“I’m not letting you out of my sight,sugar.” He’d put on a low, sexy voice. “Out, gentlemen.”
The boys sidled past, exchanging looks. The gossip would be around the school in minutes—and probably on social media—given the classroom of unsupervised sophomores down the hall.
The door swung shut and Holt strode to the trash can and pulled out another pair of coveralls. The smell wafted up, weaving in with the prevailing stench of stale urine.
She smacked her hand over her nose and mouth. “Did you steal those out of an actual trash can?” she mumbled.
“Had to be authentic. Put them on over your clothes.”
“You expect me to…?” She gagged. “Is that a maggot?”
“It’s a grain of rice—look. For now, I expect you to survive, with my help. We don’t have much time.” He tossed her thecoveralls, leaving her no choice but to catch them, then jerked his head, indicating she should change in a stall.
“Much time before what?”
“Before I don’t know what. I’m hoping you can shed light on what that might be.” He pulled out a cap and sunglasses. “In the meantime, we’re playing a safety game.”
She stared at the coveralls. Was she really going to go along with this? Were her students right now lining the corridor, phones at the ready, one-click from immortalizing her as a prize viral idiot when she appeared in the corridor in stinky coveralls, having swallowed their elaborate prank? Was this how she would go down in history?
“None of this makes any sense,” she muttered.
“And yet here we are.”
But … but … the things this guy knew. His uncanny resemblance to Anderson Holt. The instinct that told her he was legit. All reasons to believe him but somehow her decision came down to this: pull on the stinking coveralls or don’t pull on the stinking coveralls. Accept that this craziness was happening, or reject it, walk back to her classroom and hope it would all disappear.
“Look,” he said, softening his tone and stepping closer, “I’d love to tell you this is all a big joke or promise to make it go away, but all I can say is this—the best thing we can do is take this first step. Get you out the gate and get this laptop. That’s as far as we have to go.” He laid the sunglasses and cap on the sink and gently took the coveralls from her hands, opened them at the waist and gathered up the trouser legs. He crouched in front of her left foot, inviting her to step into the bunched leg. “Let’s just get outta here while they have no idea you’re onto them.”
“I’m not onto them. I don’t even know who ‘them’ is.”
“Oh, but I am. Kinda. And don’t forget that my body alone is… What was it? Ninety percent deterrent?”
“Ninety-nine,” she corrected, kicking herself even as the words came out, because it was obvious from his grin that he knew the number; he just wanted to hear her say it. “Though now I’m thinking Nika meant your smell rather than your…” Her eyes lowered to the abs she knew were under his clothes, assuming he was still as fit as when he’d been a fictional character.
“Rather than my…?”
Muscles. Abs, pecs, biceps, glutes, quads—she’d pictured them all. She’d practically sculpted them. He was her Michelangelo’sDavid, but better endowed. “Than your height.”
“Myheight.”
“Tall people can be intimidating.”
She inhaled deeply and gagged on a hit of rotten … something. Even so, she found herself planting one foot in the leg of the coveralls, then the other.
He turned up the trouser hems a few folds, and stood as he pulled them over her capris. “Make sure the pant legs hang down low enough to cover your high heels. And walk as if you’re wearing work boots.” He held out first one sleeve for her, and then the other.
And so she let this stranger dress her, let him transition her in the slowest superhero quick-change ever, from mild-mannered high school teacher to … what? Enemy of the people? And which people? Once her arms were in, he hoisted the coveralls over her shoulders and drew the two sides together at her chest. She was reminded of being strapped into a jumpsuit for the tandem skydive she’d done for her thirtieth birthday—only because her sisters had bought it for her. No way would she have stepped from a plane of her own volition, but the instructor she’d been attached to had made all the decisions, and she’d gone along with it in a vague hope it would make her fearless in other parts of her life.
It hadn’t. God, she’d hated that jump.
Holt fastened the snaps, starting at her waist, his head bent as he concentrated. She could push him away and do it herself. Sheshouldpush him away. But her arms hung at her sides with no intention of getting involved. She was having even more trouble breathing now than when she’d discovered him in her classroom. Now he was closer she could smellhis skin—sweet, fresh, and tangy like a caipirinha.
Nowtherewas a line she could have put in the novel. She’d put a lot of thought into the way Anderson Holt looked, how he walked and talked, how his skin felt to the touch (rough over his jaw, smooth and firm over his abs), even how he’d kiss (she’d puta lotof thought into that), but she hadn’t considered how he’d smell.
As he worked his way up, his hands brushed her lower belly through her clothes, then her navel, the center of her bra, her shirt where it bowed out across her breasts, her collarbone. Whoa. Her book boyfriend had come to life and was turning her on for real—in the boys’ bathroom of her high school while dressed like a trash collector and possibly kidnapping her. Not quite the tuxedo and Baroque restaurant in the book, but the guy in front of her did have the advantage of actually existing. She’d come around to being reasonably certain of that.
She sidestepped him and snatched the cap and sunglasses. As she pulled them on—as smoothly as a cap went on curly hair like hers—he ripped the liner from the trash bin and tipped out the contents. He shoved her purse into the liner, padded it out with paper towels from the dispenser until it looked full, and tossed it over his shoulder.
So if he was Alice’s book boyfriend, was he also Nika’s real one-night stand? That super-hot sex scene in the book—truth or fantasy? Nika had typed the draft of that chapter herself, tapping away with a sad smile. Alice had interpreted her expressionas regret at dying without a partner, the bleak certainty she would never again experience love or sex. But maybe it wasn’t wistfulness, maybe it was … nostalgia. Alice was going to have to reread the entire book.
