21. Mia
TWENTY-ONE
Mia
It’s officially not just sex for me anymore, but my brain kicks my vagina, well, in the vagina, and we decide to keep that to ourselves.
But seriously?!
After that?!
Keeping my feeling-y feelings all to myself meant squeezing my mouth shut on the entire subway ride back to our neighborhood, so I didn’t blurt out something even more insane than before, like I’ve always loved you, obviously, but now I’m in love with you, and isn’t that a really beautiful and tragic thing? It did mean though, sharing my feeling-y feelings through touch. Touch is Elias’s love language. I’ve known this my entire life, but I can place it now.
Sitting glued against him on the subway, entwining my arm around his, holding his hand. Resting my cheek on his Adonis shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin through his shirt. Accepting the kisses he didn’t seem to realize he was dropping on my hair, dropping some of my own, on his hand, on the callouses of his fingers, on his shoulder.
We’re both silent on the subway home, maybe grappling with these new feeling-y feelings. I look at our reflection in the window across from our seats. We both look a bit dazed, a mix of how did we end up here? and what took so long?
We get to our stop and walk up the stairs, taking our time. We make it a block before he presses me against the wall of a building.
This kiss is soft, gentle, an outpouring of warmth and moonlight. He takes my chin and angles my face the way he wants it, cupping my jaw, greedy tongue pushing into my mouth and tangling with mine as if he knows it’s his and has been all along.
I can’t get enough of him either, tucking my hands into his jacket, under his shirt, running my fingers through the grooves of his muscles, the large expanse of his back, his traps, his abs. I love you , my fingers say into his skin. I love you, too , I imagine his say, gripping my hip and the hair close to my scalp.
Because we’re us, though, it isn’t too long before we’re practically dry humping on the street. Because this is New York, it isn’t too long before someone whistles and tells us to get a fucking room.
He stops his grinding, laughing into my mouth. “You make me crazy,” he says, and I’ll take it.
“Thank you, for earlier,” I tell him, resting my forehead on his.
Because he’s Elias, he doesn’t stop touching me, caressing my neck. “Always, Mia.”
“I’m ready to drag you home and show my gratitude in a different way,” I say, pressing against the length in his pants.
He laughs again. “Can we grab a drink before we head back?” he asks, lips dragging against mine. “And then I’m yours all night.” And forever.
“Let’s go,” I say, and pull him a block into the nearest bar.
Elias puts a new pep in my step, a confidence that’s remained elusive my entire life, ever since I hit puberty and had full headgear, and I march right up to the bartender to get us drinks.
“That’s a delicious beer,” a deep male voice that does not belong to Elias says to my right.
I look over, and it’s a really attractive man, tall and lanky, light hair, blue eyes. I smile. He glances down at my mouth. “I know,” I tell him with an Elias grin, popping a Dimple I definitely don’t have. “It’s for my lifelong sex friend. It’s his favorite.”
I look back towards Elias, who has saved us seats in a tiny booth in the back. He’s not tense with jealousy, but loose with the confidence that comes from knowing that I belong to him. His giant body is completely at ease, a curl of his hair falling over one of his eyes, and it looks like he’s struggling to contain a smile. He’s cleaned up nicely for that nice restaurant we just went to, devastating in a crisp button down, cuffs folded up, tailored pants.
The bartender drops our beers on the bar. I wink at the hot man to my right, who raises his glass at me with a gracious smirk. I stride back to the hotter man, my lifelong sex friend, who pulls me into his lap.
“That was sexy, man-eater,” he says into my ear, wrapping his arms around me after taking a sip of his beer.
“What, getting hit on by another guy? Do you have some sort of cuckold kink?”
He genuinely thinks about it for a second. “No, I don’t think I could handle that,” he says finally. “No, your little Hot Girl March was sexy. With your chin up and tits out.”
“I have a good teacher,” I tell him. “I channeled Big Elias Energy.”
He nips at my ear. “I’m impressed, Young Padawan.”
I sip my beer.
“Speaking of being a good teacher. Your parents, Mia—fuck. That sucked.”
I sigh, wiggling off his lap and into the booth next to him. It’s so squished and his body takes up so much space that my legs are still draped over his. “Yeah. They’ve always been dismissive.” I think for a moment. “But I think it got worse once we all went to college. I feel like your parents were always there to shut them down when they were getting to be too much, but once we all left… And I mean, Leo has always been like this to a certain extent.”
He digests this.
“It’s never been as bad as my parents, obviously.” I feel comfortable telling him this now. “They’ve just never thought I was very important, I guess. Leo’s been their golden child forever. It’s real-life heir and the spare. I’ve lived in his shadow forever,” I laugh without humor. “But honestly, it’s like this all the time, for everything. I’m constantly being passed over. Like a sad little wallflower. Always in second.”
Elias frowns. “But not at work. And not to me.”
“No,” I agree.
He grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. His normally light green eyes look like a deep emerald in the dim of the bar. “So what did you mean about Leo?”
“I guess he hasn’t been as actively dismissive as my parents, but he’s just always kind of passively… accepted it. Ignored that it was happening.”
He mulls this over, running his tongue over his teeth.
I peel at the cracking wood of the table we’re seated at. “That’s why it meant so much to me earlier. What you did. Work is the only place I feel seen. It’s the only thing I feel really, really good at, and it meant a lot to have you see that, too. And defend it to my parents.”
He exhales, his big chest expanding and contracting. “I’m sorry, Mia. I never realized it was that bad. I’m sorry for not standing up for you.”
I make sure he’s looking at me now. “You’ve always stood up for me, Elias.” And I realize it now, because I love you , I say with my fingers, tracing over the sharp lines of his jaw. “My entire life. Always.”
His beautiful green eyes search my face.
“I remember this time when we were kids. Really little. When the three of us were in the tree house, and I fell out.”
He cringes. “Shit. I’ll never forget the sound of your arm snapping.”
“I was lying on the ground looking up with the wind knocked out of me. You were looking down, and your face? You looked terrified. But a different type of terrified than Leo. Leo looked scared because he thought he would get in trouble. You looked scared that I was actually hurt.”
Elias squeezes me.
“You took charge so quickly. Even at like, what, seven, eight years old? You sent Leo to go get our parents. You sat there with me, wiping my tears, telling me I was going to be okay. And when our parents finally got there…” I scoff. “Surprise, surprise, my parents got pissed at me for being clumsy. But you… You stood between us, literally put your body in between us and said it wasn’t my fault. That I was only five.” My body fills with the warmth that comes with love. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say it.
He takes me by the chin again, thank god, before I can say anything. He pulls my face to his this time, dropping a kiss on my mouth. “I’m always happy to stand up for you, but I have an idea for our next lesson.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You should consider learning how to channel that hot sexy girl energy to defend yourself to your own parents. Or anyone else.” He quickly amends this after seeing my face. “I mean like, the confidence. You should have the confidence to stand up for yourself. You’re so good at what you do. You shouldn’t need me to do it for you.”
I hum. “Maybe.”
“Definitely,” he fires back. “I think it would make you feel really good about yourself.”
“‘Kay,” I say, not wanting to grapple with this right now.
We both take a drink. He lifts my legs and drags them forward, pulling me back onto his lap.
“This is the outfit, Mia,” he sighs into my ear.
“What outfit?” I pretend not to know.
“The one that ruined my life.”
“Ruined? Or jump-started?”
He laughs, his breath tickling my neck. “I know exactly what kind of panties you have to wear under these pants. I want to tear them in half and stuff them in your mouth. Or use them to tie up your wrists.”
I squirm on his lap, turning my head to face him. “Maybe our next lesson should be the proper use of restraints,” I say against his lips.
“Mmm. After I teach you, we’d have to practice. A lot. Just to make sure we’re doing it right,” he says, before licking into my mouth.
I gasp, and he swallows it down. “We’ve done a bad job at the practicing part. We’ve just kind of been bouncing around from lesson to lesson. I haven’t been able to practice any of my new man-eating skil—” The last word gets cut short because he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth, rubbing it between his teeth.
“You’ve already devoured me whole,” he says.
“Look at you go, you absolute beast,” Elias shouts at Sean, as Sean speed-walks the 100-meter race. Both have massive grins on their faces. In fact, our entire class is grinning ear to ear.
Our class has now entered the Track and Field competition portion of the unit, and every single kid in my class is currently jumping and screaming and cheering Sean on as he approaches the finish line. I’m not ashamed to say I’m jumping and screaming myself.
“Go, go, go, go,” Elias’s booming voice carries across the gym.
“Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean,” my class is chanting.
Sean huffs and puffs and finally steps over the finish line, bending in half and resting his hands on his knees. Not for long, though, because Elias roars like a lion and takes one of his arms and raises it in the air triumphantly, like Sean is the boxing champion of the world.
Amaya stops her timer, writing down his time with a smile on her face. Meanwhile, our kids run to him with purpose, still screaming, and I’m afraid they’re going to do something crazy like try to lift Sean over their shoulders, but luckily Elias is there to redirect them into a safer choice.
He starts another chant, “Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean,” and Sean is the sweatiest, most radiant child I’ve ever seen in my life.
It’s so loud in here that I don’t hear Principal Thomas come in.
Her grimace lies somewhere between amusement and disgust.
“Hi, Principal Thomas,” I greet her, genuinely surprised. I don’t think she’s ever stepped into a classroom before.
“It’s extremely loud in here. I heard it from my office and had to see what was going on,” she says.
“Glad you could join us, Principal Thomas,” Elias says, sauntering over.
Thomas’s eyes light up. It’s a small thing, but I know exactly what it is and what it means, because I’ve been watching women doing it in response to Elias my entire life.
“All right everyone, cool down stretches. Kyle, could you please lead the class while I talk to our wonderful leader?” He pops the Dimple at our principal, and I want to scratch it off his face, or scratch her eyes out so she can’t look at it anymore.
Kyle, whose hands are not down his pants because he was busy jumping and cheering for his friend, runs up to the front of the class.
Sean comes up to our little trio and asks if he can go get some water.
“Of course, Sean,” I tell him. “Go to the bathroom if you need, too. Mop yourself off. You worked really hard today.”
“We’re proud of you,” Elias agrees.
Sean beams at us and walks out of the gym.
Ms. Thomas narrows her eyes at me. “It’s not a best practice to just let students use the bathroom or get water whenever they want, Ms. Robert.”
I narrow my eyes back at her. “It’s Ms. Roberts, actually,” I tell her. “And I’m legally mandated to allow him access to water whenever he asks. It’s on his 504 plan. He has diabetes.”
I see Elias grinning from the corner of my eye.
She huffs. She turns back to Elias. “This looks like a very engaging lesson, Mr. Miller,” she says, with a new smile on her face. “I knew I was right about you.”
“Actually, Principal Thomas, this entire unit was Ms. Roberts’s idea. We have her to thank entirely,” he smirks.
I join him on his smirk team.
She decides to change her entire tune. “Is this DOE-approved curriculum?” she asks us.
“No, we developed it on our own. But you just said yourself, it’s engaging. They’re going through all the sports of the Olympics. Everyone has a chance to be physically active.” I don’t say anything about how it connects to the Olympics unit I’m doing in my classroom. That’s definitely not Courtney Thomas approved curriculum, with her Wise Words of Wonder, or whatever. I don’t know where Lina is in that fight, though, so I won’t bring it up.
She hums, not liking this answer.
Elias decides to jump in, because we are a Team with a capital T, and he knows what his role is in this battle. He steps a little closer to her, giving her that secret soft smile that belongs to me.
I roll my eyes.
“Isn’t this so much better than just throwing a bunch of basketballs in the middle of the gym? Isn’t this much better than a free for all?” Elias all but purrs towards her, his green eyes sparkling and looking at her like she’s the most important person on the planet.
I gag. I’m grateful, but I gag.
“I suppose,” she murmurs. “Please email me the unit plan. I’d like to take a look.” She nods at him, ignores me, and walks out of the gym on her four inch high heels.
Elias explodes with laughter once he sees my face. His hand twitches, his fingers rubbing together, as if he wants to tug on my hair. “Ms. Robert , it looks like you might want to join us in our cool down?—”
“Class 301, line up,” I bark. I turn around so my back is to them. “Fuck you, Mr. Miller,” I mouth silently toward him.
My class files out of the gym.
“That Dimple is mine,” I growl at him once they’re out of earshot.
He gives it to me and tugs on my hair.