11. Elias
ELEVEN
Elias
The first thing I do when I open my eyes is look for Mia. There’s enough light in the room for me to see her sleeping in the bed next to mine, maybe six feet away. I turn onto my side to see her.
She’s asleep on her back, her face tilted towards me. Her pink mouth is slightly open, and I can hear her soft breaths. Her blonde hair is spread all over the pillows, like she’s been electrocuted or well-fucked, and I get a little hard thinking that it’s closer to the latter. I follow the lines of her neck, down to the smooth pale skin on her chest. The sheets have dropped to her waist, exposing her gorgeous tits, and I finally have the chance to admire them. They’re full, plush, heavy, and I count myself lucky to know what one feels like in my hand. There’s a mole on her left breast, next to her nipple, both of which are small and rosy and soft in her sleep. I think I’d do anything to put my mouth on them, to watch them tighten. The skin on her stomach looks soft, warm, and inviting, and I’d do anything to put my mouth all over that, too.
I look at my phone and realize I’ve been memorizing every inch of her body for almost five whole minutes. I go back to our messages, making sure to get screenshots of every single one. Just in case. I get hard reading through them again, thinking of the sounds coming from Mia’s bed. Her breathy moans, the wet sounds of her fingers on her pussy. The way she screamed my name when she came. I realize the girl I’ve known my entire life has… sex noises .
I scrub my face. The lines are all blurred. But I kept my promise. The promise to who, though? To Leo? Hell no. To myself? I didn’t lay a hand on her. We didn’t get physical.
All I want, though, looking at Mia in the light of the early morning shining through the cracks of the curtains, is to climb into bed next to her and pull her into my arms. In the last seven, eight days of the… 365 days times 29 years I’ve known her? It’s a math problem I’m not willing to solve.
I don’t have the time to process that, because she wakes up, her eyes finding mine immediately, like she knew exactly where I was, even in her sleep. And there’s no way in hell I can even begin to untangle the feelings that come out from that.
I expect her to realize that her tits are out, get embarrassed, get flushed, cover herself immediately. Her body does get flushed, and I watch the gorgeous color move up her chest, up to her neck, but she doesn’t cover herself. Inexplicably, she smiles. I have the sudden urge to kiss her. She stretches then, arms above her head, back arched, tits in the air, and it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
“You look like you want to cuddle,” she tells me, after laying back down on her side, facing me.
I think about lying, then realize I can’t. “I do,” I reply, having no idea why, knowing I’ve never felt this affectionate towards any sexual partner in my entire life.
She lifts up the sheet, giving me a brief glimpse of her lower half. “Then get in.”
My brain becomes static, a jumbled stream of consciousness. I try to think about it for a good thirty seconds, about the fraying threads of the rope. About the promises I made to Leo, to myself. Considering this new and bizarre rush of… affection? Absolutely not. Flirting lessons? Dating lessons? Fine. Touching… Cuddling?! No fucking way. Right? I’ve gone into explicit detail about how I would eat her pussy, but it’s not like I touched it. Right?! Besides, her entire family thinks I’m some sort of man-whore, and they’re not wrong. It wouldn’t be okay for someone like me to be with someone like her.
“I… can’t,” I finally manage.
A twinge of hurt cuts across her face for a short second, slicing through my chest. But then she rolls her eyes. “Of course,” she says sarcastically. “No cuddling if I’m a new card-carrying member of the Blonde Brigade. Don’t worry. I know what to do next.” She doesn’t wait for a response, and I don’t have one. I don’t have the heart to tell her that’s not it at all. She climbs out of bed, rifles through her suitcase, pulls out some clothes, then pads into the bathroom. I watch her ass jiggle the entire way, my mouth watering.
The door slams shut, waking me up for real. I blink. I blow out a breath. This is a good thing. This is for the best. I get out of bed and get dressed.
There are two situations that make my morning exceedingly difficult.
The first is the way Mia bounces out of the bathroom, fully dressed and ready and gorgeous, and… smiling. The entire way down to the continental breakfast. While I load her plate with the last of the pancakes or when she wordlessly pours milk into my weak-ass coffee for me after she finishes with it, like she does at home. As if nothing happened. As if there wasn’t a text burning a hole in both of our pockets right now, one that says I want to milk you dry id swallow it all. I guess it’s easier this way, but something about it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The second is that I am itching to touch her. Every time she’s within reach. Rest my hand on the small of her back. Squeeze her hip. Pull on her hair. My fingers literally twitch every time she walks by, and it’s driving me fucking insane.
“—my eyes are up here, Elias,” she grins at me, and it’s condescending as hell.
I realize I’ve been staring at her mouth shaping words without actually listening to them. “What did you say?”
She smirks. “Wake up, Romeo. We have a conference to get to. Last night was nothing, remember? I’m just another card-carrying member of the Blonde Brigade, right?” No. “Get your shit together. We have shit to learn, talks to attend, notes to take! And then after, we’re going out on a Friday night in New Orleans, and you’re going to teach me how to be a man-eater.”
Wait. “What?”
“Yep,” she says cheerfully. “I remember the terms of our agreement. You’re going to help me flirt, date, whatever. Thanks for last night’s lesson, by the way. But hands off. No touchy. We’re still abiding by the laws,” she winks at me.
“…Right.” I manage. Get your shit together, buddy .
Mia pulls a folder out of her backpack. “I made you a copy of the schedule. I want to go to these workshops today.” She points to the ones that she’s circled.
I pull it towards me.
Student-Centered Learning: Empowering Students to Take Charge of Their Education
Cultivating a Love for Learning: Alternatives to Test-Centric Education
Differentiation in Practice: Tailoring Instruction to Meet Diverse Learner Needs
She looks at me, waiting for my reaction.
I sigh. “I told you that I wanted to explore the city today?—”
She frowns. “And I told you that’s incredibly unethical. Besides, I made sure to pick ones that could apply to P.E., too.” She shoves pancake in her mouth, already knowing she has me wrapped around her finger. “Don’t forget, you promised that I could help you become a better teacher. I need to pay you back somehow,” she says through a mouthful of pancake.
“Mia—” I make one last attempt.
“We’re already going out after the last panel, Elias,” she scoffs. “We can explore the city together.”
I stab at my sad excuse for scrambled eggs. “Fine,” I mutter. “But first we’re getting beignets.”
She beams, and it’s suddenly all worth it. “Deal.”
I know that whatever this speaker, Dr. Something or Other, is saying is probably really insightful, but I’m currently distracted by the fine blonde hairs covering Mia’s arm. I’m sitting to her right, and she’s been taking notes non-stop since we sat down, and her arm is right there.
“Did you hear that, Elias?” she hisses at me.
“…Yes.”
“Physical education can be student centered, too.”
“Right,” I try, wanting to impress her now. “My kids should be able to pick the activities that interest them.”
Her leg is bouncing up and down, and I’m mesmerized by how small her thigh looks next to mine. “Yes,” she whisper-shouts. “I’m thinking about the Olympics unit.”
“Kids should be able to pick the Olympic sport they want to participate in?”
“But even beyond that… what if we broke each sport into different activities?” She is silent for a moment. “Like, what if, for a long jump activity, we had some kids actually jumping if they wanted to?—”
I understand. “And some kids could be in charge of the measurement.”
“Right,” she squeals. “Some could graph the results.”
“We could get kids to record the jumps using your class iPads, and other kids could analyze the video. Measure the angles. Make recommendations on how to jump higher, or farther.”
Mia squeezes my forearm, and I can’t help but grin down at her excitement. “Yes, Elias. Kids could choose what part of the project they want to be a part of. Those are great ideas.” She squeezes my forearm again, clinically, as if she’s running an experiment. She frowns at it after I flex.
“I’m the best,” I agree.
“You really are a good teacher,” she winks at me, abandoning my arm, and I know she’s referring to last night.
Wanting to change the subject, I ask, “Do you have your unit plans somewhere? I can add to it right now, if you want.”
She pulls her laptop out of her bag, but it takes approximately four years for the shit ThinkPad given to all DOE employees to boot up. Finally, she pulls up the document and plops the now scalding hot laptop into my lap. Clearly, the device can’t even handle turning itself on. “Here.”
I type one letter, and it takes a full three seconds for it to show up on the screen. I raise an eyebrow at Mia. “How long exactly did it take you to write this up?”
She grimaces. “You don’t want to know. But this is my DOE one. My personal laptop is better. I can stream videos on it,” she says, oddly smug.
Sighing, I start typing. She tunes back in to Dr. Something or Other. I type, then wait. Type, then wait.
The day creeps by, and finally, we’re at the last panel of the day. Mia is armed with pages and pages of notes, handouts, resources, materials, everything. She’s made it a point to talk to every single one of the presenters after every single session.
It’s inspiring, seeing her like this. She genuinely cares. She’s genuinely good at this. As I watch her arguing with a panel member about the “accessibility” of scripted curriculum, I think about how lucky every single one of her students is to have her. How lucky PS 2 is to have her. She’s brilliant. I tell her all of this.
She grins in response, radiant. She knows.
Do I care about anything this much? My gym, definitely. My personal training business. Do I pour that same love into teaching? Probably not.
Everyone around me starts clapping. The speaker is finished. Finally.
Mia turns to me, a mischievous look on her face. “Let’s go out.”
“I need to get hammered,” I agree. “But first, beignets.”
We leave the conference center and head back towards our hotel to drop our stuff and get ready.
“What kind of night are we looking to have?” Mia asks on our short walk. “Dinner? Bar hopping? Cocktails? Jazz club?”
“I’m down to get sloppy,” I tell her, happy just thinking about how drunk I’m going to get. “We should start with beignets, then go to happy hour, then get a quick dinner, like a muffuletta or something, then see where the night takes us.”
She nods. “That works for me. I’ll have lots of opportunities to practice hitting on people if we hop around. Also, the alcohol will help.”
I shrug. “Sure.”
We walk into the air conditioning of our hotel lobby. We both look to the front desk, where Stacy with the eyelashes thankfully isn’t working. I don’t have the heart to turn her down.
“You should text Stacy to meet us out tonight,” Mia says, probably confusing my looking towards the desk with interest.
I hum. “Maybe,” I tell her.
“Do you know what her eyelashes remind me of?” she says.
“What?”
“Remember when Leo—?” she grins.
I don’t even need her to finish. “Yes,” I say, and we both dissolve into giggles as we step onto the elevator.
“Leo’s face—” she snorts.
“He still makes that face,” I cackle.
When Leo was a kid, he was a terrible liar. You could tell he was lying because his eyes would get really big and wide, like an owl’s. Once, when we were really little, we were all getting ready to pile into the Roberts’ minivan to get to school.
“Everyone ready?” Molly asked us.
“YES,” Leo shouted, eyes wide.
We all turned to look at him.
Molly frowned, smelling bullshit from a mile away. “Leo, is everything okay?”
“Uh huh,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, eyes somehow wider than before.
“What’s in your pocket, Leo?” Molly shot at him.
“NOTHING,” Leo said, eyes popping out of his head at this point.
“Get. It. Out,” Molly said, between clenched teeth.
Leo groaned, gently digging both hands into his pockets. Out in each of his closed fists came dozens of caterpillars. The fuzzy black ones.
Our laughter dies down as we approach our room. I open the door, and everything is suddenly too small. We both stand in the doorway for a moment, looking at the two beds next to one another. Only about four feet apart. Thank fucking jeebus the room’s been cleaned, so we don’t have to see rumpled sheets and used hand towels scattered around.
Mia pushes past me. “Well,” she says, “I most definitely need a drink now. Let me get ready. Give me thirty minutes.”
I run my hands through my hair. “I… won’t need that long. I’m just gonna get dressed and grab a drink downstairs at the hotel bar.”
She nods, already rifling through her suitcase. She pulls out a tiny piece of fabric that can’t be anything other than a handkerchief, or maybe a scarf meant for a small child. She carries that towards the bathroom. “I’ll meet you down there when I’m done,” she throws backwards, and shuts the door.
I mosey over to her suitcase, praying that she doesn’t have those fucking heels that make her legs look one hundred feet long. I poke around, groaning when I uncover them. I contemplate throwing them out the window. I sigh. The windows probably don’t open for safety purposes. This is a good thing for me too, so that I don’t throw myself out the window, either.
I scrub my face and walk over to my bag, pulling out a plain white t-shirt and my nice jeans. I throw them on, make sure to grab my wallet this time, and head downstairs. Here we go.