“I may have watched it a few times,” I admitted.
“That’s it, we’re getting you in the shower,” he said, looking past me to my bedroom.
Pushing his shoulder to make him pay attention, I whined, “Can’t you just leave me alone? My life has fallen apart. I get a couple of days of mourning, don’t I?”
“No, you don’t.” He shook his head, hands on his hips as he glared down at me. “You’ve got class starting in two weeks, and you need to get your shit together.”
“Ha ha. Not funny,” I said, rubbing my chest at hownot funnyit was.
Reaching out, he ruffled my hair, then drew back his hand, probably a little greasier than it went in. “As it turns out, when you leverage jail time against your parents’ desire to tank your educational career, they fold pretty quickly.”
“What?” I asked, confused and hopeful for the first time in days. I reached for my phone, discovering dozens of missed calls and texts.
“Sawyer had a lawyer friend of his offer a deal to your parents’ lawyer. We’ll ask the city to drop the charges against them if they retract the report to the school district and sign an agreement stating that their allegations against you were baseless and promising not to revive them, to the media or elsewhere.”
“And the school district knows about this?”
“They’re on board. Your union rep has been arguing your case very persuasively. And Dr. Gardner needs you, because Leo has threatened to lead a student uprising if you aren’t there on the first day of class.”
“But what about the charges? The county attorney doesn’t have to go along with the deal.”
“My grandfather has a lot of pull with local judges, Walk.”
“But he doesn’t like you,” I said bluntly, then immediately felt bad about it. “Sorry, Oz, I?—”
He stopped me with a shake of his head. “Oh, you’re right about that. But he likes having something to hold over your grandfather more than he dislikes me, so… yeah. There’s some paperwork to be filled out, but the county attorney has agreed to the deal.”
“What about the insurance, though?”
“First off, you’re more important than some insurance payout. Besides, Ginger came in clutch with the paint removal techniques, and the only thing after that was the window and Tommy’s medical costs, all of which Hen’s gonna cover. Actually, he liked the idea of the restaurant so much, he’s buying into the entire Syrup project.”
“Are you shitting me?” I almost didn’t want to believe what I was hearing, because I’d been catastrophizing everything ever since my rep had called me into her office. “Wait. I thought you hated calling it that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, frog-marching me toward my bedroom. “What matters is you smell like you’ve been eating nothing but leftover pizza for days, and we need to do something about it before you become a villain out ofSpaceballs.”
I let the blanket fall, and yeah, it did smell like pepperoni funk. Holding his nose, Ozzie gestured for me to undress, then grabbed the blanket and tossed it into the hamper along with my stinky clothes.
In my bathroom, Ozzie handed me my toothbrush before starting the shower. While I brushed and swished, he stripped, and then he pulled me under the spray with him. I was still in shock as he soaped me up and washed my hair, being so gentle with me I couldn’t even put words to it.
Only when he started rinsing me off did relief finally hit me. “I really have my job back?”
With steam rising around us, he took my face in both hands and kissed me. “Yes, Walk. You’re a teacher again.”
“I can’t believe you got them to back down.”
“That was Joel and Sawyer, and one of Sawyer’s friends.”
“But they did it because of you,” I said, my voice barely working as I blinked up at him.
“Actually, they did it because ofyou. Dr. Gardner said, and I quote, ‘Walker needs to be in that classroom.’”
“I need to call her.”
“Yes, you do. But first things first,” he said, smiling as he pressed his lips to mine.
He then kissed me until thoughts of anything else fled. Once he’d rearranged my brain cells, he held me, swaying under the hot water. This was exactly what had been missing while I was stuck in my blanket burrito of solitude.
Ozzie was everything I never knew I always needed. He was strong, sexy, and well-dressed—unless he was naked, in which case he was hung. Every part of my body tingled with memories of his talented mouth, hands, and cock.
