Payback, Penelope

Chapter 1

Penelope

“Knock, knock,” I say as I rasp my knuckles on the white door frame and poke my head into the classroom. It’s the Thursday before students start back at the private school next week, and after missing out on the first three days of prep—getting our classrooms ready for the start of the year—due to a vicious migraine, I’ve come to introduce myself to the new male teacher everyone has been talking about. The hint of a greenish-gray tattoo peeking above his collar at the nape of his neck has put Mrs. Goldstein and Mrs. Martinez in quite the tizzy.

I’m not popping in to get a look at the rumored giant myself, of course, but to warn him about the few who treat their marriage certificates as nothing more than a mere suggestion of a commitment.

Ok, so maybe I want just a teensy, weensy little look. I’m not married anymore, so what’s the harm?

My teensy, weensy little look turns into a head-to-toe perusal of the confirmed giant leaning over his dark wooden desk, sorting through a stack of papers with his impressively broad back to the door. He whips his head up at the sound of my voice. My eyes, immediately glued to the front of his tight black trousers that hug thick thighs, skate up his wide waist and barrel chest to his handsome face when he turns and makes a choking sound. His knees almost buckle, and the papers in his hands go flying in the air.

“Oh my god, are you ok?” I rush into the room as fast as I can in the red fuck-me-heels I bought the day I signed my divorce papers four years ago as a gift to myself. I’ll be back to wearing my sensible sandals and sneakers when the school year officially starts but for now…I’m letting my hair down, so to speak, both physically and metaphorically.

The man wraps his hand around the front of his throat. I must have startled him and made him choke on his gum or something. He’s almost a head taller than my five-foot-six-inch stature plus three-inch heels. He’s also on the heavier side, so I can’t quite get my arms all the way around him from behind when I attempt to give him the Heimlich maneuver, though I try my best after yelling for help. How no one hears me and comes running is anyone’s guess.

If I were chewing gum, I’d choke too when he turns in my hold, drops and wraps his huge arms around my waist, and pulls me in for a hug like I’m his long-lost lover.

It’s weird, to say the least.

“Holy shit, it’s you,” he says with disbelief after he drops his face into my dark blonde hair and—did he just sniff me? “You’re here.”

“You, uh, you ok, now?” My face is smashed against his chest, muffling the question. I’ve undoubtedly smeared my favorite rum-raisin lipstick all over his pristine white button-down shirt and across the bottom half of my face.

“Better now that you’re here,” he rumbles, and my lady parts quiver like I’m a heroine in one of my mom’s 90’s Harlequin romance novels.

I tap his beefy arm to tap out of this hug, even as I press my nose into his shirt, inhaling the scent of citrus and sandalwood. Instead of letting me go, the man tightens his hold, one hand sliding down my back and resting just above my ass. Strangely, I’m not outraged by his uninvited hands on me. I find that I quite like the way he wraps me up, holding onto me for dear life. I haven’t been hugged like this since a few years before my divorce, back when I thought I was living happily ever after with my ex-husband.

At least, I had been until I turned thirty, and my husband started complaining that I had let myself go . Well, no shit, I no longer look like the twenty-year-old he married, all fresh-faced and naive. That’s how aging works.

It was all fine and dandy when he gained forty pounds, but ten years and twenty pounds—literally two pounds per year!—on me was enough for him to lose interest. I hung onto him for another three years, doing my best to win back his waning affection, but it was all for nothing.

Oh, what the hell , I think to myself and give into the hug. I turn my head to the side and close my eyes as I lay my cheek against his chest, finally able to take a deep breath, then slip my arms up and up and up until I can loosely lock my hands together behind his neck.

The man—I still don’t know his name—groans as he slides his hands to my ribs and lifts me off the floor so he doesn’t have to continue bending over so far while the hug goes on and on. My heels fall to the floor with a clatter as I dangle, making me wince. I have the impulse to hike my black pencil skirt up, lift my legs to wrap them around his waist, and rock my core against the large bulge I know he has to be sporting if his height is any indication of his size. I’ve always wanted to try that, but my ex-husband wasn’t strong enough to lift me.

But this man—he definitely could. I bet he could throw one hell of a lucky person against the wall and pound into them without breaking a sweat. Of course, that would be highly inappropriate—more so than this wholly inappropriate hug I’ve found myself in with a complete stranger.

The man pushes his face in the crook of my neck and sways side to side like we’re slow dancing. I’m half a breath from saying oh, what the hell again to lifting my legs when I dizzyingly find myself on my bare feet and him three feet away with his back to me. There’s that tattoo peeking above his tight collar, though I can’t tell what it is.

The man shakes out a pant leg, then turns, giving me the full force of his rich, hickory brown gaze, and I part my lips. Bear . That’s the first word that comes to mind when I take in the dark, expertly cut head of hair atop a square face with prominent, masculine features and stubble on the cusp of turning into a beard. Overall, just the sheer size of the man and the intense, swallow-me-up hug screams grizzly bear and the promise of chest hair beneath his top. I wonder if he’d let me unbutton his shirt, now blemished by a small lipstick stain, and slip it off his rounded shoulders so I can see how far down it travels.

“Well.” I lick my thumb and swipe it around my lips and chin to remove any smeared lipstick, swaying for a moment until I prop a hand on his desk to steady myself amongst his papers scattered on the freshly waxed floor. “That was, uh, one hell of a hello, nice to meet you greeting.”

A tear slips down my cheek, and I swipe it away with surprise. The man looks wrecked as he watches another tear slip out. I laugh it off before he can question why I’m crying. “It’s been a while since I’ve been hugged like that.” I plaster on a cheery smile. “Don’t mind me. I’m just being silly.”

He steps closer. “You can hug me anytime you want,” he says huskily, and oooh, boy , it’s so tempting to throw myself at him and ask him to do it again right fucking now.

There’s something about him…I tilt my head to the side, searching his face for a clue as to who he is. “Why do you look so familiar?”

He takes another step closer. “You don’t remember me, Mrs. Jenkins? I sure as hell remember you.”

“That would be Ms. Barlow now. Single and ready to mingle!” I could just crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment at that pronouncement. “And, I’m so sorry, I don’t.” His face falls momentarily, and I feel like a world-class asshole. “You weren’t one of my students, were you?”

“No. I was zoned to the schools in our old neighborhood.” He tugs on his collar and mumbles, “Though I wish I had been.”

“Oh! So we were neighbors? Wait—are you Trudy’s son from across the street? What was it? James? John? Crap, I’m sorry, I don’t remember. The Boy Scout who used to go door-to-door doing fundraisers?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Jacob. Though I’m not a boy any longer.”

“You can say that again,” I blurt with a laugh and want to slap a hand over my mouth. I accidentally give Jacob an appreciative look, I think, because his nostrils flare, and his eyes dip to my chest with a lick of his lips. I follow his gaze, and shit! The top three buttons of my white blouse have come undone, exposing my racy navy blue bra—the type of lingerie I also started buying and wearing after my ex left, trying to boost my self-confidence.

He makes that choking noise again when I rush to rebutton them, and I scrunch my brows with concern. “Did you swallow your gum or something?”

“No, but I’d like to swallow something else.”

“What?”

He scratches the back of his neck and looks away. “Hmm?”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

I’m about to call him on his bullshit when Mr. Andrews strides into the room, and I automatically back away from the door toward Jacob with a nervous smile. Mr. Andrews is around my dad’s age, but that doesn’t stop him from asking me out to dinner and drinks nearly every week, even though I’ve made it clear that I’m not interested. Since he knows my ex-husband is seventeen years older than me, he seems to think that means I’m interested in any older man, which just isn’t the case.

Jacob notices my reaction to Mr. Andrews’s presence and subsequent retreat, and he grips my bicep to pull me behind him. It’s ridiculous and over the top since Mr. Andrews isn’t exactly a physical threat at his advanced age, but I appreciate the protective gesture all the same.

Mr. Andrews loops his thumbs through the fraying belt loops in the waistband of his khakis that strain to stretch around his girth, undoubtedly due to too much alcohol, judging by his bulbous red nose and permanently flushed cheeks. “What’s going on here?”

I quickly slip on my heels and smooth out my hair. Jacob and I haven’t explicitly done anything wrong since there weren’t any students around to see our embrace, but Mr. Andrews looks like he walked in on Jacob nailing me to the desk. Ugh , now I’m picturing him doing just that—forcing me to bend over, slapping my ass, and then fucking me into oblivion.

Something is seriously wrong with me today.

“Nothing that concerns you,” Jacob says with his enormous fists clenched at his sides. I bet he could palm a basketball like a MNBA player with the size of them.

There’s trouble brewing on the horizon for Jacob since Mr. Andrews is buddy-buddy with the principal, Mr. Garnet. He’s had Mr. Garnet’s ear for the last twenty years, and it wouldn’t take much for Jacob to find himself in Mr. Garnet’s office and possibly out of a job.

I force a placating smile on my face and step around Jacob. “Good morning, Mr. Andrews. How was your summer? Is that a new haircut? It’s very trendy and looks great.” Gag . Mr. Andrews looks the same as when I started working here—more salt than pepper gray hair that he slicks back behind his ears with way too much gel. A veritable helmet of hair.

“Thank you, Ms. Barlow. It’s kind of you to notice.” Ugh, now he’s preening, rocking back and forth on his brown penny loafers that shine just as bright as the pink bald spot on the back of his head. “May I say, you look radiant as always? A sight for sore eyes. I especially enjoy the heels.” He leers at my legs below my skirt. Damnit. I’m never wearing these heels to work again.

A glance out the corner of my eye finds Jacob pinching his lips together, and once Mr. Andrews can drag his lecherous gaze from my feet, he narrows his eyes at Jacob. He sucks on his teeth, then sticks his ham of a hand out to shake Jacob’s. “We haven’t met yet. I assume you’re the new hire, Mr. Prudencio?”

Jacob stares at Mr. Andrews’s outstretched hand, then finally grips and tugs on it, making Mr. Andrews stumble forward. “That’s me.”

I step between the two men to deescalate the bizarre interaction, forcing Jacob to drop Mr. Andrews’s now stark white hand, restoring his circulation. “Well! Now that introductions are out of the way, I think it’s time we leave Jacob—I mean, Mr. Prudencio—to his lesson plans, shall we?”

Mr. Andrews doesn’t take the hint to leave and crosses his arms over his beer belly. “First name basis already, huh? You two know each other?”

“Oh, yes! He was a neighbor kid back when I lived in Tyler before moving to Fort Worth, though we haven’t seen each other in years.”

Jacob scoffs. “Kid.”

I turn to face him, and he looks ready to grind his teeth to nubs. I widen my green and gold hazel eyes at him, silently telling him to cool it. “It was great catching up with you, J—Mr. Prudencio. Tell your mom I said ‘hi’.” Then I swerve around Mr. Andrews, hoping he’ll follow me out of the room like a puppy. My relief is short-lived when he does because it means he’s probably staring at my ass.

I hurry to my classroom across the hall from Jacob’s and two doors down. “Back to work,” I say with a chipper voice before closing my classroom door, shutting Mr. Andrews out just when he opens his mouth, no doubt to ask me out again. I lean against the wall, count to sixty, then peek through the narrow window cutout in the door to make sure Mr. Andrews is gone before I relax.

Blowing out a sigh, I drop onto my swivel chair behind my messy desk, unbutton my blouse halfway down, and fan myself with a clipboard. Sweat pools between my breasts, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s due to the weak air conditioning or the unexpected lust I saw budding in Jacob’s eyes.

A blur of white draws my attention, and I find Jacob staring at me through the cutout. Another drop of sweat trickles down my chest, and I slowly turn in my chair to face the door fully and lazily fan myself. His eyes dip to my chest, and I make no move to button myself back up again. I even go so far as to arch my back.

Jacob drops his forehead to the pane of glass like he’s trying to get a closer look but then snaps his head to the side and walks away. A second later, Mrs. Barry—Sandra—the teacher whose classroom I share a wall with, peeks through the window and gives me a little wave. I slap the clipboard to my chest to cover myself when she opens the door and pokes her unnatural fire-engine-red head in.

“Drinks at Garfield’s, four o’clock. Be there or be square.” Though Sandra is twenty years my senior, she sure knows how to party, and she’s always arranging these after-work get-togethers to bitch about the few parents who make us question why we continue teaching when we have to deal with them and their endless e-mails and complaints.

A cold drink is exactly what I need. “Sure thing.”

Sandra moves to close the door but stops and hits me with, “Oh, by the way, I invited the new teacher, Mr. Prudencio. If I were you, I’d climb him like a—well, you know.” My mouth drops open because it’s like she can read my mind, and she shoots me a wink before leaving my room with a cackle.