CHAPTER 28 KAYLEE
My students are taking a test on a Friday afternoon when I spot a text from Ben…something I was most definitely not expecting today given the trending video that popped across my TikTok this morning.
It was posted last night, and I guess that doesn’t mean it happened last night, but it looks fairly recent. Ben is getting a lap dance from a stripper. It’s not the first time he’s done that, and I certainly have no hold over him to feel any sort of way about it…but I do.
Trouble: I came up with a nickname for you, Sugar Tits.
I hold my laugh in even though it’s nearly impossible. He sent the text about an hour ago, and I wonder where he is and what he’s doing. Are we at that place where we talk about those things?
Me: Try again, Trouble.
Trouble: How about Sugar Cunt?
Wow. I should not be texting with him at school, but it’s also pretty damn addictive.
Me: You can do better.
Trouble: Keep making demands. It’s so fucking hot.
Me: You really are Trouble.
Trouble: Yeah, that seems to be the consensus today.
Me: Why’s that?
Trouble: My boss yelled at me this morning for going out with a buddy last night.
Me: The video from the strip club?
Trouble: You saw it?
Me: It came across my FYP.
Trouble: ???
Me: TikTok.
Trouble: Oh. It was innocent. She’s a friend and my buddy made a bet with me.
Me: You don’t need to defend yourself to me.
I say the words, but truthfully an edge of relief pulses in my chest.
A rather scary edge of relief. I shouldn’t feel relieved that he feels the need to explain himself to me. Not when whatever we’re starting is simply casual. Are we even starting anything?
“Ms. Dalton, can I go to the bathroom?”
I glance up at the girl standing in front of my desk. I hadn’t even heard her approach. I should probably be paying more attention to my classroom. “Did you finish your test?”
She nods.
“Go ahead.”
She smiles and skips out of the room, and I look at the message that came through while I was answering her.
Trouble: That’s refreshing.
Me: What is?
Trouble: Not having to explain myself to a chick I’m having potential casual relations with.
Me: Well I’m not your average “chick.” << Let’s work on a synonym, k?
Trouble: Chicken?
Me: [eyeroll emoji]
Trouble: Fine piece of ass?
Me: [eyeroll emoji]
Trouble: Tough crowd. Gorgeous woman?
Me: Better.
Trouble: I’ll keep thinking.
I have tests to grade and scores to input and, you know, a class of twenty-nine students sitting in front of me taking a test, so I put my phone away just in case Janet decides to pop into my classroom for the third time this week.
A few hours later, I’m back home and exhausted after finishing up another long week of teaching. I’m dwelling on the email I saw just before I walked out of school to start the weekend. It was from Janet, but it was to everyone in the department, not just me.
Teachers,
It’s time to start planning schedules for next year. Please send me your top two choices for which grade and ability levels you’d like to teach and I will work with administration to attempt to create a schedule that accommodates everyone’s requests.
If we haven’t spoken but you’re not planning to return next year, please let me know as soon as you can. The district will extend your benefits through the summer if you put in your notice by next Friday.
Have a nice weekend.
Janet
Next Friday.
I’m not sure whether I ever really considered not going back until I saw that email.
But now…now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t.
It’s not that I hate teaching. It’s that I don’t like my school or my department or my leaders.
I don’t care for the age group and the way they think it’s appropriate to endlessly harass me given who my siblings are.
And I don’t want to teach. Not Language Arts, anyway.
Grading essays and reading books and making lesson plans…
I don’t find any joy in any of it, and I really can’t see myself resigned to this fate for the rest of my career.
There has to be something out there that I’d enjoy more.
I just have no idea what it is.
The front door opens as I’m pondering all these things, and Ellie’s heels click across Jack’s tile floor.
I’m expecting her to walk past the spot where I’m laying across the couch so she could chat with Kate, who’s in the kitchen, but instead she surprises me by stopping directly in front of me.
She sits on the ottoman, blocking my view of the trashy reality show I was binging.
I sit up and sigh. “Can I help you?”
She laughs. “How was school today?”
“Shitty.”
She turns serious for a second. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been a very good sister-in-law. Want to hit happy hour?”
I narrow my eyes at her before I even get into why it was shitty or that email that came through since I do think Ellie would be a great person to talk to about it. Instead, I get to the heart of the matter. “What do you want?”
She looks at me all innocently, and I’m well aware she’s up to something. She’s not that good of an actress.
She holds up both hands. “I don’t want anything. I just want to check in with you and see how things are going.”
I narrow my eyes. “Okay, I’ll play along. Sure, let’s go to happy hour. When? Now?”
She looks beyond me into the kitchen. “Kate, want to go to happy hour right now with us?”
“Sure!” she calls back, and I guess that’s that on that.
We grab a Lyft to O’Leary’s, a bar a few blocks away from Jack’s place, and we slide into a corner booth.
It’s fairly empty and the music is loud enough that our table conversation won’t be overheard by anybody else, which feels like another part of Ellie and Kate’s grand scheme here.
They sit together facing the door, and I sit across from them facing the back wall.
It feels like I’m facing the firing squad, and it’s not the most comfortable feeling I’ve had today.
“Level with me. What’s all this about?” I ask after I order a vodka-Seven.
Ellie and Kate glance at each other before they look at me. “Nothing,” Ellie says innocently. “I just thought it would be fun if we could make this a weekly thing. Or maybe every other week. I’ve got Elizabeth watching the kids and we never do anything like this.”
“True, and don’t get me wrong, that sounds super fun, but it just feels…” I look between the two of them. “Orchestrated,” I finish. “Like you want something.”
“I was hoping to get you tipsy before I asked,” she admits.
“Come on,” I say. “After everything we’ve been through, don’t you think you could just lay it on me? We’re sisters, right?”
Ellie draws in a deep breath then blurts out the reason why we’re here. “Ben Olson needs a girlfriend for the media and Kate thought you’d be perfect.”
Kate’s eyes widen. “What? Wait—”
“Okay, fine,” Ellie says. “We both thought you’d be perfect. But Kate suggested you first.”
“Only because you already agreed to be his date to his mom’s wedding,” Kate clarifies.
I blow out a breath as I look between the two of them with their hopeful gazes. Faking a relationship with the guy who is Trouble with a capital T?
I’m not opposed to it.
I’m certainly interested in more one-on-one time with him and more of his special under the table action. But I can’t let the dynamic duo here know any of that, obviously. So instead, I give them a sweet smile. “Not a chance in hell, sisters.”
“How come?” Ellie asks. “Is there something wrong with him? You said yourself you thought he was hot at the hockey game.”
I roll my eyes. “Aside from the fact that he’s a football player who’s a decade older than me?
He’s my brother’s best friend. He’s a serial womanizer.
He’s an immature caveman who does ridiculous things for entertainment and I can’t have that associated with the wholesome teacher vibe I’ve worked so hard for.
” Even if I don’t really care about that wholesome teacher vibe.
“What’s wrong with being a football player?” Kate asks.
“I don’t date football players. I love the sport as much as any casual fan, but I don’t want it to be my entire life,” I say. “It has been for twenty-two years and I’m over it.”
The waitress drops off our drinks, and I take a big gulp. By the bottom of this glass, I’ll probably let them convince me to go along with their plan, but I need to put up a protest first.
“Besides, I want a family,” I continue. “I want kids and dogs and a house with a lot of land where they can run around. Maybe some horses and chickens. I want a simple, private life. Those are the things I value, and Ben Olson is about as opposite as you can get from any of that.”
“True,” Ellie concedes. “But it’s fake, so who cares?
And you can still maintain privacy. Luke values his privacy, too, and you’ve seen the way we’ve gotten his Instagram to blow up.
He doesn’t feel like his private life is any less private because he posts a few pictures here and there for the media. ”
She has a point, but my life will be looked at under a microscope the second news is out that serial bachelor Ben Olson is settling down.
Kate adds, “He’ll pay you. You could put in your notice at work and use the time and the paychecks to figure out what you want to do next.”
“Besides, just look at him.” Ellie glances over my shoulder toward the doorway and my heart picks up speed as my eyes widen a little.
Oh shit.
He’s here?
Now that’s an unexpected little surprise.
Ellie tilts her head as she glances back at me. “You really won’t just fake it for a couple months to help get him out of trouble?”
I turn around, and sure enough, there he is. His eyes are down on the floor as he walks across the bar that’s not super busy yet. His fingertips are on the brim of the baseball cap he wears, and when he glances up and his eyes meet mine, I know I’m the one in a big fat heap of trouble.
He’s just so…freaking hot.
His eyes are dark and a little mysterious even from across the room, and his lean arm reaching up for that cap make him look less like the bad boy I know he is and more like a country boy.
He fits all the stereotypes. He’s a good guy and a hard worker.
He’s kind and athletic. He’s respectful despite the image he tries to project.
He drives a vehicle that often has mud streaked all over it from whatever adventures he’s gotten himself into, and he’s definitely got a sexy dirty streak when it comes to women.
I turn back toward Ellie before she and Kate physically feel the heat exchanged in that simple connection our eyes just shared. “You called him in?” I hiss.
Ellie laughs. “Figured he could convince you if we couldn’t.”
I sigh and pretend like this is really difficult for me. “Why’s he in trouble?”
“Did you see the video that went viral?” she asks carefully.
“The stripper?”
Ellie nods. “The team owner isn’t too thrilled. He needs Ben to clean up his image.”
“So you think faking a relationship is the way to go,” I say flatly. She did it with my brother when they first got together, and I was less than accepting about it. “Is that your default answer to everything?”
She giggles and lifts a shoulder. “I guess it sort of is becoming my trademark.”
Ben arrives at our table. “Room for one more?”
My eyes follow along from his waist up his chest and all the way up to his eyes—and it’s a damn long way up since he’s so tall. I scoot over in the booth as I pretend to be annoyed about this.
I’m not annoyed. I’m excited. I’m eager. I’m horny.
He’s facing the back wall, but he flicks a finger in the air for the waitress, who comes bounding over at the sexy beast of a man who just entered her seating area. “I’ll take a Bud.”
She smiles flirtatiously, and I feel my hackles rise again.
Stop it, Kay.
I remind myself I have no claims on this guy…but a fake relationship might give me some stake.
“So how’s everybody doing?” he asks.
“You can save the act. They already asked me,” I admit.
He chuckles.
“You’re really on board with this idea?” I ask. I feel like we should have a private conversation about this before either of us agrees to anything.
He shakes his head. “Nope. Not one bit. But these two can be pretty damn convincing when they want to be, and I need to get off Calvin’s shit list. I’ve only got one year left on my contract and I’d like to spend it playing rather than being threatened with the bench.
That’s just scratching the surface of why Ellie thinks this is a good idea. ”
Ellie jumps in. “We’re working on tweaking his image a little.
Showing he can still have fun and be the party guy without spending all his time in strip clubs.
He can be committed to one person and still be the joyful guy women everywhere want and men everywhere want to be.
It’s the perfect marriage of his brand with showing a new side. ”
“Marriage?” Ben repeats, and he swallows hard as his face blanches. I watch as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down at even the mention of marriage, and I laugh.
“It’s an expression,” Ellie says. “I didn’t mean you two would get married.” She taps her chin. “Although…”
I hold up a hand. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.” I take a big gulp from my glass as I try to think this through.
Ben elbows me. “I just need help for the rest of the off-season, really. Once we’re back on the field, I’ll prove my worth there and Cal won’t need to make empty threats.
So it’s four months. Five tops. We’ll show up to a few events together.
You’ll be on summer break for the majority of it and we’ll spend a month of it up in Montana.
It’ll be so remote we won’t even be on the media’s radar. ”
I glance over at him, and when our eyes connect, I already know my answer.
Still, though…it’s sort of fun to make everyone here sweat a little.
“Think of it like a summer job,” Ellie says.
Ben nods. “I’ll pay you.”
I shake my head and purse my lips. “How far the mighty have fallen. You need to pay some chick to be your girlfriend now?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t need to, Peaches. I’m just offering.”
I raise a brow. “Peaches?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Trying out a new nickname for my new girlfriend.”
I laugh. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
He bumps my shoulder with his. “You will."