Perfecting the Odds (11 page)

“Finn, the doctor’s talking to you.” Michael heard Scott’s voice like an all-too familiar muffled whisper, yanking him out of his moment of peace. “Finn!”

“What!” Michael yelled, swinging his head left to glare at his best friend. He would never forget Scott’s miserable face. He looked so fucking scared, so Michael couldn’t stop the twinge of guilt for cursing his friend’s concern. Even though becoming a Marine was Michael’s familial obligation—and his father’s dying wish—, it was Scott’s wet dream. At eighteen, they joined the Corp fully intending to wield big ass guns and take out as many terrorists as they could. 

Scott sat
there with him after deciding to exit active duty only because Michael had no other option. They were a team, and that mission and what went down on that undisclosed rocky hill somewhere in Sudan formed an impenetrable friendship, clad locked with trust and loyalty.

“Let’s go, McCann.”

“Mr. Finn, you’re entitled to a second, or rather a third opinion, but you should start treatment now… as in tomorrow. We need to be aggressive.”

But Michael was already halfway to the office door. He whipped his head around to speak but instead caught their pitiful expressions. With a mumbled, “fuck it,” Michael strode out the door straight into elevator, leaving Dr. Fuckhead, his best friend, and that bullshit diagnosis back in the office.

A few weeks later he passed out after lifting at the gym with McCann, and the pushy bastard drove him straight to the hospital. Michael knew Diane was different from the moment she introduced herself. She was young and confident but not arrogant. She laid out the diagnosis and the treatment, and for some reason, it finally hit him. When he broke down, she patted his hand and shut the curtain, telling him where she would be if he needed her. She gave him what he needed—privacy—something the other quack-fuck doctor didn’t. And he respected her greatly.

So, years later when
Jason introduced him to Diane, his wife, Michael stood in awe. Besides his parents, the two most influential people in his life—one granting his professional dream and the other saving his life—had found each other.

Fucking kismet.

Michael took another deep breath, exhaling slowly
, and smiled at his superior and friend. “Of course, Lewis. I think I can manage that.”

Jason
blatantly huffed his relief. “You’re a lifesaver. Diane would have my ass if I let Karis down. Oh, and Finn—.” Michael quirked up his brows. “Diane wanted me to ask you if you were keeping up with your blood work and scans? Every six months, you know.”

Michael rolled his eyes
. Of course she knew he wasn’t keeping up with the tests. “Tell her I’ll call her to schedule one. I knew she would hunt me down.”
Fuck
. Kismet was slowly morphing into an ugly irony. Seeing Jason Lewis at least once a week was a reminder of Michael’s biggest deception to Karis. If she ever found out that he had had cancer and that’s why he discharged from the Marines, then she would never forgive him. It wouldn’t be enough to tell her they removed it all through surgery, six months of radiation, and a dose of chemotherapy. No. Because of the circumstances surrounding her husband’s illness, Michael knew his past would be a deal breaker for her. 

So i
f Karis gave him another chance, with no other option, he would bury that secret and lock it Pandora-style. Selfish, yes, but it was his only choice...for now.

And n
ow wasn’t the time to debate whether she’d accept him or not because for the third time in his life, he was going to see the woman he fell in love with three years ago. And this time, he would do his damnedest to keep her.

Today is going be bat-shit crazy,
Karis thought as she pulled into the school parking lot. But at least she wouldn’t have a single minute to think about Michael. The sexy bastard entered her daily thoughts for the last two weeks. One thing was for sure: the old adage was bullshit. It is not better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. That damn moron clearly had never lost anyone, had never felt the lingering ache of a troubled heart. It was simple to Karis. If she opened herself to Michael, she welcomed inevitable pain. And she’d already had her fair share of pain.

T
he business of taking care of her children and teaching at least helped the days pass without too much heartache. Nights, however, were another story. Karis could count on one hand the amount of times she’d cried, and two of those were the births of her children. For two weeks, she cried herself to sleep, praying for some peace, praying to forget about how he smelled, how he tasted…just him. As soon as sleep captured her, the dreams would spill to all things Michael, and for the love of naughty sex, he did unspeakable things to her in various positions on the beach, where his damn coconuty scent had her licking every inch of the Adonis-Apollo bastard.

Because it was
Career Day, Karis had arranged for Eve to take the kids to school. She had to prepare both the auditorium and her classroom for the speakers. Originally, Professor Lewis planned to speak, but Diane sent her a brief email on Thursday morning to let her know that Jason wouldn’t be able to attend, but was in the process of finding someone who would. Karis was open to the swap in speakers. She respected Diane’s judgment since she’d taken such good care of Robert. Diane comforted Karis more than a doctor should, bringing her take-home meals and offering to watch her children between shifts so that Karis could stay with Robert. In fact, Diane’s generosity allowed Karis to be at the hospital when Robert finally passed. She sat by him, held his hand, and watched his last breath escape his lungs. She would be forever indebted to Diane for that last precious moment.

             
Karis made her way straight to the auditorium, people-free and dim. She arranged a row of seats on the stage for the speakers and placed the brightly-colored floral arrangements strategically around the auditorium. She strode to the back of the auditorium to admire her work and was pleased. The arrangements were just the pop of color the stage needed. She finished by moving the podium to center stage, testing its microphone, and placing water bottles underneath the speakers’ seats. She turned around one more time to admire the room then left to arrange her own classroom for the individual break-out sessions.

             
Her room was like a second home to her. Her room radiated academia. She had arranged it the same way for nearly ten years--five rows of six seats, evenly spaced, not touching. Looking around now, she decided that she’d keep the same arrangement, but push the desks to each side to form a center aisle for the professor to interact with the students. God, she loathed high school classrooms that looked, well, elementary. Cutesy borders didn’t edge her bulletin boards and posters about the eight parts of speech and the stages of writing didn’t cover the walls. Her walls donned posters of her favorite novels and films of merit, and the bulletin boards displayed student work.  Individual achievement. Karis loathed group work even though the students begged for it. She encouraged them to use their own minds, to trust that each of them was an intelligent, critical reader and writer. The only time she had them collaborate was for peer review. But despite how strict she was, she balanced her hard-ass teaching style with quick wit and sarcasm and welcomed student-led discussion and sometimes bantering as well. In fact, it was common to hear random bursts of laughter coming from her room.

Simply, it
was a place of mutual respect.

             
By 8:00, Karis was herding the students into the auditorium, and as she made her way to her front row aisle seat, she reminded her students to be respectful. The auditorium was nearly filled and the hum of teenage conversations began to vibrate off the walls.  She sat down and scanned the chairs on stage to ensure all speakers were in attendance.
Shit
! screamed loudly within. Of course, the last chair,
her
speaker’s chair, was empty. She turned around in her seat to see if a confused professor-type individual was milling around.

Just as she turned her head back to the stage, Mrs.
Winston dropped down beside her and bit out, “Where’s your speaker, Mrs. Bennett?”

“Mrs.
Winston, good morning to you too,” Karis replied, sugar sweet. “I’m sure he’s just running late. He assured me he would be here.”
Liar, liar, pants on frickin’ fire…and not in the good way.
And to make matters worse, she had just riddled her response with a series of He’s.
He
had better be male. If not, Karis’d be up shit’s creek, and …well…that didn’t sound too bad right now. At least it would be quiet and definitely not smell like coconut.

“Well, you seem to have something in
common already. What’s his name? I’ll be sure to have someone bring him down if he arrives.”

Double Shit!
“His name?”

“Yes,
Karis, your speaker does have a name?”

Karis
shot her a “duh” look. “Of course.”

“Well, what
is it, Karis,” Winston whispered between clenched teeth.

“
Er...it’s.” And just as Karis was about to utter her second lie in less than thirty seconds, an eraser from somewhere in the back of the auditorium hit Mrs. Winston square in the back of her the head.

Her head jerked up. “Exc
uuuuse me!” The woman fumed like a caged animal. “
Who
did that?”

Karis
gnawed her bottom lip to stop from laughing. Thank God for ornery kids. Mrs. Winston was, in a word, a bitch. The students hated her, and even worse, they didn’t respect her. After slowly scanning the auditorium to sniff out the culprit, Mrs. Winston left in a huffed stride toward the stage to begin the assembly.

She
all but snarled before speaking. “Good morning, esteemed guests, teachers, community members, and students. Welcome to our annual Career Day. Let’s continue our tradition of being a
mature
group of students by welcoming Mrs. Bennett, English teacher and our Career Day Coordinator.”

Applause ensued as
Karis rose from her auditorium seat to make her way to the stage steps. Just as she started her first step, the creek of a door prompted her glance toward the back of the auditorium.

Well, Crap a shit.

Michael, hotter-than-Hades, Finn met Karis’s wide-eyed stare and grinned. Like a damn on-switch to her arousal, her pussy wept and her breasts grew heavy. Gripping the handrails with white-knuckled ferocity, Karis shook her head. For a moment Karis felt stupid. She should have known. How many of these Marine slash professors existed? Was this some sort of twisted cult? And how is it, dammit, that she knew both? Karis caught the audience in her line of vision and saw only the backs of teenage heads. No doubt, the females were swooning, and the males were saying things like,
I hope I look like that badass motherfucker when my body hair grows in
. Ter-rific.

And
then he began to move, his eyes still locked with hers, a knowing smile still playing on those lips. With a natural swagger, the man ambled down the center aisle and his title of Greek god nearly tripled in intensity. The audience seemed to turn as one, looking so much like a school of fish that under normal conditions, she would have laughed. In fact, if she were to snap a picture of this moment, the caption would read, “The prodigious Michael Finn wrapped everyone around his sexy fingers.”

But before
Karis could catch her breath, he prowled up right behind her, canopying his heat over her body. She shivered as his warm breath teased the hairs on her neck. She tried her best to suck in air and not look like a desperate fool in the process. She searched the hundreds of eyes gawking. All eyes were on him and then, lord have mercy, her. Her heart sounded like it was beating somewhere outside herself. 

Through
gritted teeth, she managed, “Why?”

He glanced down at her royal blue tailored blouse,
grinning all white teeth and crinkly eyes. “So modest today, Mrs. Bennett? And, glasses, too? God
damn
, you have to be the hottest teacher I’ve ever seen,” he whispered, fluttering his lips against her cheek. She looked down at her blouse as her traitorous nipples visibly pebbled right through her lace bra to her silk blouse. That’s it. She was officially dying of both embarrassment and sexual deprivation.

“Cold?
” he asked. Her eyes immediately widened.
Please, someone pull the fire alarm
. 

“
Michael, please don’t do this.” Her plea ended as a sultry gasp. Grrr-eat.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“I can see them
.” He inhaled deeply. “And smell your sweetness from here. I can help you with that.”

She gasped and fisted the railing harder. “
Oh god, Michael, please be quiet. You’re going to get me--”

“Off?”

“Fired, you arrogant ass,” she hissed, and he chuckled.

“
Go on darling, they’re waiting for you.” He smiled that I-know-you-want-me and I-want-you smile, and it shot straight through her—a Karis-calibrated missile. Her legs unstable, she gripped the railing even harder. And then, in an attempt to alleviate some of the awkwardness coursing through the room, the sexy bastard turned from her and gave the audience a Colgate smile with a small wave. Karis swore she heard every female in the room whimper.