It seemed like now, that would be mutual. I hugged my sister and I was very glad.
Chapter 15
“Zoey!”
I slowed down to a walk and looked back at the person who’d called to me. I was much better at running since I’d been using the treadmill a lot, with a smoother gait and without as much arm movement, and I’d raced out of the school today because I was excited to get home. Everett had the afternoon off before he had to go to the hotel with the team for the night, and we had planned to spend that time together. I had ideas about specifics, things I had been daydreaming about and then, I’d also had a very vivid dream last night from which I’d woken up panting.
It had been good.
But now I stopped, rubbing my arms because I’d raced out without putting on my coat. I really was in a hurry to get back home, but I waited for Anita, the school’s administrative assistant, to catch up with me. Now that I worked in the cafeteria, I didn’t see her as much, but she’d always been nice.
Except now, she was frowning. “I wanted to talk to you,” she said. She was out of breath and she also looked worried. “I heard that you might fill in for Sarah Paulker when she’s out on maternity leave at Mitigomin Elementary.”
That was not supposed to be public yet but this woman knew everything. “Yes.” I got wary. “Why?”
“I’m just really glad,” she said. But she didn’t look glad—she still seemed concerned. “You know, I didn’t think you should write that exposé.”
“The…oh, yes, the exposé.” She was referring to why I had asked her so many weird questions about our district. “I didn’t do anything with that information.” Everett hadn’t either, as far as I knew.
“I really think it’s best not to stick your nose in too far, especially at a school. They’re terrible about gossip and rumors. And at this particular school, there isn’t much oversight.” She glanced significantly to her left, at where the principal’s office overlooked the parking lot. Suzanne was supposed to keep an eye on pick-up and drop-off, but I’d noticed that her curtains were mostly closed. “Unfortunately, there’s a teacher here who needs some oversight,” she continued. “I think you know who I mean.”
I decided to be cautious, too. “Some things happened last year when I was student teaching,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere if I talk to her about them.” I also looked towards the principal’s window. “I’ve considered going above her but I don’t want to work in this district with something hanging over me.Even if I’m in the right, people will think that I’m stirring up trouble.”
She seemed to hesitate. Then she pressed her lips together and nodded. “Before you do anything, I have some more information to share with you. Come back to my desk for a minute.”
It took more than a minute, and I had to rush home. Everett was waiting in the kitchen, sitting on one of the tall stools, when I also rushed in from the garage. “You’re late,” he said. “You’re never late.”
“I know, and you were worried about me on the empty roads.” I rushed over to him, too, to stand between his knees and put my arms around his neck. He adjusted me closer by sliding his hands to my butt and squeezing. He had done that a few times and it always made me catch my breath, which I did again now. But I had something to tell him, too.
“I had to stay and because Anita had an important issue to discuss with me. Remember her? The admin who had so much information for your custody case?”
“Yeah, and I also wanted to talk to you about…no, you tell me what happened with her first.” He squeezed again, and I had to take a second to compose myself before I continued.
“She has a file. She has lots of files locked in her desk, and she compiled a very thick one with information about Phil, my former cooperating teacher. She also thinks that he’s a lech, and she hates him but she wasn’t ever going to say anything. Except she got worried about me when I was in his classroom and thenshe got mad because she says he tanked my chances of getting a job.”
“She was worried but she didn’t do jack shit about it?”
“She’s doing something now.” I explained exactly what: Anita was retiring at the end of the school year, and after the party with the sheet cake and everyone saying goodbye, she was going to take her file about Phil to a friend in the superintendent’s office and to the local education reporter on TV, too. “She thinks he’ll have to go, that maybe they’ll let him retire or just quit, but she has enough to sink him. Not only lech stuff, but also about him keeping field trip money and other things he’s been up to, some from decades ago. That woman knows everything.”
“I wish she had done something before you had to deal with him,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to speak up and say things.” He had been about to tell me something, in fact, but now he was kissing me again. There was really no way to count them anymore.
“I wanted to wait until after the season, but now I don’t have to.” Everett took my ear lobe in his teeth but, unfortunately, let go to finish his thought. “I wanted you to be out of there first.”
“What do you mean?” I turned my head, displaying my ear so he could nibble it again.
“I was either going to drive onto his roof or sue his pants off. Or just hit him in the mouth. My plans were fluid,” he told me. Then he kissed the nape of my neck, and I was glad I’d worn a ponytail so that the area was totally free for him. He was alsodoing that thing of touching my butt, which I enjoyed a lot, and now…
That was my breast. He had cupped it in his palm and I was so glad that I hadn’t worn my coat, because it would have blocked some of this sensation. Since our first kiss, things hadn’t progressed very far, not like I’d thought they would when I’d assumed we would immediately have sex.
“We’re not in a race,” he had told me when I’d finally spoken up about the pacing, and then he’d slid his lips down my neck to my collarbones. “I’m not rushing you into anything.”
But I was ready for more, and here it was. His fingers massaged and my breath caught harder. Then he stood, and with the hand on my butt, he steered me over to the couch, the nice one that was so comfortable for sleeping. Except I didn’t feel like sleeping, not at all, not even when we lay down and it was really soft. Everett touched my breasts again, both of them, which made me moan quietly and get a funny ache there—a good one which felt like desire rather than pain. It increased when he slid his hands under my shirt and I jumped.
“Are my hands cold? Want me to stop?”
“No,” I said. I was totally opposed to him stopping, and I shifted forward to encourage more of it. “Don’t stop.”
