Chapter 4
You see your calls not going through? Very blocked. Very Peaceful. Very dead to me.
— Brecken’s secret thoughts
brECKEN
I flushed the toilet, prayed that my tampon would tide me over until third period, and made a mad dash out of the bathroom after washing my hands.
I’d been in and out of the freakin’ bathroom all morning, and I could just hear the students now.
They all knew I had a dairy intolerance.
They also knew why I left, and what I did when I left.
They were all assholes, too.
Every last one of them.
Of course, because my stomach hurt so bad already, I hadn’t been prepared for my period to start today as well.
It just figured.
The first day back at school, where I had to deal with Jolessa and Rupert, and my period had to start. Oh, and let’s not forget the lactose intolerance rearing its ugly head.
I made it to the classroom, barely glancing into Rupert’s open door as I passed when the bell rang.
I huffed out a breath and said, “Made it!”
Most of my students were the same as last year. But there were one or two new faces that appeared.
A new student that looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here, and Rosalyn, a quiet student that used to be in the other history teacher’s class, but was moved after a few issues arose with other students.
I eyed her as she tried to sink into herself and the hood of her sweatshirt, contemplated telling her that she needed to lose the hood, and decided against it.
I honestly couldn’t care less if the students wore hoods.
I didn’t care if they were following dress code period.
As long as they were here and ready to learn, the rest didn’t matter to me.
A particularly vicious cramp had me grimacing and walking to the whiteboard where I had my lesson plan listed out for the day.
My hand on my belly, wishing it was a hot water bottle and not my hand, I started explaining the outline.
None of them stopped their whispered discussions.
“Okay, class,” I drawled as I turned to face them. “You will listen to me, or you’ll face my wrath!”
“What are you going to do? Eat yogurt tomorrow to punish us?”
I laughed at my favorite student’s words.
Sadly, that might punish me way more than him.
“No,” I said. “Because, unlike what you might think, I don’t like to punish myself.”
“Then why do you eat so much dairy?” one of the other students asked.
“Dairy is in literally everything,” I pointed out. “It’s only been recently that dairy-free places have been popping up. Used to, I couldn’t even enjoy a cupcake. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I just can’t turn down Mexican food.”
“Amen to that,” Cecelia, one of the top of her class seniors, said. “I went to Little Mexico last night, and it was phenomenal.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Now, who can tell me what they think started World War One?”
Generally, this many seniors wouldn’t be in my World History Class.
Truthfully, this was generally a ninth grade or tenth grade subject. But for some reason, I had more than usual this year. More than a third of my class.
It was fun. I truly enjoyed having all these young adults in my class.
What I didn’t like, however, was how out of touch with reality they sometimes were.
I mean, I was supposed to send an eighteen-year-old young man that didn’t know why World War One started out into the world and expect him to be a functional member of society?
Really, there was a reason we learned history…so we didn’t repeat it.
Yet, most of them were still clueless as to what led them to where the world was today.
My least favorite student—though I’d never admit it to anyone—proved that point next.
“Because the US wanted to be the top dog in the world and decided to start taking out lesser nations,” Frances drawled, knowing what he was saying was going to piss me off.
This was literally the one kid in the entire school that I couldn’t stand.
Why?
Because he acted like a little rich prick that had daddy’s money to always fall back on. To bail him out of the hardest of situations.
He also fully expected to pass his classes based solely on who his father was.
And, the sad fact was, he was right.
“Actually, no,” Cecelia said. “In actuality, World War One started because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.”
I grinned at Cecelia. “Correct.” I looked to the rest of the class, pointedly avoiding Frances’s eyes. “And why did the US enter the war?”
“Because of some submarine that Germany took down!” Caden Rivers, the captain of the football team, said. “I just watched a movie about it on Amazon! It was freakin’ awesome. All of those guys were freakin’ badasses!”
“That’s correct,” I confirmed. “Today, I want you to write a short summary of chapter thirty-one in the book. If you read your chapter over Christmas vacation like I asked, you will find this fairly easy. It discusses…”
I continued my lecture, then allowed them free time to write their summaries.
Usually, I’d spend more time lecturing and not requiring them to read the chapter because I found that they learned more hands-on than they did reading chapters. However, I was exhausted.
My uterus was killing me, I’d gotten no sleep last night because I was so nervous about being sandwiched between the two most hated people in my world, and I just didn’t have it in me.
Luckily, they all finished their summaries, giving us enough time at the end of class to have our wind-up random fact of the day.
“What is today’s random fact?” a boy from the back asked as he started to pack up.
I leaned back in my uncomfortable teacher’s chair and said, “Pick a number between one and ten.”
The boy tapped his lips with his index finger before saying, “Seven.”
“Did you know the last person who died building the Hoover Dam was the son of the first person who died building it?” I asked.
There was a pause as everyone digested today’s random fact, and then, “That one’s awful, Ms. Sweat.”
“Okay.” I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Well then, how about…” I tapped my own lip before coming up with one I’d seen on a video last night. “Did you know that MLB umpires have to wear black underwear in case their pants split during a game?”
Everyone groaned. “That’s boring.”
I laughed and stood up, stretching my arms up high over my head.
Yesterday, I’d gone to a class at the gym that focused on functional fitness.
The only problem was that the class usually made functional fitness outside of the class impossible.
For instance, we’d done snatches—and I’d giggled ridiculously at the name of the movement all during class—and though they hadn’t been too hard at the time, today I was still feeling the five a.m. class in my shoulders and neck.
I could barely nod my head without a weird clicking pop happening below my skull.
Getting older was always fun. You learned new and exciting ways that your body was breaking down before your eyes.
I saw a student’s eyes widen as she looked out the door of the hallway, and I moved so that I could look out, too. I was fully expecting to see Rupert or Jolessa there, but that wasn’t who I found.
I looked over, my mouth falling open slightly, and stared at the gorgeous man walking down the hallway toward my classroom.
He had a fluorescent green visitor’s tag on his left pec, and the instant recollection of him hit me full force.
The man from the coffee shop.
I’d clocked him the moment he’d entered the shop.
At first, I’d been stunned because he’d been as big as my brothers—every bit of six-foot-three or four. He was a big man. Muscular. Not in a bulky way, but in an “I’ll kick your ass without even trying” way. He had wide shoulders, a sexy neck that led into an even sexier jawline—one that was covered in the perfect amount of hair that could still give you the dimple in his chin for your viewing pleasure.
He had dark-brown hair that was cut into a tapered fade, longer on top so that it looked like he could style it—if he wanted to.
He had dark, hooded eyes with the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen.
He’d been wearing a pair of dark blue jeans that fit his ass perfectly, a gray long-sleeved Henley, and a really expensive watch that I knew I saw Tibbs coveting.
And that sexy man was literally walking down the hallway, getting closer and closer and closer until it was apparent where he was going.
He was still in the jeans and gray Henley. The sleeves, however, were now pulled up to his forearms, displaying a perfectly unmarred forearm and one covered in tattoos all the way down to his wrist.
He, of course, pulled off both looks.
And generally, I wasn’t exactly attracted to tattoos—they just weren’t my thing. But on this man? They were definitely my thing.
I positioned myself in the door of my classroom, keeping my body perpendicular to the door so I could see both directions and said, “Can I help you?”
He came to a stop not too far away from me and nodded.
“I need help finding a Ms. Petrov,” he said as he took a look past me into the classroom.
I glanced toward the back of the room and saw Roslyn Petrov hunched down so far that she was trying to disappear into the hole of her hoodie.
“What about?” I asked protectively.
He smiled at me, noting the mama bear protectiveness.
“Actually, I’m just here to drop off her phone,” he said. “I know that’s not allowed, but I didn’t want to give it to the office lady and have her say that she couldn’t have it because they’re not allowed in school. I’m just here to drop it off directly to her. But I lied and said I was having lunch with her.”
My brows rose. “Are you her brother?”
He shook his head. “Godfather.”
Disbelief must’ve been all over my face when I said, “Really?”
He looked toward Roslyn, who was now very much aware of who was at the door.
She smiled at him and got up out of her chair.
“Uncle Shasha,” she said as she shouldered her backpack. “What are you doing here?”
He pulled out her phone, which was indeed very much girly and definitely not his, and handed it to her.
She squealed. “He was able to fix it?”
“Dima said the screen was easy to replace,” he answered.
“Did Dad get you to do this because he was leaving?” she asked then, losing some of her excitement.
“He’s headed down to Houston to check on a few things,” he admitted. “But Alexi said that your mom was on her way home.”
My brows rose at that.
From what I knew, Roslyn’s parents were very much divorced.
In a ‘they’ll never be happy in the same room together ever again’ kind of way.
Why did I know that?
Because at the beginning of the year last year, I’d been front row and center next to Rupert when Roslyn’s mom came in and threw a horrific stink about her father, Alexi, having access to her child’s school information.
Alexi had arrived, along with the police because Roslyn’s mother was making such a stink, and it’d just been…bad.
Really, really bad.
To hear that her mother was coming home literally made my stomach sink for her.
“Great,” Roslyn said sarcastically.
The bell rang, and the students from inside the classroom spilled out, forcing the man to come into my classroom to get out of the way of the hallway door next to mine slamming open. Rupert’s classroom.
I heard his voice drone on, and I wanted to insert the Sharpie in my pocket into my eardrum so I’d never have to hear him again.
“Bye, Uncle Shasha,” Roslyn said. “Thanks for doing this. I know you’re busy.”
“You’re welcome, kitten,” Shasha drawled.
Roslyn slid into the throng of people like she was made to do it.
A shiver of awareness slid down my spine at Shasha’s words.
I knew they were innocent and directed at a child at that, but shit.
Why was him saying “kitten” sexy as hell?
The slide of students through the hallway had the sexy man beside me chilling, watching and waiting.
I stayed at his side, also watching.
“This normal to have this many kids in the hall at once?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Like a bunch of ants, huh?”
“Yes,” he said. “The high school I went to was much smaller…and private.”
He did strike me as a rich dude.
I wondered if he was like Frances when he was growing up.
Maybe there was hope for the kid yet.
“I…” I trailed off when a familiar blonde started making her way out of her classroom.
She looked happy.
I instantly felt the pain in my chest start to swell.
Nobody ever tells you how hard it is to lose a best friend.
I mean, logically, losing anyone from your life that you’ve had there for most of it sucks.
I got that.
Losing Rupert was one thing. We’d been dating for four years. I thought I’d loved him.
But losing Jolessa?
I felt like a piece of my soul had left me the day that I found out she’d been cheating with Rupert.
We’d grown up together.
She still lived in the house next door to McCoy where I grew up.
Her parents were still on my mind every single day.
I still loved her nieces and nephews.
I still wondered what she was doing and how she was.
I still ran every Wednesday and Sunday and wished that she was there.
I still got excited for Thursday take away because we’d enacted a take-out day the day before Friday so we could unwind before the last day of the week.
We’d gone to college together. We’d been in band together. We’d run marathons together.
And now she was just gone.
Like a piece of my entire life was no more because of the decisions that she’d made.
Seeing her was both welcoming and overwhelming at the same time.
On one hand, I wanted to go up to her and tell her about how sexy the man at my side was.
On the other, I wanted to turn my back on her and hide the pain that was caused just at the sight of her.
“Who’s that?” the man at my side asked.
I hadn’t realized that I’d turned partially away from them, and toward him, until his voice dragged me out of my pain.
“That’s my ex-best friend,” I answered quietly.
I didn’t know why I answered honestly.
I mean, truthfully, I probably should’ve just kept my mouth shut.
I really didn’t know this man other than what I’d learned just this morning.
But the pain in my chest was too much to keep inside.
Unfortunately for him, he asked the right question, and I’d needed to give the answer.
“What’d she do to become an ex?” he asked quietly.
As if he actually cared.
It was the interest in knowing my answer that was evident in his voice that had me answering honestly.
“I caught my fiancé cheating with her,” I explained.
His eyes narrowed, and before I could guess what he was about to do, he did it.
He pulled me into his arms and said, “I’m not a very nice man, Brecken.”
My heartbeat started to pound. “O-okay.”
“But I really don’t like two-faced friends.” He leaned close. “Pretend like you want me.”
I nearly laughed.
I wouldn’t have to pretend a thing .
I’d be a complete fool to not want him.
In fact, I was so intrigued by what he said that I didn’t wonder why he’d said it until he was in my space. And I mean, really in my space.
He was so close that I could feel his body heat. His breath was going from his mouth into mine.
I could smell his cologne.
And fuck, did it smell good.
Expensive.
Unobtrusive.
Deliriously sexy.
“Um, what?” I asked, my brain no longer functioning at all.
I wasn’t even sure where I was.
Had he told me to do a jump, I’d have reacted and asked him how high.
“Why does that guy look so familiar?” he asked me, voice deep and soft all at once.
Again with him asking me questions that I couldn’t make my brain comprehend.
“Um.” I hesitated. “Probably because you’re a band follower.”
I watched those beautifully thick lashes sweep down in a slow blink, brushing his high cheekbones.
When his eyes opened again, I realized that his eyes weren’t really dark. They were, but they weren’t.
At first glance, I thought they were brown. Dark brown.
But with him this close, I realized they weren’t brown at all. But a really dark blue. Navy blue. Like the color of his jeans.
They were gorgeous.
And he had a gold ring around both eyes that made that dark blue pop.
“I have no clue what a band follower is supposed to mean or why that would make me recognize him more likely,” he said.
“Band. The West Dallas Marching Band,” I explained. “They were live on social media when they tried to pull a prank on the principal. The principal, my ex, got caught fucking my best friend, the band director.”
“Got it,” he said. “I actually remember hearing about it now. They were on the news?”
“They were on trial, too,” I confirmed. “It just wrapped up last month. They were able to get their jobs back thanks to some loophole. Which now has me sandwiched between the both of them.”
“Harsh,” he murmured quietly. “Would you like me to kill them for you?”
I snickered. “Sure. Make it happen. I’ll owe you.”
He didn’t laugh, though.
When I refocused on him instead of the striation of his irises, I realized that he looked rather serious.
Which made me a bit nervous…
He blinked, though, and the look was gone. Replaced by something else.
Something I couldn’t read but I knew to be dangerous. “I have to go now.”
I swallowed. “I should probably get out of the doorway and let my kids into the classroom.”
Sure enough, there were about ten of them loitering in the hall, not willing to interrupt us.
I knew it was because the man standing in front of me, half blocking the door, looked pretty scary.
But when I looked beyond the kids, who couldn’t care less that they were stuck outside—all of them on their phones—I saw Rupert standing in his doorway, glaring hard at Shasha’s back.
“Uh, okay,” I said as I tried to take a step back.
He caught my hip, squeezed it, and turned.
He didn’t make eye contact with Rupert, but it didn’t matter. Rupert still shrank back from him anyway.
God, he was such an asshole.
I’d been joking earlier about wanting him dead. But somewhere deep inside of me? That part wanted to harm him worse than he harmed me. I wanted to lop his dick off and feed it to him. I wanted to cut his ear off with a rusty spoon. I wanted to…
The bell rang, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Okay, class. Let’s get inside.”
Everyone filed in, and I didn’t spare Rupert another glance.
Maybe if I had, I would’ve seen the calculation in his eyes that he got when he found a puzzle that he needed to work out.
By the time I got home from work, I was ready for bed.
Getting up at the ass crack of dawn, a coffee date, and then dealing with a full day of school, on top of having to see your ex-best friend and ex-fiancé multiple times that day, would leave anyone with nothing left in the gas tank.
The moment I got to my door and relocked it, I threw everything down in the entryway, then lost my bra.
I hated bras.
They were the bane of my existence.
I had a wider ribcage that forced me to go bigger on bras than my breasts could handle, always leaving me in a weird predicament. Either I got a bra big enough around that it fit my rib cage but didn’t fit my boobs. Or I got one that fit my boobs and was tight on my ribcage.
I’d tried the whole actual bra thing a long time ago when I’d first gotten enough boobs to need one and had decided that the sports bra life was the only thing for me.
But even those bothered me by the end of the day, so yes, that was the first thing to go when I walked into the door.
The next thing to go were my pants, leaving me in my thong underwear and socks as I made my way to my bedroom.
I hated when school was in session because I was expected to wear “teacher-appropriate” attire.
In reality, all I wanted to wear were sweatpants and oversized sweatshirts.
Speaking of oversized sweatshirts, I pulled Tibbs’s hoodie off the end of the bed where I’d left it this morning and shrugged it on.
I followed it up with a pair of leggings.
Slipping my feet into my comfy leather moccasins, I headed back out to the kitchen and got dinner ready—leftover pizza from three days ago.
I really needed to go to the store.
But things happened—i.e., me freaking out over my ex-best friend coming back to work and me having to see her every day—and I’d forgotten.
Leading me to now, eating pizza that was slightly stale, sitting on my couch thankful that school had started on a Friday this year, meaning tomorrow I didn’t have to…
Fuck!
I pulled out my phone and texted the group chat with my brothers.
Me:
What time are we fishing tomorrow?
Tibbs:
Seven. I’ll pick you up at five.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Dammit,” I muttered darkly. “Why did I say yes to that?”
The last thing I wanted to do was set my alarm for oh-dark-thirty in the morning to go on a fishing expedition in the middle of a Texas winter—don’t argue with me, Texas winters are way worse because of the humidity than any other place—but there I was setting my alarm.
After finishing most of the pizza, I left the trash on the coffee table and went to the bedroom, where I contemplated going to bed.
I’d been late getting home because there’d been a mandatory teacher’s meeting among staff to talk about ‘appropriate work behavior.’
I hadn’t left the school until six thirty. I’d then had to drive an hour through traffic to my apartment building in North Dallas.
Seven thirty is enough to go to bed early, right?
Six months ago, I would’ve texted Jolessa that and she’d say “absolutely.”
Six months ago, I had a best friend who meant the world to me.
Six months ago…
“Fuck it,” I said as I climbed into bed, then climbed right back out because I’d forgotten to change into a new tampon before bed. “That would be just my luck, right? Toxic shock syndrome.”
By the time I’d cleaned up—and even brushed my teeth—I was back in bed and still just as tired as before.
Since I hadn’t turned on a light in my bedroom, I didn’t have to turn any out as I fell face first into my bed.
I yanked the covers over myself and groaned. “I love my bed.”
I felt like I’d just gotten close to sleep when I felt something weird.
Something not quite right.
But I was too far gone into sleep to notice the darkness in the corner of the room.
Or the man that stood in that darkness.