.  It was Coach again.

“Coach?”

“Can he turn this in by the end of the day?”

“Grades have already been posted, Coach Ridley.
 Nick should have taken care of this days ago.”

“Look, Nick’s a good kid
with a rotten home life.  Football is the only joy he has in life.  We gotta give him a chance or nobody else will.”  He looked at Alyssa hopefully.

She sighed.
 “Fine.  Just this once.  And tell him to keep it quiet.  I don’t want to have to do this for the whole team.”

“Gotcha.”
 He flashed her a grin showing two dimples on his cheeks that briefly took her breath away, and then he was gone again down the hall.

Lunch time was spent on the phone with a parent, who couldn’t understand why Alyssa couldn’
t drop an additional test grade so her daughter could pass.  Alyssa hated this part of her job.  She had made the exception for Nick, she should make it for all of the students who failed her class because they didn’t turn in work.  What did that teach them?

Sixth period, she opened an email from her principal, who wanted to meet with her on her conference period.
 She left a note for Sierra and Cayden, telling them where she would be, and went to meet with Dr. Cahan.

She greeted his secretary on the way to his door and knocked before entering.
 “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Ms. Fuller, please come in.”

Alyssa went in and sat down in the chair opposite the particleboard desk, drumming her fingernails nervously.

“Ms. Fuller, I understand Nick failed your class this six weeks.”

Alyssa sighed heavily.  “Yes sir, Coach Ridley and I have already spoken about this.”

“Well, good.
 His mother has already called the superintendent.  I just wanted to make sure the situation was being handled.”

“Yes sir, I’m giving him extra time to complete an assignment, which was due two weeks ago.
 It was a test grade.  I’m sure he will copy from somebody during athletics this afternoon and run it by my classroom on the way to the field house before the game.  I’ll have the grade in the computer before I leave today sir.”  She desperately tried to keep her tongue out of her cheek but wasn’t sure she was successful in her endeavor.

“Good.
 That’s all.”  Dismissively, he turned to look at the computer on his desk. 

Alyssa stomped back to her classroom, determined not to let this under her skin.
 It happened every six weeks, no matter how hard she tried to keep the athletes on top of their assignments.  She never saw the band director in her room, or the UIL academics coach, or the choir teacher, or the One Act Play director.  It was always the athletes.

When she got to her room, her children were already seated at their desks, coloring on pages she kept for them in the snack drawer.
 She stood in the doorway, watching them work quietly, marveling at how good they were behaving.  “I’m blessed.  Thank you, God.”  She mumbled in a heavenward prayer.

“How was school
today?”  She asked them, before they noticed her and ran towards her for hugs.

“Awesome!”
 They chimed together.  Cayden had a lot on his mind though.

“We went on a field trip today to see the fire engines!”
 Cayden’s eyes glittered with joy.

“Oh, really!
 Is that where you got this stylin’ hat?”  Alyssa pointed to the red plastic fire man’s hat Cayden was wearing.

“Uh huh.
 And we all got to sit inside the helicopter and talk about lighters and matches, and we talked about stop, drop, and roll!”  He babbled on, while Alyssa finished grading the essays.

Their usual Friday football game routine was to eat at the Chinese food buffet before the game, but after she finished grading the papers, they didn’t have time for that.
 Calling her mother, to let her know they didn’t have time to eat with her, she managed to talk the kids into happy meals at McDonald’s.  

Alyssa had to be at the football game at six o’clock.
 They could go home after the halftime show was over.  Alyssa had asked her principal to schedule her football game duties around her custody schedule, but he either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, so her children went with her.  

Teaching high school had its advantages, though.
 High school girls loved kids, so Alyssa usually found a trustworthy student of hers to watch her children during the game and slipped them a ten-dollar bill afterward.  That way, she could monitor the students and not worry about her children too much.  The kids had way more fun that way, anyway.  They were both already consummate flirts and usually had a new “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” by the end of each game.

Alyssa was monitoring the entrance nearest the field house, making sure only authorized personnel entered, although she was pretty sure she had let unauthorized people through as well.
 How was she supposed to know the difference?  Just standing there had to be a deterrent of sorts, she told herself.  

Coach Rip
ley passed through the entrance before he noticed her.  “Hey!”  He stopped and came back to talk with her.

“Hey.”
 Alyssa responded, wittily.

“Um...I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime.
 I mean...You are a Ms., right?  Not married?  Do you have a boyfriend?”

Alyssa blushed.
 “Um...No.”

He looked at her, blinked, and then looked at his shoes.
 “Um...okay.”  He started to walk away.

“I mean.
 No.  I’m not married.  No boyfriend.  Sure I would like to go out sometime.”  What did I just do?  Alyssa was mentally slapping herself silly.  What was she thinking?  She honestly didn’t have time to date.

“Great!
 I’ll see ya, then!  Awesome!”  He turned and pumped his fist in the air, before catching himself, and coolly walking away.

Alyssa stood there, watching him go.
 Well, at least he didn’t actually pin her down on a time.  She could still just put him off until he gave up.  Yeah, that’s what she’d do.

It’s not that he wasn’t bad looking.
 He was hot, actually.  It’s just with the kids, she really didn’t need to complicate her life anymore than necessary.  At all.  She had no business dating this guy.  And they worked together.  She groaned out loud.  

The football game passed at an astonishingly slow pace.
 She managed to pass some of the time by ogling Coach Ripley standing on the sidelines.  Wearing the uniform khakis and white polo, his physique stood out through the pliable material stretched over his frame.  His athleticism shone through his movements, which were graceful for a man of his size.  Alyssa daydreamed about him a little, although she was unable to reconcile Coach Ripley with the man she had been dreaming about for a week.  Would Coach Ripley be able to do any of the things her dream man could do to his women?  Would Alyssa want him to do them to her?

That night, after the kids were in bed, Alyssa went into her room and sat on the bed.
 She opened her nightstand drawer and pulled out the bag of goodies from the sex toy party.  There was a book, a pair of naughty dice, the passion powder, massage lotion, some kind of clampy things, and holy Mary, Mother of God...A giant purple, glittery vibrator with horns sticking out of it.  What was she supposed to do with this?

She had no idea what to do with any of it, but the vibrator captured her attention, so she shoved everything else back into the bag and put it in the drawer.
 She focused her attention solely on the vibrator.  She took it out of the plastic. Eewww... The rubber exterior had an oily residue on it Alyssa found unpleasant, so she took it into the bathroom and washed it in really hot soapy water.  Then she got back into bed with it.  

She turned it over in her hands, looking at it.
 For one thing, it was huge.  There was no way that would fit inside her and actually be enjoyable.  For another thing, those horns sticking out of the base of it were really off-putting.  What were those for?  Another thing was the entire appendage was covered in knobby spines that didn’t look the least bit comfortable, much less pleasurable.

“So, you’re supposed to be the bee’s knees, huh?
 Well, I’m not buying it.”  Alyssa said aloud to her vibrator.  

She reached down and flipped the switch, sending it into undulating flip-flops on her bedspread, which drove Alyssa into a fit of giggles.

“I can’t believe this.  I’m gonna kill whoever’s idea it was to buy you for me.”  She turned it off and stroked it thoughtfully, feeling the bumpy ridges and spines on her hand, imagining for a second what they might feel like inside of her.

“Hmmm...”
 Her thoughts turned to dream man and his recent exploits.  She knew he would be familiar with all of the gadgets in the bag.  He could probably bring her to impossible heights of pleasure with them.  She knew he had his yoo hoo pierced. She remembered thinking at first it must have been a religious thing, or something.  But when she had seen some of his women’s reaction to it, she knew it was for pleasure and had absolutely no religious significance whatsoever.  She wondered what it would feel like, to have that giant yoo hoo with a silver bar sticking out either side of the end of it, inside her own va jay jay.

She was overcome by the warm feeling in her insides again.
 She looked at the vibrator sitting on the bed.

It seemed to be looking back at her.

“No.”

It continued to stare at her.

“Well, not tonight anyway.  I think I have to have some tequila first.”

The vibrator continued to sit there, staring at her.

She grabbed the offending device and shoved it in the drawer before slamming it shut.

Chapter 5

Dalton spe
nt the weekend with his family  He helped move his dad back home from the hospital with strict orders to take it easy for a couple of weeks and to see if he would be strong enough to undergo bypass surgery.  He enjoyed his mama’s food, his sister’s banter, his niece’s pestering, and his dad’s belly-aching.  Dalton actually found he missed all of it.  Especially Kelly.  She was growing up so fast.  She was already driving.