“I know your sexy ass is doing this on purpose.”
“All I said was that whatever you want to do with me this weekend, I’d be open to doing.” I paused. “Wide open.”
He groaned again. “Jazz, I think you’re trying to get my dick hard.”
“What?” Trying not to laugh, I feigned confusion. “I’m just trying to confirm our weekend plans.”
“Two can play that game,” he said in a sexy, warning tone.
My lower body clenched.
We talked for about fifteen more minutes, and then we said good night because we both had early mornings.
The life of a high school teacher is not for the weak.
I was physically tired when I woke up in the morning. But every time the conversation with Lamar crossed my mind, I got a little burst of energy.
Ben Riker, the government and history teacher, knocked on my open door a few hours later. “Ms. Payne?”
“Come in, Mr. Riker,” I called out from the chair in the corner of the room.
“I see you’re hiding in the blind spot,” he said, laughing as he walked in.
“It’s my free period, and I decided I wanted to take a break.”
“Is it because of that fight?”
My eyes bulged. “Yes! It hasn’t even been a full week of school yet. How is there an issue already?”
He crossed his arms. “Apparently it’s something that rolled over from camp.”
“If they were beefin’ at a camp, then they should’ve been beefin’ at that camp. Why would they bring this to my classroom? That’s sad.”
“Was it upsetting you and your fellow educators?”
“Yes because it’s like damn, if you can’t go to school, where the hell can you go?” He started laughing, which caused me to laugh.
“No, but seriously, it is sad,” I continued. “They could’ve gotten hurt. They could’ve hurt someone else.” I shook my head. “I just need it to not happen again.”
“I’m glad it was just hair pulling and name-calling.”
“Fights these days get scary real quick.”
“Yeah, because people want to bring guns and knives and bags of rocks. No one wants to use hands. And it’s not a real fight if it’s not hand-to-hand.”
“Bags of rocks?” My brows furrowed and I made a face. “What did you have going on in school that ‘bags of rocks’ came to mind?”
“You’re focused on the wrong thing! But for your information, when I was coming up, we did what we had to do.” He chuckled. “I know you don’t know anything about fighting.”
Olivia Chapman and her crew popped in my mind.
I got up from the chair and crossed the room to my desk since the bell was going to ring any minute. “I just hope they work things out because when something like that happens, no one wins.”
He nodded. “Speaking of wins”—his grin widened—“I just came in here to let you know the Wasps won.” He rubbed his hands together. “So I believe you owe me a dollar.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled a dollar out of my wallet to hand to him. “The Monarchs will come back from this. By the end of the season, they’ll have a better record than the Wasps.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He held the dollar up toward the light, pretending to check to see if it was counterfeit. “We’ll see,” he said.
