School Ties (13 page)

He'd stroke my heated, red behind and then tell me to spread my legs, slipping a finger through my wetness when I had. He'd make a contented, appreciative grunt as he pressed inside of me.

“You like it when I discipline you, don't you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You like being told what to do and having consequences when you don't follow instructions. Why is that?”

“Because . . .” The fingers that are sliding in and out of me are making coherent thought difficult but I don't want him to stop. “Because it makes me feel loved.”

He'd rest a hand over mine, sprawled, clutching on the desk, nest his fingers between mine and lean down to kiss the sensitive spot where jaw meets ear.

“You are, Erin. I love you. I'm going to look after you.”

Then he'd push me forward until my hips were flush against the desk and withdraw his fingers, a smack landing hard on my flank when I cried out in disappointment. Soon my arms would be pinned behind my back, wrist to elbow, secured with his belt. I'd hear him unzip his pants. He'd press against me, making me wriggle to get closer to him.

“You're a good girl, aren't you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'm going to make you better.”

With that promise, he'd slam into me and the pressure from the smooth wood surface on my mound would be enough contact to get me off.

My fingers are moving faster, rubbing my clit in what used to be circles. It's not until he comes inside me in my fantasy, gripping my shoulders hard for the last brutal thrusts, that I come in reality. My muscles clench tight around nothing and a low-level tone hums in my ear while I press my fingers against my clit a few more times, wringing every last bit out of this orgasm.

I slump, letting go of all the tension. It's with images of Shep unbinding my arms, carrying me to bed and holding me tight, telling me over and over he loves me, that I finally fall asleep.

Chapter Eleven

Shep

I knew I'd see her.

If not now, then when I hope I'll be arriving on campus in the summer. It's inevitable. A small campus, a small community—everyone will know I'm here within a matter of minutes. If she wanted to find me, it wouldn't be hard. But I was hoping, really hoping, it wouldn't be yet. I made the arrangements last minute in a move that fought every impulse I have so there'd be the possibility I wouldn't have to see her yet. And if I don't get the job, I don't want to disappoint her. Would she be disappointed?

But here she is, stutter stepping down the wooden stairs that lead out of Leonard. She's not holding the railing because her arms are full of books and notes. I have that same urge; it doesn't even take a second.
Be careful, you're going to fall.
But she doesn't. She shifts the pile into one arm and grabs the peeling-paint-clad railing and stares, mouth open, eyes blinking as if she's trying to figure out . . .

Yes, Erin, it's me.

I understand how jarring this is for her. It is for me, and I've had time to prepare. I knew she was still here. Despite not having seen her or talked to her since our ill-fated graduation-day good-bye, she looks exactly how I'd expect. Except thinner. She didn't need to be thinner. The thought makes my eyes tighten around the corners. She doesn't look like she's taking care of herself, or being taken care of, and my eyes dart to her hands. The arm clutching the papers draws them tight to her chest so she doesn't fumble them and I see it. That goddamn diamond glinting in the sun.

Bile surges in my stomach and I realize how badly I'd been hoping she'd have quit him. I read the bulletin faithfully, trying to decipher clues about her life from the faculty notes. I wonder if she's done the same. I've written in more than I would have. Truth be told, I wouldn't have at all. But the thought that she might flip to the back where the most recent classes have their own columns of accomplishments and announcements, looking for any scrap of news from me, made me dutifully write in four times a year so if she were looking, she'd find something. The only love note I've ever been allowed to write her.

Hoping that she'd be able to read between the lines:

“Zach (Shep) Shepherd will be graduating a year early with a major in mathematics and a minor in art from Northwestern.”

You inspired me, Erin, and made me want to be true to myself.

“He is currently applying to teaching positions at private schools in the Boston area.”

I'm coming home to you.

She stands there, frozen on the stairs. Should I have written her? It wouldn't have been hard. I know where she lives; her address and her email are the same. But though I've pined for her, thought about her every day, it strikes me that maybe she hasn't given me a second thought since I walked out of her classroom almost three years ago.

Erin

I'd hoped, dreamed, prayed this was what he meant, that this is the code he was hoping I'd crack with his notes to the alumni magazine. I'd been selfish and stupid enough to fantasize that his updates—like clockwork, unlike any of his classmates—weren't for anyone else, but love letters hidden in plain sight. A particularly subtle epistolary romance. With every issue arriving in my faculty mailbox, I'd secret the thick colorful pages into my bathroom. I'd fill up my too-small tub and climb in, torturing myself before I sunk into the hot water and let myself crack it open, hoping against hope there'd be yet another few sentences, the only window I've had into his life.

There they would be, innocuous enough I suppose, but I'd picture him, brows pinched, fingers hovering over the keyboard:
I want to tell you everything but I'm allowed to say nothing.
So dribs and drabs were all I'd gotten:

“Zach (Shep) Shepherd made the varsity lacrosse team as a true freshman and has declared an early mathematics major. What time he can find outside of classes and practice, he spends in the art studio.”

It had been enough, those sad missives. I'd tried to keep my end of the bargain, but when all you have to report is
Yes, I'm still in my forced marriage to my borderline abusive husband who still cheats on me and drinks too much, but good news! My classes are going well and only one student in the past three years has gotten below a four on an AP exam I've prepped them for
, it starts to be a little silly.

I could have written him; he wouldn't have been difficult to find. But at first, I'd wanted to commit to my life with Will. By the time it became clear I had no life with Will, it was too late. What would I say anyway? Nothing good.

But he's standing here, on campus, in a blazer, khakis and tie. It's almost like he never left except he looks just old enough you can tell he's not a student. His hair's longer, brushing the back of his collar, and he's walking alongside Uncle Rett.
Oh, Headmaster Wilson, you have some explaining to do.
But why would he mention to me that Shep was going to be here?

Shep's stopped in his tracks. He looks at me, his brows creasing the way they do—did—when he thinks I'm putting myself at risk. I realize it's because my hands are full and I'm about to fall down the stairs. So I heft my books into one arm and when I clutch them to my chest, his eyes go dark.

My ring. He's looking at my ring. I want to drop the books and run to him, pull him behind a bush, kiss his mouth, run my hands down his button-downed chest.
It's for show. 'Til the end of the year and then we're going our separate ways. We started the paperwork. It's over, I promise, please.

But I can't because the whole campus is milling about between classes, Uncle Rett's standing right there and I don't even know if Shep wants me anymore. If he ever did. He's probably got a girlfriend. Of course he does. He's crazy good-looking, smart, and a good man. Why would he wait for me?

So when I raise my hand when I get to the bottom of the steps, it's in a cautious hello I hope conveys everything I wish I could say. His mouth opens like he might try to say something to me across the quad, but instead he shuts it, raises a hand as awkward as mine before shoving it in his pocket and turning back to Uncle Rett, who's no doubt asking him a question. I've got one, too.

What are you doing here, Shep?

Shep

It's official. I will be starting as a mathematics fellow at Hawthorn Hill in the fall. My interview had felt like a thrown-together formality, which it had been. My grades at Northwestern are tops, and I can fill some coaching holes left open by retiring teachers. Not to mention they love to hire alums, do it all the time. We must make up a third of the faculty and staff. What better way to show how priceless a Hawthorn Hill education is than to have graduates clamor for ill-paying teaching positions?

And ill-paying they are. I don't have a ton of loans because I'd gotten both merit- and need-based scholarships, not to mention one of those named athletic scholarships where I'd had to kowtow to the overly enthusiastic donor at a fancy lunch once a year. When I'd said at the last one I'd be graduating in the spring, the look on my benefactor's face . . . I thought I might get a call the next day telling me they were taking it back and I'd need to write a check for ten grand before they'd hand over my diploma. But I hadn't. It had been fine.

It'll be tight, not a lot of cash to throw around, but more than I've ever had. Of course, my father will be livid. I can hear it, word for word: “I spend all this fucking money on your goddamn education and you're going to be a fucking teacher? You could've been a goddamn teacher if you'd stuck around here and gone to community college. This is what you're going to do with your life? You're such a fucking waste.”

I'll stand there, take the abuse he heaps on me. He'll yell for a good twenty minutes. When he's finished, I'll heft my duffel onto my shoulder one last time and walk out the door, ruffling Caleb's floppy hair on my way out, telling him, “If the old man fucks with you, you call me.”

Dad's never hit any of us, but he's gotten close. With every passing year of more stress, less work, balancing ever closer on a dangerous edge, it wouldn't surprise me if he snapped. My mom will kiss my cheek on the way out and whisper, “He loves you, Zach, and he's so proud.”

Sure.

Or maybe I'll call. Yeah, a phone call would be better. I hope it'll be my mom or my brother who answers when I call to tell them I'll be back on the Hill come fall, but that's a fucking selfish attitude. Make the people I've been trying my whole life to protect break this news to the person I've been trying to shield them from? No. I'll call in the afternoon when my brother will be at school, my mom should be at work if they haven't laid her off yet, and when my dad's home from his shift at the feed mill but hasn't drunk himself into a stupor or fallen asleep from exhaustion.

“I got a job, Dad. I'm going to teach math on the Hill.”

He'll be so fucking proud of me he'll hang up.

Chapter Twelve

Erin

He's here.

I knew he was coming today, had to be coming today. It's the last day he could possibly come. I'm surprised he didn't come sooner. I don't think he went home. Home's never seemed like a place he liked very much. From the little I know, I don't blame him. So why did he wait until the last minute to show up?

It doesn't matter. He's here and I can't wait to see him, talk to him, hear his voice, and I hope, watch the way his face will light up when he sees the ring on my finger is gone. As is Will. Not only did we divorce, but he's moved on to another school, this one in Connecticut. I hope he's happy there, I do. He's not a great guy, Will, but he's not evil incarnate or anything. He's not malicious. He should come with a warning label, that's all: Single-Use Only.

But Shep. It's dumb of me to think he won't be attached. He's not engaged or married; it would've been in the bulletin. He's young for that, but it's not out of the question. He's so serious and steady it wouldn't surprise me if he decided what he wanted and locked it down as soon as possible.
Mine.
So a serious girlfriend? Definite possibility.

I've been squirming in my apartment, not able to keep still, counting down the minutes until the first faculty meeting of the school year starts. I'm not usually anxious about these things, but then there's not usually the promise of Zach Shepherd. I did not, absolutely
did not
, change my clothes three times. I thought about jeans and a T-shirt. That's what most of the faculty will be wearing before the kids get to school and we have to cram ourselves back into dress code the same way they do. But it didn't look right. So a swishy skirt, camisole and cardigan it is.

I'm fidgeting on my couch, checking my bag for the zillionth time: notebook, check; laptop, check; writing implements, check. I've got everything. It's a quarter to four. I'll get to the faculty dining hall five minutes early. Fine, fine. I haven't been so nervous since my first day of teaching. Every year it gets easier, the flutters in my stomach dampened, but it's still hard. Teaching is so hard. It's a hard job for anyone to do well, but it is the exact opposite of my natural inclination to stand up in front a bunch of people, teenage boys in particular.

It's worth it, though, to see the light bulbs go on over their heads, to watch them out the window as they leave class and high-five each other because they aced a test, and—my favorite—their serious conversations when they're trying to help a struggling classmate understand something. It makes my heart burst.

Speaking of. I take up my bag and skitter out the door, down the steps. I'd asked to move. I don't want to keep living in the apartment where my marriage failed slowly, painfully, inevitably. But not this year, due to staff changes and housing needs. Maybe next year.

The end of summer is coming. It's hot, but the breeze is cooling off, and everything is saturated with color and scent like a bowl of overripe fruit. I traipse across campus, keeping an eye out, but I don't see Shep's tall, broad, dark form, only the familiar stoop and creak of some of the older teachers. Usually I'd stop to chat, but there'll be plenty of time for that at the cocktail party afterward.

I've reached the brick building, its trademark ivy hanging over the walls, and let myself inside, where the air conditioning hits me full in the face. The faculty dining room is crowded with people greeting each other and catching up on summer happenings. A lot of them teach at summer programs at other schools or lead travel programs, work at camps. Some stay here and run the sports camps, others have vacation homes they retreat to. I was here, playing administrator and helping with class scheduling and curriculum development. Looking around, I don't see Shep, so I find an empty seat to sit in while I bounce my heel against the worn carpet. Where is he? He's got five minutes left according to my watch. He was always the punctual sort.

When I look up from my watch face and out the window, a navy blue Volvo sedan, not new, pulls up in one of the spaces behind the dining hall. When the driver's side door opens, it's him. It's really him. I've thought of him often since he left—more since he was here in the spring, giving me a more vivid picture to pin my hopes on. He's here. Wearing khaki shorts and a polo shirt, shoving sunglasses over his forehead. Oh my.

He grabs a backpack, the same one he had as a student, and hefts it over his shoulder before shutting the door. I lose sight of him then and count how long it takes him to make his way inside. Through the basement door in the back, up the well-worn steps with the sandpaper treads, down the carpeted hallway, through the tiled student dining hall and . . .

He's here. In the doorway. His blue eyes scan the room and stop ever so briefly when they get to me. I smile and start to lift my hand in a wave, but his face darkens and then his gaze skims over the rest of the room. There's one word for how I feel in that moment; the second I've been looking forward to for months, that I've—if I'm being honest—anticipated for years. The moment when there was a possibility of Shep and I being together. I thought it would be exciting, thrilling, but instead the artificially cold air is heavy in my chest. One word.

Devastated.

Shep

I am such an asshole.

A cowardly, gutless douche bag.

I could have come earlier. Days earlier. Weeks, even. I mean, was it nice to make some extra cash working at the club and tying up loose ends before I had to leave? Yes. Could Mordecai have done without me for the past several weeks? Definitely. Summer tends to be slow. People are on vacation, spending time outside, and frankly, leather and latex get damn hot in the sweltering Chicago heat and humidity. I'm not squeamish about bodily fluids and odors—you can't be and work at a fetish club—but August is a lot for even me to take. Mordecai gave me those hours as a favor.

Most of them were more like therapy than me doing anything useful. Mordecai knows about Erin. He's the only one who knows about Erin. She's been a frequent topic of conversation over the past few months. Our most recent, most painful, conversation had taken place a couple of weeks ago while we did a crazy-thorough cleaning of the restraints that get used in the club. Q-tips and everything.

“Why are you still here, man?”

“I don't need to be there until the last day of August.”

“Need, sure, but you
could
be there. You've wanted to go back since the day you left. So what's holding you back?”

I'd lowered my head, concentrating really fucking hard on getting a tiny piece of grime that was wedged under a buckle I'd polished.

“It's her, isn't it? Erin? Are you afraid to see her?”

“I'm not afraid,” I'd scoffed. “She's not rabid or anything.”

No, not rabid or anything bad. She's tiny. Sweet. She smells like fucking lilies. I'd figured it out. They're Kaiser's girlfriend's favorite and he got her a huge bunch of them when he proposed at graduation. The olfactory impression almost knocked me on my ass, the scent memory of Erin so strong. Lilies.

“Please. You'd rather face down a pack of slavering wolves than talk about this girl you've been in love with for years. I've seen that sketchbook of yours. She's the only thing you draw. Don't deny it.”

I couldn't. Obnoxious fucker. Even though I wasn't looking at him, I knew he had the same insufferable smirk on his face he's had since the day I met him.

“Shut your fucking face, demon spawn.”

He'd snorted, enjoying getting as much of a rise out of me as he ever does. “So, what are you going to do? You clearly don't have a plan.”

No, I didn't have a plan. Except to show up and then see what happens. Didn't work for Napoleon and I doubted it would work for me.

“If she's still married, I don't need a plan. I'll need a shotgun and a shovel. For me, not him,” I clarified at Mordecai's raised brows. “I couldn't stomach watching them.”

“And if she's not?”

“If she's not? Fuck if I know.”

“You want her. Badly. Why don't you give it a try? Sounds like she'd be game.”

“Not for everything. She might be totally vanilla and then where would I be?”

“Right. That.”

I shot him a glare.
Yeah, that.

“You don't think she'd try it?”

“Maybe, but I don't want to push her into it. What if she thinks I'm a sick freak? I couldn't handle that.” It had made my guts churn thinking about it. Hurting her, disappointing her, scaring her? Not an option.

“You're good. I've watched a lot of people come through those doors. You wouldn't force her into anything, and you're good with the newbies. They like you. They trust you. You're not some criminal out to corrupt her and eat her alive. Maybe she'd love it. Maybe she's into it already. You don't even know.”

I'd closed my eyes like it would block out the image I got of Will dominating Erin. I hoped not. Will's a dick. An irresponsible, insensitive, self-absorbed asshole. Unless he had a total personality overhaul, he'd be a terrible Dominant and I wouldn't wish him on anyone. Especially not Erin. That would make this even worse. “I feel like a predator. Like a fox in the fucking henhouse.”

“A wolf in sheep's clothing?” One of these days I'm going to punch that smirk right off his face.

“Worse. I'm a wolf in shepherd's clothing.”

At my confounded outburst, Mordecai had laughed. Asshole.

“Why don't you clean up? Club's opening in half an hour. Lydia's supposed to come in and she's going to ask for you. Is your head on straight enough to play?”

I threw down the cuff I'd been working on and pushed back from the table. “It will be.”

“Better be.”

“You know I'd tell you if it's not.” It's happened twice in the three years I've worked for him that I wasn't in any shape to do my job. Today wasn't going to make three.

“I know.” When I'd turned around, the jackass started humming “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” I'd reached up and slapped the top of the doorframe so hard my hand hurt. The sting in my palm and Mordecai's mocking tune followed me down the hall to the staff locker room.

Now I'm here. I decided on the long drive from Chicago that I'm going to leave Erin alone. I don't want to hurt her or scare her. Even if she is interested in me. It wouldn't be the me of now, it would be the me of three years ago she wants. I don't look that different—my hair's longer, I've gained some muscle from the hard training I did year-round to keep in shape for lacrosse, but it wouldn't be so hard to understand why she'd think I was the same. But it would be a lie.

She'd walk into it like a trap, find herself stuck with another monster she wouldn't know how to handle. No, I'm going to stay the fuck away from Erin Brewster even though in the second she looked up and I saw her empty ring finger I wanted to throw her over my shoulder, drag her into the kitchen and pin her down over one of the cold metal prep tables and have my way with her.

Christ, Shepherd, you are a sick, sick fuck.
Fantasizing about something that would scare the living crap out of her. You can at least be man enough to leave the poor little lamb alone.

Erin

Shep sits as far from me as the space will allow and my heart's made a home in my stomach, soaking in bile. Did I do something wrong? I haven't talked to him since graduation. It's been that long. I didn't get to say a word to him last time he was here; he was like a ghost. He keeps his eyes glued to the front as Uncle Rett starts his welcome-back speech. Though I ought to be paying attention, my gaze keeps wandering to Shep's arms crossed tight in front of his chest, and the curve of his bare flexed calf dusted with dark hair.

I'm so distracted that the smattering of polite applause when Rett's through may as well be a thunderclap. God, I'm like a skittish rescue pet. It's stupid to have had these expectations and I knew it. Though I'd hoped for it, I didn't really think Shep and I would run toward each other across the football stadium and fall into each other's arms in slow motion like some tampon commercial. But I'd thought . . . I'd thought he'd at least
talk
to me.

The academic dean is talking, explaining the new schedule for this year. There's grumbling as there always is when anything around here changes, but there isn't much difference. We'll be cutting classes shorter on Wednesdays so the boys have time to get to their games and meets. In the past few years, traffic's gotten even worse and we've been habitually late. Not a good showing.

When the dean's through, he welcomes the new faculty and staff by name, enforcing the tradition of making them stand up in front of the room and introducing themselves before handing over their classroom and teaching assignments. It's mild hazing, if you can even call it that, though I'd almost puked when I had to do it despite all the friendly faces.

There's a new Arabic teacher—that had been a controversial addition but an alumnus who's a high-ranking officer in the military had endowed the position, so who were we to argue—a new drawing instructor since Mrs. Germaine retired after graduation last year, and a physics teacher we hired away from a rival school, although it may have been more for his tennis coaching prowess than his skills in the classroom. There's polite applause for each of them, and then it's time to introduce the fellows.

There's a young man named Kurt—who reminds me too much of Will with his delicate features and slim hands—who'll be teaching art history, and a pink-haired and eyebrow-pierced fireplug of a woman named Emeline who'll be teaching computer science. I met her last week and helped her carry some boxes up to what used to be my apartment in Oliver. Even after she dyes over the pink and takes out her piercing to adhere to faculty dress code, the boys will get a kick out of her. She'll be popular. And then there's Shep.