CHAPTERONE
JAMES
My phone goesoff at 4:45 with the special, sparkling ringtone that’s just for her. I lose my place in a sentence instantly.
“That was—” I say, and then it chimes again. There’s a sheet of paper in front of me. It says something, and dragging my mind back to it feels like a physical task. “Sorry,Wuthering Heightswas by Emily Brönte. Charlotte wroteJane Eyre.”
“Crap,” mutters Clark, who scribbles down this fact in his notebook. At desks on either side of him, Jessica and Toby glare at him for losing their quiz bowl team the point, all braces and acne and hormones.
“Everyoneknows that,” someone on the opposing team says, and someone else snickers.
“Hey,” I say, mildly. “Everyone makes mistakes. Come on.”
There are several exasperated sighs. Clark is staring at his notebook like he can make it levitate with his mind, lips moving. I think he’s mutteringWuthering Heights was Emilyover and over again to himself.
“Next question,” I say, and glance at the clock. It's 4:49, which means in ten minutes I can take the kids downstairs to wait for their parents to pick them up from Quiz Bowl Team practice. Hopefully, Amanda's dad will be on time today. He's been better lately. “Which king of England famously had six—”
The buzzer machine lights up before I finish the sentence.
* * *
I havea whole set of rules and special configurations for her texts: I never look at them in a room with other people. I never respond to anything inappropriate while I’m at work. Ineversend anything with the barest hint of impropriety from work. I never use the school’s wifi to read her texts.
I shouldn’t read her texts during the day at all, because there’s always a risk: accidentally leaving the screen up between classes, or somehow broadcasting my phone screen to my computer screen, or some asshole thirteen-year-old stealing my phone as a prank. It’s locked, but I can only imagine kids these days know how to get around that shit.
But usually, during business hours, it’s safe. Those texts are the funny, charming, flippant ones I’d get from any friend, a mixture ofwork sucksandI need ten more cups of coffeeand Schitt’s Creek gifs. It’s the texts I get after the sun goes down that have to stay secret.
Lola has her own ringtone. Her texts don’t pop up on my lock screen, the way others do. They stay hidden, making my whole body buzz with anticipation until I’m alone in a room where I can look.
Amanda’s dad makes it to the school by 5:07, Hallelujah. By 5:08 I’m back upstairs in my classroom, straightening the rows of desks that the kids put back sloppily, erasing the chalkboard where I wrote the date and time of our next Quiz Bowl tournament.
Then I close the door before I read her text, just in case.
I just think Twilight is better than Dracula, okay?
Dracula is all letters and dumb women and very weird ideas about sex. Nightgowns are on point though
I lean back against my desk and grin to myself.
You’re seriously saying that the reason Twilight is better than Dracula is that Dracula has too many dumb women and weird ideas about sex?
AND NIGHTGOWNS. Bella’s not out here swanning around in enough fabric to make sails for the whole English navy
Hey, has anyone told you about this neat new thing called the internal combustion engine?
1850 called, they want their sails back
They better talk to Mina Harker, then
Or write her a letter since that’s more her style. She’d be more than happy to respond at length, I’m sure
I’m perfectly aware that Lola’s just sayingTwilightis better thanDraculabecause she wants to argue with me about something for fun, and she knows that I know, and I know that she knows that I know and—you get the idea.
Her real name’s not Lola. I don’t know her real name. She doesn’t know mine. We’ve never heard each other’s voices or seen each other’s faces, but after nearly nine months of whateverthisis, I can imagine the way she talks, low and teasing, always like she’s about to laugh; can imagine the way she smiles, bright and sunny and sudden.
What Idoknow about Lola is this: she has thick thighs that are muscular and soft all at once, wide hips, and an ass that looks like she could squat two hundred pounds. She's got a belly that rounds out below her belly button, and it looks so soft and perfect that I want to bury my face in it.
I know her tits are on the larger side, and also her nipples; I know the way the hypnotizing way they jiggle, how her nipples can poke through the fabric of a tight t-shirt so hard they look like they might tear it. I know how she rolls her hips when she comes, lying on her back.
