Chapter 7
7
The following Monday there was a knock on Ella’s door after lunch. “Come in.”
Holding up her hand, she quickly finished the paragraph she was reading then looked up. Her smile faltered as she saw her brother standing in the doorway.
Ella sighed. “Oh, Cam, what have you done now?”
Normally she received a phone call as a bit of a heads-up before one of Cam’s teachers sent him down to see her.
“Jesus Christ, Ella. Nothing. Just forget it .”
Cam turned away and Ella wished a sharp knife had been handy to cut her tongue out. She stood abruptly. “No, wait.”
He was seeking her out? Voluntarily? Her pulse picked up at the thought. “I’m sorry, Cam. Please come and sit down.”
Cameron glared at her and the chair and then back at her before sullenly acquiescing, slumping himself down with as much teenage surliness as was possible.
“You wanted to see me about something?”
Cameron nodded and she waited patiently for him to start. He sat staring morosely at the ground, his shaggy overgrown hair obscuring his eyes from her gaze. Ella detested the latest mullet craze the male students had all embraced so heartily. Her mind wandered to Jake’s uber-short cut and she wished she had the power to line all the boys up and shave every single head.
“Cam?”
“Do you know who Jake’s chosen yet?” The question was fired at her with his usual hostile edge, as though everything bad in the world was her fault.
“No.”
Cameron snorted. “He hasn’t given you a peek at the list?”
Ella ignored his belligerent tone. “No.”
“But… you’re the principal. Doesn’t he have to check with you about it?”
She’d not spoken to Jake all week. She’d seen him a couple of times when she’d gone to the field on her regular vape-confiscating rounds but had deliberately kept away from him, including avoiding the bar on Friday night. He was here in her school performing a necessary evil and she was grateful, but she was acutely aware of both their baggage and her attraction and she wasn’t about to put herself in the path of that truck.
“No, he doesn’t. He’s the expert. It’s his team. We’ll all know in a couple of hours.”
“Has he hinted at all, maybe, that I’m in?”
The desperation in his voice vibrated through the air like a tuning fork. She’d never seen Cameron so gung-ho about anything. So motivated. Ever since she’d dragged him from Trently, he’d lived with a permanent scowl, so this interest was heartening. “I haven’t spoken to him all week.”
She regarded the boy/man who just wouldn’t let her in. He was so big, already a foot taller than her and growing out of his shoes at a rate of knots. “You really want this, don’t you?”
Cameron looked up from the floor. “Yes, I do.”
Ella swallowed as emotion welled in her throat. This was only the second time in two years he’d looked her straight in the eye. The other time had been after their mother’s funeral, when he had told her he hated Rachel, despite the tears streaming down his face. She’d tried to reach out, to gloss over what their mother was but he’d just turned away.
“Well, you’ve practiced hard. You’ve stayed standing. I think you’re in for a good chance.”
Cameron shook his head. “But what if I’m not? Can’t you… can’t you use your influence with him?”
A hot prickle burrowed into the base of Ella’s spine. “My influence?”
Cameron looked at the ground again. “You know him from Trently. And… I see the way he looks at you. Maybe a… favor might help convince him.”
Time whirred to a halt. A pain sliced through Ella’s chest as if Cameron had picked up a knife and rammed it straight through her heart. She could barely breathe as the full implications of his suggestion twisted the knife.
“You want me to use sex to get you in the team?”
Ella felt as if she was watching the scene from a great height. She couldn’t believe how calm she sounded, how composed, when her heart was breaking.
He shrugged. “It worked for Rachel.”
His words fell like stones into the silence and Ella drew in a shaky breath. It was like he truly didn’t know that he’d insulted her more deeply than she’d ever been before.
“I hope you’re not comparing, Cam.”
“What?” He snorted. “Compare the saintly Ella to Rachel? No, no, no, I wouldn’t dare.”
Ella dragged in a swift breath at the pure scorn in his voice. There was a whole minefield of emotions behind his words, stuff from Trently that he never talked about no matter what she tried to get him to open up. “I’m not the enemy, Cam.”
“Then prove it.” He was looking her in the eye again. Talking about stuff he had no idea about. Speaking with the confidence of youth – fifteen going on fifty.
“You know,” she said quietly, disappointment and hurt warring for top billing, “it’s been a lot of years since a boy made me feel so cheap. I guess you Trently guys know how to do that really well.”
Ella took no pleasure from the stain that spread across her brother’s cheeks as her rebuke hit its mark and he looked to the ground again. She hoped he was ashamed, that he felt as dirty about making his comment as she did on its receiving end.
“I know you think that I owe you, Cam. That I left you behind in Trently and didn’t care about you. Even though you know I wasn’t aware of your existence.”
Cameron’s mouth tightened. “All you had to do was pick up the phone and call her.”
Ella swallowed, the deep-seated guilt she’d always felt about cutting herself off from Rachel returning. She’d called her mom only once after she’d left and that was to let her know she was in Inverboro and safe and she wasn’t coming back.
Something she’d regretted heavily since finding out about Cam. The underlying ache in his sneered reprimand stuck like barbs in her flesh because he was right. If only she’d made the effort, there wouldn’t be this great gulf yawning between them.
“I think you know that I’m sorry about that.”
She looked at the set of Cameron’s jaw, the bitterness glittering in his gaze. He’d never given her an inch and it looked like he wasn’t about to start.
“Forget it. Just forget it,” he dismissed. “I did alright without you for thirteen years. I don’t need your help now.”
Ella watched as his chest puffed out, looking like the boy of two years ago who’d told her he didn’t need a sister. He didn’t need anyone. To go back to Inverboro and leave him alone. It hurt that after all this time he still felt he had to hide behind that facade. To pretend he didn’t need her.
But for once she wasn’t going to be guilted into backing down. What he’d said was unacceptable.
“I think you’re wrong. I think you do need me. But just for the record, I’m not going to assuage my guilt by getting you something you haven’t earned. And you can hate me for that if you want, that’s fine, but it’s just not the way I operate. You need to achieve things on your own merit.”
She reached across the desk to touch his hand and felt his rejection as a body blow when he snatched it away. “Have a little faith in your abilities, Cam.”
Cameron rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m sure that works out real well in Ella-land but IRL, things aren’t always so fucking peachy.” He pushed up out of his chair and stalked to the door. “Thanks for nothing, sis ,” he threw over his shoulder as he yanked it open.
Ella braced herself for the bang as Cameron made his disgruntled exit. He didn’t disappoint, the window rattling from the force.
She sat for a moment, her elbows on the table, her head in her hands, her whole body shaking at the confrontation. She wondered if she was going to lose her lunch as his suggestion that she do a Rachel to secure a spot on the team for him appalled and sickened her all over again.
“Can I come in?”
Ella looked up, startled, to see Jake standing in the doorway, a clipboard in his hands. “Oh. Sorry.” She gestured for him to enter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I noticed Cam leaving here pretty steamed,” he said as he shut the door and sauntered toward her. “Are you okay?”
Ella gave a mirthless laugh and rubbed the back of her neck. “Not really, no.”
He perched on her desk. “Did you argue?”
She regarded him for a long moment, the muscles in his denim-encased thigh moving interestingly in her peripheral vision as his leg swung at the knee. He was wearing another T-shirt that fit snugly over well-defined biceps. His jaw was scruffy as usual, his green eyes probing her with a frankness and intensity that was compelling.
They knew her, those eyes.
“We didn’t yell at each other, if that’s what you mean.”
“But he upset you,” Jake persisted. “What did he say?”
Ella felt absurdly like bursting into tears and wished Rosie was here. She blinked hard, not wanting to cry in front of Jake. She focused on the swing of his knee instead as Cam’s words made her feel dirty all over again.
“He suggested that I sleep with you to secure a place for him on the team.” She braved a look at him. “After all, that’s what Rachel would have done. Like mother, like daughter, right?”
The angle of his jaw tightened and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the clipboard tighter. “You’re not your mother.”
His soft rebuttal was more powerful than an outraged rejection and Ella swallowed hard. She was ashamed to admit there’d been a time when she’d wanted to be exactly like Rachel. When she’d been little and her mother had just been this beautiful creature with yellow-blonde hair and a laugh that could light up a room.
“ I know that, Jake. You know it. But does he? I mean, half of the boys back home thought I was tarred with the same brush, didn’t they?”
“They were jerks. And Cam’s just yanking your chain.”
Ella nodded, pleased to hear Jake’s quick dismissal of the boys who had contributed to her Trently hell. “But why wouldn’t he think that, growing up in Trently under Rachel’s roof? Why wouldn’t he think that all women use their bodies for favors?”
“He knows right from wrong, Ella. You shouldn’t cut him so much slack.”
Where had she heard that before? “You sound like Daisy.”
Daisy had her own tough-love opinions on how Cam should be raised which were in stark contrast to Ella’s softly-softly approach. But there were so many years to make up for and Ella was trying to get by as best she could.
And a large part of her sympathized with the kid. Cam was exactly what she’d wanted to be all those years in Trently – tough and not afraid to take anyone’s crap.
Just like Jake.
He grinned. “I like Daisy.”
Ella knew full well that the feeling had been 100 per cent mutual. The phone on her desk rang and she was pleased for the reprieve from the irresistible humor in his green eyes.
“Yes, Bernie?”
“I have Gwen for you.”
Ella nodded, as her administrative assistant put Cameron’s biology teacher through. “Hi, Gwen.”
“Hi, Ella. Have you finished with Cameron?”
“Yes. About ten minutes ago. Hasn’t he returned to class?”
“No.”
Ella appreciated the gentleness of the reply. Unfortunately it didn’t make the situation any better. “Okay, thanks Gwen. Write him up.”
“Cam taking some time out?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” she said as she hung up.
Standing, Ella walked to the window, her impotence with the situation making her restless. A train had pulled into the Metra station across the street and she’d like nothing more right now than to walk out the gates, get on the train and never come back.
“Does he cut class very much?”
Ella placed her forehead against the glass. “Cam’s truancy record puts yours to shame.”
He whistled. “Impressive.”
“Yep.” She stared for a beat longer before turning back to face him, her gaze falling on the clipboard. “Is that the list?”
Jake eased off her desk and walked toward her, extending the clipboard. “Rest easy, you don’t have to sleep with me.”
Ella took it from him as he leaned his hip against the windowsill. She ran her finger down the list, stilling when she spotted Cameron Lucas neatly printed among the twenty-five names. Relief made her dizzy and she shut her eyes for a moment to compose herself.
When she opened them, she was steadier but a question nagged at her. Glancing at him, she asked, “Are you doing this as a favor to me?”
“ Every kid on that list” – he tapped it for emphasis, his eyes bright with sincerity – “deserves their spot.”
A flood of pent-up emotion clogged in her throat and prickled at her nose. Ella’s teeth dug into her bottom lip to prevent it from spewing out. She looked down, blinking rapidly to clear the hot shimmer of tears.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice scratching like sandpaper in her throat.
“Ella?”
When she didn’t answer, he lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Ella,” he repeated.
She shook her head, avoiding eye contact, looking at his neck, his ear, the round outline of his shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s been… He just doesn’t have any confidence in himself… but he’s smart, you know?” She swiped at a tear that had managed to avoid her blinking and spilled over. “All his teachers say so, he just doesn’t apply himself… He’s too angry – with me and Rachel – and I know how much he wanted this…”
“Hey,” Jake said, his thumb drying another tear. “Don’t cry.”
She gave a gurgle of embarrassment, dodging his touch as every cell in her body screamed at her to lean in . “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m not usually this emotional.”
Despite often extreme provocation, Ella had learned early to shelter behind an aloofness she wore like armor. Where no one could touch her.
Hell, she’d not even cried at her mother’s funeral.
“It’s just… It’s been a tough couple of years and… I never thought I’d suck this badly at being a big sister.”
He nodded, his expression full of compassion, his eyes full of knowing . Full of understanding – as only Jake could. On the back of Cam’s insult, it was surprisingly comforting.
“I swear to God,” she said, her voice perilously shaky. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that then I’m going to be bawling like a baby.”
He smiled as his thumb swept across the ridge of her cheekbone. “Like what?”
The caress was so gentle Ella’s eyelids fluttered closed as she swayed a little. They opened again to find the look in his eyes had changed. His pupils had dilated, the green intensified. He was staring at her mouth.
Was he closer? Was she?
“Like what, Ella?”
Like he wanted to kiss her. “ Jake .”
If he heard the warning note in her voice, he ignored it.
In fact, he took a step closer. She supposed she should back up, but all of her faculties deserted her as her gaze locked irresistibly on his mouth. The gallop of her pulse echoed in her ears as her belly looped-the-loop.
His head dipped at the same time she lifted on her tiptoes and when his lips settled on hers she sighed against his mouth. It was soft and gentle and she welcomed his lazy exploration, her blood pumping thick and warm and slow through her belly and breasts and thighs.
But then his tongue stroked against the seam of her lips and the slow heat roared to life like a struck match and she wanted more . She wanted to feel the full force of his kiss. She wanted open mouths and heavy breathing. Parting her lips, Ella’s tongue sought his, bold and sure, deepening the kiss on a husky moan, gripping the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as pure, unadulterated lust coursed through her system.
The loud trill of the school bell was like the proverbial bucket of ice water and they both pulled back.
Ella’s pulse leaped at the unexpected interruption and it took a second for her to grapple her thoughts back from the abyss of pleasure still swirling and sucking at every inch of her body.
But then the real world intruded as the sounds of students rushing by outside brought her back to the here and now.
They were standing in her office . In front of the window .
For the entire world to see.
Anyone could have caught them. A student. A parent. Donald Wiseman from the district education review board with the creepy smile and penchant for adjusting himself during his unannounced visits.
God knew the train full of passengers seemed to be inordinately interested in the goings on.
Just as well the bell had rung because who knew what kind of show they’d have witnessed had it not.
What the hell had she been thinking?
“Of course, if you want to sleep with me…” His deep, lazily amused voice rumbled around her. “I could always make Cameron team captain.”
Ella rolled her eyes. Very funny . Garnering a strength she did not feel, Ella pushed away, walking to her desk on legs that weren’t quite steady.
“I’m not going to sleep with you, Jake.”
“What? Ever?”
She smiled at his mocking tone. “Now you’re getting it.”
“That’s a long time.”
Ella shrugged. “It’s called self-control. Maybe you should try it some time.”
He walked toward her desk, planting his fists on the edge. “You weren’t big on self-control a couple of years ago.”
Ella swallowed as the mention of that day rattled her further. Goddamn it! This was her office. Her dominion . He might have invaded it but it was still her turf and she wouldn’t let him drag her into the past. Not when she’d worked so hard to leave it all behind.
“I’m not going backward, Jake.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m backward?”
“You’re Trently, Jake. I left there a long time ago and I’m not going back.”
“It felt like you wanted to go back when you stuck your tongue in my mouth just now.”
A rush of heat threatened to swamp her at the memory but she beat it back. “You do know that abstinence doesn’t kill people, right?”
God knew she’d have been dead a long time ago.
“It sure makes them mighty pissed though.”
Right. Like The Prince knew about that. “And this you would know how?”
He grinned, pushing off the desk and picking up his clipboard. “See you at the field.”
Ella watched Cameron’s face as Pete read out the names. A lump rose in her throat at the play of his emotions. First stunned disbelief, then a slow dawning as a tentative smile grew into a grin as big as Lake Michigan.
The lump swelled to life-threatening proportions as his eyes sought hers and she saw tears shining in his tough-kid gaze. She gave him the thumbs up and he actually returned them.
Every kid whose name was called out stood an extra inch higher and Ella couldn’t remember ever feeling such a charge of optimism in all her years at Deluca. A transformation was happening before her eyes. Kids who’d never had any expectations from life suddenly looked bulletproof.
Maybe this could actually work?