25. Mia
Mia
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. Oh god, oh god, oh god. What did I just do?
Lilly turned to me only once as we walked from the meeting room to the staffroom, and I knew that look on her face better than anyone else ever could. She was anxious. Horribly anxious. And it was because of me that she was.
I smoothed my shaking fingers down my hair again and again, hoping that I didn’t look like I’d just been dry-humping my student’s father.
When we got to the staffroom, Lilly whirled to face me, her hand already on her stomach. On instinct, I held out my hands, ready to squeeze her shoulders and coach her through. But she stepped back, out of reach.
“I need you to tell me what happened in there.” She sounded as if she was afraid of what she’d hear.
I had to stop and think. Theo and I weren’t doing much talking, and that kiss was… mind-ruining. Putting together a single thought about anything else was going to be impossible for the rest of the day. The year, even.
“Mia? Did he say something?” Lilly asked, and I shrugged.
“He told me he trusted me.”
She gave me a look. I held my hands up. “Really. That’s all he said.”
“And that took an entire five minutes?”
“Well, no. He said other things, but nothing terrible.”
Lilly took a breath, shut her eyes, and recited under her breath, “Jump up, make a sound, hey, stomp your boots, turn around…”
Shit. Her coping song. She was anxious.
She took another breath and opened her eyes, her gaze clear. “You don’t hate him anymore.”
I was surprised. I didn’t know what she was going to say, but I didn’t expect that.
“I don’t really know that I ever hated him.”
“Do you have feelings for him?”
My mouth dropped. “What?”
She gestured to the door, as if Theo was standing right outside of it. “I saw the way you looked at him when he walked in. I saw the way he looked at you.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Oh please, Lilly, we weren’t ‘looking’ at each other.”
“Mia.” The way Lilly said my name held years of deep, connected friendship. She knew every word I’d just said was a lie. “What did he do to you in that meeting room?”
I tried to deflect. “Shouldn’t we be talking about the girls? And Ashley?”
She breathed in, then let it out slowly. “Whatever he said or did, I hope it wasn’t something that could put the program, or Kira’s placement, at risk.”
I wanted to put my fingers in my ears and sing something annoying just to get her to stop talking about this.
Because I wanted to tell her every detail of what Theo just did to me.
How he gave me the hottest moment of my life.
How I almost took him out of those trousers.
How he made me forget where I was–who I was–for that delirious, breathless space of time.
But I couldn’t.
Even though Lilly knew every detail of my life, even though we were closer than family, she was also my boss. It would do horrible things to both of us if she knew he’d just kissed me like that.
And she was right. It would ruin all the progress I made with Kira and the program.
But it was just a one-time thing. Just two people scratching an itch. It wouldn’t happen again, so why tell her about it? She was already anxious. I didn’t need to add to that.
I put both of my hands on her shoulders, and this time, she let me.
I held her eye as I said, “Nothing happened. If I looked at him with anything other than complete and total disgust, it was only because I was maybe the slightest bit nervous about losing my shit in that meeting. Between him and Ashley, I thought it was going to be a disaster.”
“It almost was,” she mumbled.
I gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Everything is fine. I wouldn’t let anything jeopardize this program. I know how important it is for you.”
She looked like she wanted to believe me, like she was just one more promise away from dropping this. So I brought it home with, “And you know how important you are to me. I wouldn’t put you in that kind of position. Nothing is worth that. Not even shagging that grumpy asshole.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled me in for a hug.
“It’s just that after you said the universe threw you into an enemies-to-lovers romance with him, I thought maybe you might’ve gotten to the lovers part.”
A laugh barked out of me. “I’d rather get a bull’s ass tattooed on my forehead, remember?”
She gave me a final squish, then let me go as she tried, and failed, to give me her sternest look. “I’m holding you to that.”
I waved a hand at her. “You won’t have to. My eyes are on the prize. Five spots, that’s the plan.”
Her smile was weak. “I can’t believe you agreed to take this on. It’s so much work.”
“There wasn’t much to agree to.” I shrugged. “You needed me. Of course I was going to do it.”
Lilly squeezed her eyes shut. “I just wish I didn’t have to ask you to do this. It isn’t fair on you. If Rutton would just stop listening to all those parents, my job wouldn’t be at risk in the first place.”
I nudged her shoulder and her eyes opened, meeting mine. “Hey. It won’t be long before this whole thing is over. The job will be yours, our students will graduate, and life will move on. Everything will be fine.”
Lilly’s shoulder nudged mine right back. “And you’re really okay?”
“As okay as I’ve ever been. And I know that meeting back there didn’t go the way you wanted, but I’ll fix it. Kira and Amber both deserve their shot.”
“They do.”
“And at least the table didn’t get flipped. I’d call that a win.”
Lilly let out a quiet laugh and relaxed. When she next spoke, she sounded playful, and the relief I felt was instant. “Do you think that, after the year is over, maybe they’ll end up as friends? Like we did?”
I snorted. “I doubt it, but crazier things have happened. I can’t believe that if it wasn’t for that literacy class, I’d never have met you. Think of how boring my life would’ve been.”
She grinned, and it almost made me forget the niggling guilt in the back of my mind–the fact that I’d lied, truly lied, to Lilly for the first time since I’d known her.
“I’m really glad you walked into that classroom.”
“Me too.”
She picked up a stray folder from her desk and said, “We’ll talk about the meeting later. All things considered, you held it together okay.”
I hmphed, trying to sound amused as she turned and left, waiting until she was out of earshot before I let myself sink back against my desk. My fingers shook as they curled around the wooden edge, my legs hollowing out as my pulse pounded hot and hard.
I shut my eyes and whispered, “It was just once. Once, and that’s it. Kira will graduate, and it’ll be like it never happened. And when the program is over, I’ll tell Lilly.”
But as I put my hand to my chest, I knew I’d gone from lying to Lilly to lying to myself.