LUCAS
The alarmon his phone went off. After hitting the dismiss button, he finished up the email he was working on and then logged out of his computer. A quick text to his son went unanswered, but that wasn’t concerning. He’d gotten involved in the theatre freshman year, fascinated with how to use technology to create lighting effects, and now he was the go-to student worker for auditorium events, whether it was to design lighting or just to run the complicated-looking board. He was probably swamped with last-minute tasks as the lip sync competition got ready to start in fifteen minutes, another homecoming week tradition.
Lucas locked up his office and headed for the auditorium. Kids were everywhere, and the noise level would probably start the building shaking, but he loved seeing them so excited. It was much better than the sad faces he saw during the early morning botany class. Additional vandalism was discovered in the greenhouse. In addition to broken windows, the perpetrator had slashed open bag after bag of potting soil for the Christmas poinsettia fundraiser and dumped it all over the floor. They alsotore open bags of plant food and fertilizer, and the plantings that had already occurred were ripped up and thrown around the space. Now the greenhouse was shut down for several days while everything was cleaned up safely, and money was being funneled into that cleanup, as well as purchasing new seeds, soil, food, and fertilizer.
Screams and cheers came from inside the auditorium, and loud music pumped from the speakers. It felt a bit like his insides were being stirred with the vibrations, but it was worth it to see the students celebrating. As he strode down the aisle, he gave a quick wave to Ezra behind the light board, then worked his way down to the tables set up in the orchestra pit for the lip sync competition judges. How he got roped into this, he’d never understand.
Just as he sat down, the lights went out, and the spotlights began sweeping back and forth across the house and stage. Students screamed even louder. The student council president ran on stage, as did several of the members at large, working to hype up the audience even more. Microphone in hand, she began to explain the rules.
While that was going on, Lucas’ eyes were drawn to a quiet shadow off to the side of the stage at the bottom of the steps. Elyxandre stood in her standard, watchful pose—deceptively casual as she leaned against the cinder block, one knee bent, foot flat to the wall, a hand gripping the top of her vest, pulling it down from her neck area.
He knew he should be paying attention to the stage, but his eyes wouldn’t leave the woman. Somehow, she’d burrowed into his brain. The smallest things brought her into his thoughts and caused him to slip into odd daydreams.
Like now—her hair was back in its ever-neat French braid, but he found himself wondering what it looked like loose around her shoulders. He’d seen it that way wet, the night in theemergency room, but now he wondered what it would look like after she left the shower. His shower. After a night of sexing her up so hard she needed a second shower because once she emerged all clean, all he’d want to do was make a mess of her again.
A hand jostled him from his right—the new English teacher who had replaced him. He frowned at her, and she pointed to the student with the microphone. Crap. He’d been introduced, and he was too busy daydreaming about his SRO to notice. He turned to the crowd, a huge smile on his face, and waved as they cheered.
Then the lip sync battle was on.
Twelve student groups each got on stage and performed their best re-creations of music videos. Some of the acts were more put-together than others. The theatre kids this year were extra good. They’d decided to re-create Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, complete with zombies writhing out of places in the audience, out of the grid line, through a stage trapdoor, and the choreography was on point.
The students were eating it up, singing along and cheering, and then an even larger wave of screams crested. Movement out of the corner of his eye revealed that several zombies had found Elyxandre at the foot of the stairs, and they were attempting to drag her up onto the stage with them. She was trying to say no, but eventually she gave up and followed. They put her in the first line of dancers, and suddenly, she was going through the choreography with them, as if she’d practiced it with them.
He felt his face light up as if charged with a million volts of electricity, watching her have fun with the kids. His face ached from smiling so much, and he found himself cheering along with everyone else in the auditorium.
When the competition was over, it didn’t take the judges long to decide the winners. The theatre kids took first, followed bya trio of girls who did a Beyoncé re-creation, and then another group of kids who re-created a Wham! video, complete with glow-in-the-dark paint and shirts.
Students began to file out of the auditorium, their energy keyed up a bit higher than the night before, which was typical for homecoming week. Each day, the vibe became a little more frantic than the day before.
As he was saying goodbye to a last group of students and parents, his eyes drifted down the sidewalk to see Elyxandre talking to a group of about eight kids who looked like they were mostly freshmen.
Alone in his observations, he started when Ezra spoke to him. “Surprised everyone, didn’t she?”
He tried to tear his attention away from her to focus on his son, but her back was to him, and his eyes kept drifting to that braid—a braid he wanted to wrap around his fist so he could use it to pull her close to him.
“What? Oh. Yeah. Was a bit odd seeing her on stage like that. Kind of like seeing a celebrity in a grocery store.”
“Uh-huh.”
Something in the tone of his son’s voice pulled him fully back into the moment. “What?”
“Nothing.”
The lilt in his voice suggested it was something. The wide smile on his face solidified it. Good grief. He’d seen that same look on Jess’ face yesterday. Was he that fucking transparent?
Bad enough Jess had somehow figured out his interest. Now his son had caught him staring at Elyxandre and drawn similar conclusions.
He knew better than to ask the question, but apparently his brain was taking the night off. “What, Ezra?”
“Just couldn’t help but notice several times tonight that you couldn’t keep your eyes off Officer E.”
“If you don’t want to be on dish duty for the next month, you’d best zip your lip, kiddo.”
“I’m always on dish duty, Dad. You cook, I clean. If you want to be threatening, you need to work on the causal relationship you’re creating.”
“Smartass,” he growled, but there was no real heat in it.
“Better than being a dumbass, right?”
