Chapter 39
“Asher…” I hesitantly muttered and shoved against his hands, attempting to cover the bite mark.
He immediately let go and lifted his gaze to mine. Lines creased between his brows as he pinched them together. With a wiggle, I tugged my skirt down and slid off the desk. “I can’t… I can’t do this crazy rock star shit again.”
His gaze darkened, and he took a step back. “What the hell are you talking about? You just said that you didn’t want to let me go either?”
“It’s not like that. There’s something else, and I should’ve said something earlier because you’ll probably change your mind about me.
I didn’t know until after I’d already— My lawyer said this was the safest thing, but you’re here and— There’s this— Um…
” My voice trailed off as I glanced at a picture on my desk.
Asher was here. My lawyer hadn’t said shit about what to do if Asher found me, and I could no longer keep this from him.
“It’s complicated to explain, and I need you to listen to everything I say before you… freak out…”
“Complicated? Freak out? I thought you said there wasn’t any other guy? Do you have a boyfriend? A husband?”
I shook my head. “No, no! It’s not like that.”
“Okay, then I don’t get it. What’s wrong with me?” he asked, shoving his hands back in his pockets, hiding fingers that I was already craving to have touch me again.
“Nothing’s wrong with you. This again isn’t about you and me in that way. I’m not doing what I used to do. So, let me…explain everything before you…say anything.”
“Then what the f—” The bell rang, cutting him off, and my eyes widened in shock.
“Shit. Shit,” I stammered.
“What’s shit?” He looked so confused and hurt and absolutely thrown onto a rollercoaster. Which I couldn’t blame him for. The timing was terrible.
“You need to leave. We can talk later. Like after school.” I tried to shove him toward the door. “I have a class coming.”
He didn’t budge. “And you want me to leave through the same door that they’re going to be coming through?”
I stopped pushing him. “Right. You’ve got to hide.” I snatched his wrist as a small smile spread across his lips, and he followed me around my desk. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because this feels a little familiar,” he teased as I reached the small, narrow, coat closet propped up against the far wall.
I grimaced as the doorknob to my classroom turned. “Get inside.” I ripped the door open.
“It’s so small.” He ducked, smacking his head on the back of a coat hanger before bending awkwardly around some supplies. “Fuck, that hurt.” He groaned, and I slammed the coffee-colored door shut.
“Ow,” he whined, his voice muffled as my classroom door flew open and in came the first wave of kids. I leaned my head back against the closet, relieved that we weren’t caught.
I glanced back at my desk in horror. There was a blank space, perfectly cut out from the rest of my mess, where I’d been sitting with a very sexy man, making out with him.
Why had I ever run away in—
Right. Dumb Cosette, very dumb.
“Hey, Miss Cosi!” Aaron called out, jumping and hitting the door frame before finding his seat. “You heard, right? Obviously you heard, I mean you’re the music teacher for f—” He paused and sat down, pursing his lips.
I lifted a brow in caution as I quickly jogged back over to my desk and messed with the papers, hiding the blank space.
“Excuse me.” He cleared his throat. “You’re the music teacher for goodness sake, so you obviously heard about the first concert our little town will be having in like a decade!”
“Yes, I have heard,” I replied as the last few stragglers danced into the room right before the second bell rang. Aurora and Luna both sat in the front row, looking extra smug. Luna pulled her purple hair back into a ponytail and leaned against the chair.
“So, you’ve obviously planned our lesson around that for today, right? I mean, voice lessons for a genre of music we’ve not touched yet, is amazing!” he finished in a sing-songy way.
“And also a very difficult vocal technique to learn,” I began as my class quieted down, settling into place. “So no, I am not qualified to teach you that.”
“What about the music theory behind the genre?” he pushed, and several murmured agreements passed around the classroom.
“Look, this metalcore genre is something that I don’t feel comfortable diving into. I’m not—”
“Asher Stone?” Luna stated, rolling her eyes.
“Yes, exactly.”
My entire class sat forward. “You do know who he is. You totally know this genre.” Aurora gasped, and I took in a sharp breath. Dumb.
Brain, you need to switch on and get to work, because they’ve only been at this for five minutes, and I’m already slipping.
“Well, yes. His band is playing this weekend at our little stadium. And, as you’ve all clearly pointed out, as your music teacher, I should know,” I replied.
Well done, Cosette.
“Then teach us something,” Aaron pressed again.
My classroom door swung open, interrupting the conversation, and in popped the face of someone I really didn’t want to see right now.
Though I loved her, once again, the timing of everything today was horrendous as I was in the middle of trying to get my very talented seniors to focus on something that wasn’t Asher.
“Hey, Miss Cosi. Look, I know this is spur of the moment and unusual, but since you somehow managed to get you know, uh, that singer dude to come be a guest speaker in your class, I thought I’d bring my fifth period by and join,” Mrs. Wallace said, and my eyes widened.
“What singer dude?”
“Guest speaker?”
“What’s going on?”
Murmured questions rippled through my classroom as I silently begged, pleading with my gaze, for Mrs. Wallace to leave.
“I know they’re drama kids, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime—” She stopped and looked around my classroom. “Wait, where is he?” she asked, swinging her gaze back. “I led him here an hour ago. And he would stick out like a sore thumb with his tattoos and earrings and well, how tall he is.”
“Will you stop?” I hissed quietly, but she couldn’t hear me over the roaring buzz racing through my students.
They knew who she was referring to, or at least were guessing correctly, as I remained absolutely still.
Frozen with no idea what I was going to do or say to manage to dig myself out of this.
“Miss Cosi?” Aurora suddenly squealed loudly, above the increasing volume of my roaring students. Even Mrs. Wallace’s class was beginning to whisper amongst each other, hidden behind her plump frame.
“Is she being—”
And the closet door suddenly crashed open.
Several girls screamed, jumping up onto their chairs as Asher came tumbling out of there with a couple coats and my entire emergency supply bucket. It exploded, sending contents across the carpet as he groaned and sprawled out flat on his back.
Silence enveloped the room as if closing a coffin. I heard my students’ jaws hit the floor in shock while I stared at Asher on the floor.
He grimaced, lifting an apologetic gaze to me, and I tried to bite back both the frustration and rather funny sight before me.
“It’s Asher Stone,” Luna suddenly blurted out, breaking the silence, and I immediately missed the shock. Mrs. Wallace’s class shoved past her, flooding my small room. They were at least nice enough to not tackle him as he groaned, rolling over, and pushed himself up to his feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, surprise.” I unenthusiastically waved in his direction. Well, time to roll with things. He brushed off his pants and adjusted his shirt before coming to stand directly next to me.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered beneath the squeals and roars of the crowd. They were clearly awestruck by the Dark Banshee being in this room with them.
“I was just trying to adjust my positioning. My neck was really cramped,” he continued in my ear.
I swatted subtly at his leg. “Well, you get to teach my class for the rest of the hour now, so work your magic.” With a wiggle of my brows, I gave him a slight grin.
He groaned. “But I’m not a fucking teacher.”
“Then you shouldn’t have fallen out of the closet.” My smile widened.
“Oh, you’re finding this very funny, aren’t you,” he teased, and I nodded subtly. “You can’t complain when your consequences come, Princess. Just remember that,” he whispered, and I felt hot all over. An unexpected yet welcomed familiar feeling that hadn’t pulsed deep within my core in years.
I sighed, exasperated, and he winked.
“Three years later, and I still got it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped an inch forward.
“Don’t let that go to your head, it’s big enough already,” I hissed in reply as the class finally began to settle down.
“As long as it fits perfectly between those legs, I have no issues.” He grinned, and I didn’t have a chance to tell him to shut his mouth as he walked past me into the center of the room.
He didn’t have to say a word as every student, whether in a chair or squished between them on the floor, silenced. Mrs. Wallace scurried behind him and joined me by my desk while I plopped myself down in my spinning chair.
“I’m sorry I almost ruined the surprise,” she whispered as Asher began speaking. He seemed a little hesitant at first, but slowly got into the groove of things as time wore on.
Leaning back farther in my chair, I took a deep breath in, and I realized that things weren’t agonizingly silent. My eyes slid back to Asher, who straddled a chair and crossed his arms over the back of it while he answered some question from a girl in Mrs. Wallace’s class.
I could hear it again.
It was really faint, hardly more than a whisper of a bow across some strings, but it was back. He was back.
This entire time, I’d been waiting for that final piece to heal, and all along it was him. It was Asher who needed to come back into my life to bring things together. And I wasn’t going to let him go.
And then my stomach sank once more as I glanced at the picture on my desk. If I wanted Asher to stay, and wanted things to be permanent, I needed to tell him. Not just him, but both of them. And the simplistic answer to my yearning just became a whole lot more complicated.
The intercom buzzed, interrupting Asher explaining one of the techniques he used to make sure his voice doesn’t get fried while singing and screaming during a concert.
“Miss Cosi, we have a phone call here at the front office that I need to transfer to your classroom phone. They said that you’re not answering your cell phone,” the receptionist’s voice bounced around the small classroom.
“Okay, go ahead and forward it. I have a guest lecturer, so that’s no problem,” I replied.
“All right,” she said, and then the intercom clicked off.
My classroom phone rang, and I picked it up, only for my heart to sink.
No, no. Not now. Why was it that the one thing I was hoping to avoid, was happening now?
Of course the power had to go out right at this moment, with no hope of it restoring at the facility for the rest of the day.
I’d wanted to talk to Asher about this first because it had never meant to be a secret kept from him to hurt him but to protect both of them.
Hanging up, I turned to Mrs. Wallace. “I have to run out for a bit. Would you be good to hold down the fort with Asher for a bit?”
She furrowed her brows but nodded without argument.
“Thank you,” I whispered and grabbed my purse. Checking for my car keys, I found my cellphone buried deep at the bottom of the bag as I rushed out. I didn’t even glance his way, even as I felt his confused stare burrowing into my back.