He takes me by the chin again, thank god, before I can say anything. He pulls my face to his this time, dropping a kiss on my mouth. “I’m always happy to stand up for you, but I have an idea for our next lesson.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You should consider learning how to channel that hot sexy girl energy to defend yourself to your own parents. Or anyone else.” He quickly amends this after seeing my face. “I mean like, the confidence. You should have the confidence to stand up for yourself. You’re so good at what you do. You shouldn’t need me to do it for you.”
I hum. “Maybe.”
“Definitely,” he fires back. “I think it would make you feel really good about yourself.”
“‘Kay,” I say, not wanting to grapple with this right now.
We both take a drink. He lifts my legs and drags them forward, pulling me back onto his lap.
“This is the outfit, Mia,” he sighs into my ear.
“What outfit?” I pretend not to know.
“The one that ruined my life.”
“Ruined? Or jump-started?”
He laughs, his breath tickling my neck. “I know exactly what kind of panties you have to wear under these pants. I want to tear them in half and stuff them in your mouth. Or use them to tie up your wrists.”
I squirm on his lap, turning my head to face him. “Maybe our next lesson should be the proper use of restraints,” I say against his lips.
“Mmm. After I teach you, we’d have to practice. A lot. Just to make sure we’re doing it right,” he says, before licking into my mouth.
I gasp, and he swallows it down. “We’ve done a bad job at the practicing part. We’ve just kind of been bouncing around from lesson to lesson. I haven’t been able to practice any of my new man-eating skil—” The last word gets cut short because he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth, rubbing it between his teeth.
“You’ve already devoured me whole,” he says.
“Look at you go, you absolute beast,” Elias shouts at Sean, as Sean speed-walks the 100-meter race. Both have massive grins on their faces. In fact, our entire class is grinning ear to ear.
Our class has now entered the Track and Field competition portion of the unit, and every single kid in my class is currently jumping and screaming and cheering Sean on as he approaches the finish line. I’m not ashamed to say I’m jumping and screaming myself.
“Go, go, go, go,” Elias’s booming voice carries across the gym.
“Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean,” my class is chanting.
Sean huffs and puffs and finally steps over the finish line, bending in half and resting his hands on his knees. Not for long, though, because Elias roars like a lion and takes one of his arms and raises it in the air triumphantly, like Sean is the boxing champion of the world.
Amaya stops her timer, writing down his time with a smile on her face. Meanwhile, our kids run to him with purpose, still screaming, and I’m afraid they’re going to do something crazy like try to lift Sean over their shoulders, but luckily Elias is there to redirect them into a safer choice.
He starts another chant, “Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean,” and Sean is the sweatiest, most radiant child I’ve ever seen in my life.
It’s so loud in here that I don’t hear Principal Thomas come in.
Her grimace lies somewhere between amusement and disgust.
“Hi, Principal Thomas,” I greet her, genuinely surprised. I don’t think she’s ever stepped into a classroom before.
“It’s extremely loud in here. I heard it from my office and had to see what was going on,” she says.
“Glad you could join us, Principal Thomas,” Elias says, sauntering over.
Thomas’s eyes light up. It’s a small thing, but I know exactly what it is and what it means, because I’ve been watching women doing it in response to Elias my entire life.
“All right everyone, cool down stretches. Kyle, could you please lead the class while I talk to our wonderful leader?” He pops the Dimple at our principal, and I want to scratch it off his face, or scratch her eyes out so she can’t look at it anymore.
