For the space of three shallow breaths, I am as desperate as he is. Then the principal part of me—the version that built her entire existence on steady ground—forces a break.
I pull back, hands flat on his chest. “David?—”
He stiffens, jaw set, eyes wild. “Shit. I’m sorry.” He lets me go so quickly I nearly stumble, and then it’s his turn to retreat, scrubbing both hands over his face and pacing a line in front of the refrigerator. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—that was completely inappropriate. You’re Michaela’s principal, and I just—God, I’m sorry.”
“David, it’s?—”
“It’s not OK.” He’s on his feet, backing toward the hallway. “You could lose your job. I could compromise the custody case. This was—I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking.”
“David—”
“I need to get Michaela. I need to go.”
He’s in the guest room before I can stop him, scooping his sleeping daughter into his arms with practiced gentleness. Michaela stirs, mumbles, “Daddy?” and burrows into his shoulder without fully waking.
“Thank you,” he says as he passes me in the hallway, my dog trailing behind him. “For watching her. For everything. I’m sorry I overstepped. It won’t happen again.”
I grab my dog’s collar. “You don’t have to?—”
“Goodbye, Principal Harrison.”
Principal Harrison. Not Nora. The wall going up in real time.
He carries his daughter out into the evening, and I stand in my doorway watching until his car disappears around the corner.
Then I close the door and lean against it, heart pounding.
He kissed me.
David Kingsley—single father, school parent, subject of approximately eight months of daydreams I’ve refused toacknowledge—just grabbed my face and kissed me like I was the only solid thing in a world falling apart.
And I kissed him back.
I touch my lips. They’re still tingling.
I should be upset. I should be professionally outraged. He’s a parent at my school. His daughter is my student. If anyone found out, there would be questions. Meetings with the board. The kind of whispered conversations that end careers.
The administration doesn’t have an explicit policy against staff dating parents—parents aren’t employees, so standard fraternization rules don’t apply. But there’s an unwritten understanding at schools like mine: you simply don’t. The power dynamics are too complicated. The potential for favoritism, for accusations, for disaster.
I’ve never even considered crossing that line before. But with David...
God, what am I even considering?
I don’t even know. But I keep thinking about the crack in his voice when he saidI can’t lose her. The way he looked at Michaela sleeping in my guest room. The desperation in his kiss—not romantic, not seductive, just a man reaching for something real in the middle of a nightmare.
I pour myself a glass of wine and sink onto the couch with my dog to try to process.
“He’s going to avoid me now,” I tell Archimedes—Archie for short. “He’ll keep his distance. Probably request that Michaela be transferred to another class, so he doesn’t have to see me as often.”
Archie puts his head in my lap and sighs, which I take as agreement.
“You’re right. It’s the smart play. The safe play. For both of us.”
So why do I keep touching my lips?
My phone buzzes. A text from my sister.
Lil Sis:
