11. River #2
“Good. The less time you spend around her, the better. For now, all you have going for you is all of this was before school started. She lied about her age. She’s been living overseas for years, so there’s no chance you could have ever run into her.
She’s nineteen,” he says, listing off the mitigating circumstances.
“But essentially, you should not talk to her until she graduates.”
“Please.” I snort. “I never want to talk to her again, and I hope I made that shit very clear.” He raises an eyebrow at me, and I’m instantly defensive. “What’s that look for?”
“You’ve been walking around like you and your dick are on cloud nine. I know you liked her.”
“Okay, and this is a very big thing to make you unlike someone. She fucked up, and this could still cost me my whole life, and her being a good fuck is not nearly enough to fix it.”
“Well, that is good that you feel this way, but I just want to make sure you realize that if you touch her from this point forward, it is a big problem,” he emphasizes.
“Obviously!” I respond exasperatedly, like I can’t control my erections enough not to let this destroy my entire life any more than it has.
“I mean it, River, the school will fire you immediately, and you will struggle to get a job anywhere else because this will have been a huge scandal. You’ll avoid jail time because she’s over the age of eighteen, but you’re looking at complete revocation of your teaching license, and you and the district could be sued by her parents or family, or even Sloane herself if she wants to take it there.
Do not touch her.” I sigh before nodding once, because while this feels like a lecture, a part of me feels like I deserve it.
“Is there any chance she could tell people out of spite?”
“I doubt it. But her cousin does know about me. Not me specifically, but just that she’s been sleeping with a high school football coach named River.
” I give him a fake smile. “How long till she puts that together? I don’t know.
” I pull my hat off my hair and toss it hard against the wall. “Maybe she won’t.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose as he squeezes his eyes together. “Jesus Christ, her cousin goes to the school too?”
“Yes, thankfully, I don’t have her in any of my classes.” I’d done a thorough sweep of all my class lists and didn’t see a Delaney anywhere.
He takes a sip of his drink. “Okay, are you sure this cousin doesn’t know?”
“Sloane told me she didn’t know it was me, so I’m hoping she doesn’t tell her.”
“Do you still have your texts?”
I sigh. “Yes, I thought deleting them made me look more guilty.”
“Good, and it does, so keep them. Timestamps are crucial. When was the last time you and Sloane texted or talked on the phone, anything?”
“This morning. Right before the class she’s in, actually.
We planned to hang out the next time she was ‘home from college,’ which was supposed to be at the end of the month,” I say using air quotes with my fingers, “and I was texting her ideas of places we could go for dinner.” I groan, thinking about how stupid I’d been in all of this.
But how could I have known?
“Shit, that’s a very tiny window, but if it’s the truth, then it’s all we’ve got. Geez, this morning? How long did she think she could keep this ruse going?”
I’d wondered the same. Did she really think she could keep up this act until the end of the year and I’d never find out?
“I guess she was banking on things naturally fizzling out, and she’d never have to tell me anything.
” I shrug. “I didn’t ask.” I sigh. “Her ID said she was twenty-one, and she was actively using it while we were out,” I say, remembering that fact as if that’s any way to prove someone’s age, especially in someone’s late teens or early twenties.
“Yes, because kids never have fake IDs. She’s been living in a country where she’s been able to legally drink for a year.
I imagine obtaining a fake was her first stop when she landed in the States,” Rowan offers, and I want to tell him that kids having fake IDs included his daughter, but I’m not a snitch, and I’m not going to bring Margot down just because I am going down in flames.
Not to mention, I’ve seen her fake, and it’s awful. Honestly, I doubt anyone would even accept it, so I’m more concerned about her getting caught than her ever successfully using it to actually obtain alcohol.
And I think she knows that too.
“Look, I know this is stressful as hell,” Rowan continues.
“But this is the best-case scenario. You cannot legally get into trouble. If the school finds out, they will probably not outright believe you, but you have proof, and they will pore over your contact with her. But seeing as she just moved here from Europe two weeks ago, and you had no knowledge of her or that she was transferring to your school, there isn’t even much to pore over.
At most, this is all just a really catastrophic coincidence.
From now on, though, you do not know her.
Understand? If you do have to communicate with her, do it in front of witnesses or out in the open.
No texts, no phone calls, no meeting up alone.
Nothing. You want to keep your job? Then you have to pretend that the past two weeks never happened.
Sloane is just a student. Only a student. Got it?”