Chapter 19
Nineteen
Sadie
“ W hat about this?” I ask, running my finger along the line on my laptop. “In The Old Man and the Sea , Ernest Hemingway masterfully employs his signature writing style to explore themes of perseverance and resilience, ultimately showcasing the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity.”
When I look up at Luke across the table of the library, I bite my bottom lip and wait for his response. His eyes narrow as he contemplates my thesis statement.
“Make some mention of the iceberg theory, and it will be perfect.”
I smile to myself as I nod. “Okay, I will.”
Turning back to my laptop in the middle of a mess of open books and printed articles, I find a way to add the theory to my statement. Our last paper of the semester is due in two weeks, and I’ve been researching it since before Thanksgiving.
I got such a good grade on the last one I want to make sure I do this one justice. Luke has offered to help me. I don’t know if that’s allowed, but at this point, I don’t really care. I’m going to pass either way. But if I can write something good to impress him, then that’s just a bonus.
Glancing up over my laptop, I stare at him for a moment across the table. He’s wearing that brown tweed jacket and blue button-down underneath. He’s clean-shaven and staring down at a book through his round tortoise-shell glasses. His hair has grown out a bit since I met him too, and I like how long it’s getting on the sides, although I know he’ll be cutting it soon. He keeps everything neat and trim.
I wonder if Lucas even realizes how handsome he is. He certainly doesn’t bother with caring what others think about him, and he’s already said he gets laid plenty, but I doubt he’s had sex even once since I moved in two months ago.
Ever since that night when he found me in the club and fingered me over the back of the couch, we haven’t touched each other. Even the spankings stopped. I think we both knew it had to stop. We were getting in too deep.
But I won’t lie—I miss it. I miss him.
Now, the only things we talk about are school and Ernest Hemingway. He doesn’t put me over his knee and tell me what a bad girl I am anymore. Who knew I could miss something like that?
I glance back at the computer screen and read over my first draft again, finding little things to tighten up throughout. It makes me wonder if it’ll ever be perfect.
As I stare at the Word document, I feel his gaze lift from his book to me. He stares at me for a moment in the same way I had stared at him.
Then, he puts his book down.
“Why don’t you get an English degree?” he asks.
I pause midsentence and look up at him. “What?”
“I know you’re getting a business degree so you can open your own club, but you’re so smart, Miss Green. Why don’t you consider changing? It suits you so much better. ”
“What the hell am I going to do with an English degree?” I reply with a laugh.
“You could write or teach.”
“You just want me to get your degree, but that’s not what I want,” I argue.
“What if there was a grant that would pay two years of tuition for getting an English degree?” he says and my brow furrows.
“Oh great. That would cover half of what my tuition would be if I wanted to switch,” I reply with sarcasm.
His mouth presses into a tight line. “You’re not listening to me.”
I cross my arms and place them on the table. “I am listening to you, but you’re not listening to me . You think because I can write a good English paper I should quit the job I love as if I owe something to the literary world for having a brain. Dr. Goode, I don’t want an English degree and I don’t want to work in a university or a library or whatever. I want to own my own club someday and I want a business degree to do it. And there’s no shame in that.”
We have a momentary stare-down after I’ve finished my rant, and I swear I notice the corner of his mouth lift just an inch.
“You and your smart mouth,” he mumbles under his breath.
For a moment, my heart beats faster. We haven’t spoken this way with each other in over a month, and I swear if he threatened to put me over this desk right now, I’d let him.
“I do have a smart mouth,” I quip back.
When he opens his book back up and reads, I stare at him for a moment longer. Were we just flirting? We haven’t fought in so long. Is it weird that I miss that too?
As I focus on the essay again, I find myself touching my stomach more. It’s nothing more than a little swollen and a little more poochy, but it’s getting harder, and I definitely don’t fit in pants the same way.
I haven’t felt any kicks or flutters yet, which is disappointing. All the books we have say it should happen around sixteen to twenty-five weeks, and I’m approaching sixteen soon, so I’m getting excited.
The more this pregnancy progresses, the more real it feels. First, a heartbeat, and next, a kick.
And yet, the more this pregnancy progresses, the more anxiety I feel. I’m still living in Luke’s house, wondering where the hell I’m going to raise this child. Who is going to help me when I have to work late? What if I can’t afford it all? What if I can’t give this child the life he or she deserves?
Those are the thoughts that keep me up at night.
What if this is all a mistake?
“It’s getting late,” he says as he sets his book down. “And you should eat.”
“Yeah,” I say, leaning back to get a full stretch. I feel my shirt slide up and notice the way Luke’s eyes drift down to my belly. “Chinese? Or, ooh, pizza.”
“Pizza it is,” he says as he moves to stand.
My stomach starts growling at the prospect of melted cheese and garlic, so I hop up and start packing up my things. I see someone approaching to our right and turn to find that hot English teacher smiling at Luke.
“Dr. Goode,” she says in a polite greeting.
He turns her way, with a moment of panic, as if tutoring me in the library is somehow inappropriate. “Dr. Hanson,” he says excitedly. “I was just…tutoring my student for her final.”
She looks at me with a tight smirk. “How’s it going?”
“This is Sadie Green, the one I told you about. Her paper on Paradise Lost was phenomenal.”
The woman reaches her hand toward me, but I’m too busy trying not to blush at his words. Is he lying to cover up our secret, or does he really feel that way?
“Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking her hand. Her eyes dance down to my stomach, and I wonder if she notices the way it protrudes a little more than natural.
“He’s told me so much about you,” she says .
I clutch my book to my chest, soaking in the praise. But then she takes a side step closer to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. There’s something intimate and infuriating about it.
As she turns to him, I feel as if I’m being excused from the conversation. I’m just a student, and they’re the faculty, and I don’t belong with them.
“A few of us from the department are going out for dinner if you’d like to join,” she says softly to him.
I continue packing up my things, trying to pretend that I’m not here. But when I glance up, his eyes find me.
“Thanks,” he says politely. “That would be nice. Can I meet you there?”
“Of course,” she replies, touching his arm again . “I’ll text you the location.”
As I slam my laptop into my backpack, I toss it over my shoulder and mutter a quick goodbye. Then, I storm off toward the stairs that lead down to the exit. If he wants to stand around and let the hot teacher fawn all over him, he can. It means nothing to me.
Besides, it would look too suspicious if I stuck around and expected an invitation.
Maybe they’ve been screwing already, and that’s why he’s been in such a good mood lately. He’s not so tense anymore.
Lucky me. I should thank her.
I let out a huff as I hurl my backpack onto the seat of my car and slam the door closed.
I am the one who told him to hook up with her in the first place, so I don’t know why I’m so annoyed right now. Maybe I’m just hungry. He did say we’d get pizza and now he’s ditching me to hang out with his lame academic friends.
That’s fine. I don’t care. I’ll get pizza alone. I might as well get used to being alone anyway.
As I climb into the driver’s seat without any sign of him following me, I start the car and peel out of the parking lot. The entire drive back to the house, I’m on edge, and I don’t get why .
Because I feel betrayed? Or because I feel jealous? Maybe somewhere in the past two months, Luke and I have gotten closer than I expected. We fooled around with the whole spanking thing, and then that one night when he fingered me in the living room, but that was it. There are no feelings between us, so who cares if he screws some teacher?
Or maybe I’m more jealous of the fact that he so easily changed plans to hang out with someone else. I really need to make friends of my own. Sage is literally about to pop so she’s focused on that, and my brother is doing his thing at school with his own friends. No wonder I’ve resorted to befriending my English teacher. Who else am I going to hang out with?
When I get to the house, I go straight to my room because I don’t want to care whether or not Luke comes home anytime soon. Instead, I drop onto my bed and pull out my phone to order myself a pizza.
It doesn’t work to keep me from obsessing over whether or not he’s with her right now. Being alone only makes it worse.
When the front door opens, I glance up from my phone. No surprise, his footsteps lead directly to my room.
He doesn’t bother knocking as the door opens, and he glares at me with narrowed eyes. “What got into you?”
It takes everything in me to keep my cool. With a shrug, I reply, “Nothing.”
“You just stormed off. Are you mad about something?”
I look back down at my phone. “What would I be mad about?”
He breathes heavily out of his nostrils, and I recognize it as one of the signs that he’s angry with me. My heart picks up speed again.
“Miss Green, stop being a brat.”
Here we go.
“I’m not being a brat. I didn’t want to stick around and make that teacher suspect anything,” I argue.
He crosses his arms. “You were rude. ”
I sit up straighter. “No, you were rude!”
“Who was I rude to?” he barks.
“Me!” I shout.
“How was I rude to you?”
“You made plans to have dinner with me, and then right in front of me, you agreed to go with her!”
Letting out a laugh, he shakes his head at me. “Miss Green, are you jealous?”
“No, I’m not fucking jealous of you and your boring friends, but when you make plans with someone, it’s rude to make plans with someone else.”
His smile won’t fade, and it’s grating on my nerves. Letting out a huff of frustration, I climb off my bed and try to move past him in the doorway.
Of course, he doesn’t let me. Blocking my path, he mocks me with his grin. “I had no intention of meeting them for dinner. That’s why I said I’d meet them there.”
“Bullshit,” I snap.
“It’s true.”
“You’re an idiot if you pass up the opportunity to hook up with her,” I say, making my skin grow even hotter with anger and jealousy. Luke is standing just a few inches from me, and the intensity of his gaze is making me even hotter.
“I never had the opportunity to hook up with her,” he says calmly.
Now, it’s my turn to laugh. “Well, you’re blind then because she couldn’t stop touching you.”
“Oh…” he says with a knowing smile. “That’s what this is about.”
I shove him to try and get past him without facing this conversation, but he doesn’t budge. “You really are jealous.”
“Fuck you,” I mutter. Every time I try to move past him, he steps in my way, and the closer we get, the more I forget what this fight is about.
“Let me remind you that you were the one who told me to hook up with her in the first place.”
“I don’t care what you do,” I lie.
His hand shoots out, holding the doorframe to keep me in the room. Suddenly, we’re so close that I can feel his breath and smell his cologne. When our eyes meet, they burn with something I don’t recognize. None of this is like it used to be. Usually, I’d argue, and he’d punish me, and that would be it. So why isn’t he spanking me already?
“For what it’s worth, Miss Green, if that woman did give me the opportunity, I wouldn’t take it.”
“Why not?” I breathe, staring into his eyes.
Seconds tick by as I wait for his answer, but it’s as if he’s struggling to voice what’s on his mind. But his gaze never wavers from mine. And just when I see his lips part, and I’m ready for his answer, the doorbell rings.