I shook my head. “No! Never! Do you think he knows? Oh, shit. I’m going to lose my job.”
“There’s no way he knows, baby. Just breathe.” He ran his hands down his face and then jerked his jeans on. “I’ll hide. If he crosses any lines, I’m not going to stay hidden, though. I will break his fucking face if he does anything to you. Understand me?”
I hesitated at the bedroom door. That roughly growled promise did something to me. I bit my lip and stared at him in his low-slung jeans and sleep-lined face. He was so attractive that I almost forgot what I was doing. My core was deliciously sore, as was my throat, and I grew wet again just thinking about taking him back to bed.
“Keep looking at me like that and I’m going to fuck you against the front door while he knocks, Callie.” The warning was clear.
I rushed through the house and stopped to catch my breath at the front door. My heart was hammering away, fear sending tingles up and down my spine. I didn’t know what to expect butat least it seemed like the boys were still asleep. Oliver woke up at eight on the weekends so it made me wonder just how early it really was.
I put on my most normal face and opened the door. Darren was on the other side with his hand hovering over the door like he was just about to bang on the door again. I took in the shorts and tank top he had on and cringed. If a professional wrestler from the eighties walked out of a time machine, he would’ve mirrored Darren.
He glared at me like I was inhishouse and had locked him out. Without waiting for my invitation, he moved at me, forcing me to step back to avoid him brushing against me. He stepped into my house with the audacity that only a slightly wealthy, rejected frat boy in his early fifties could. “What took you so long?”
A choked sound fell from my lips as I turned and watched him take in my home. “Excuse me? Principal Darren, why are you in my house?”
He huffed and picked up a pair of panties from the floor. “It’s no wonder you’re a mess at school, Callie. Look at this place. Honestly, I guess I should be grateful for how put together you are at work, even if it’s a pitiful effort. Do you clean?”
I had a bottle of fabric glue with a pointy tip within reach and I pictured shoving it up his nose. I was an awful mixture of furious and mortified. I didn’t like anyone seeing how I lived but at least when Luke and Cole looked at my mess, they hadn’t judged me. Out loud, at least. Much. “I’m sorry? What is going on? What time is it?”
“You’ve been so…lackluster…at work lately, Callie, so I decided to come and investigate. Are you seeing someone? He snuck that question in so quickly that I gave a surprised blink. “It’s part of my concern, Callie, that you’ve gotten yourself involved with someone you have no business being with and he’s leading youastray. You were never the best teacher but these days, I can’t help but notice something’s off.”
My brain was going to explode. “You came here to ask me if I’m seeing someone?”
He let out a disgusted sigh and focused his gaze on me. “Whose shirt is that? Youareseeing someone, aren’t you? He must be a real loser if you’re living in this pigsty. I can’t have my teachers turning to bad men. Next comes drinking in the classroom and stripping on the weekends for beer money. You’re not my best but…you’re a warm body in the classroom.”
There was so much to process in everything he’d said that I had to reach up and rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t still asleep. “You came to insult my home and warn me away from bad men?”
“You clearly need my help.” He sighed and his mask slipped for just a moment but it was enough for me to see the smirk twisting his lips when he glanced down at the panties still dangling from his finger. “Lucky for you, I’m a hands-on principal.”
My skin crawled and I finally found my footing enough to put a stop to whatever the hell was happening. “No. I-I don’t need your help, Principal Darren. Thank you, but…no. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here, either, considering the way people gossip and the non-fraternization policy our school has always held firm. I would really hate if people got the wrong idea. While I appreciate you being concerned about it, next time I’d love it if this could be a meeting during school hours with a rep from the union.”
Darren’s eyes narrowed and his face darkened with an anger I’d never been the recipient of. It scared me to my core and I found myself backing up a step before his face transformed back into its normal level of annoyance at me. “Of course.”
I swallowed nervously and glanced down the hallway, wondering just how fast Cole could get to me if I needed him. “Well, thank you for understanding.”
He let out a laugh that said he found nothing amusing about what I’d just done. “Get your shit together, Callie. Find a real man to keep you in line. You’re a pretty woman but that’ll only take you so far and I’d hate for you to wake up one day, old, ugly, and alone. I might not be around to help you then.”
27
Callie
I stumbled back into the wall as he stormed past me and slammed the door behind him. I leaned there, hand over my heart, and tried to tell myself that I had no reason to be as freaked out as I was. He hadn’t said anything that I could file a complaint over, not without seeming like I was splitting hairs. He knew how to toe the line of inappropriateness.
I jumped when Cole appeared right in front of me, face twisted in anger. He planted his fists on the wall on either side of my head and ran his eyes over my face. “He scared you.”
He said it like a death sentence, like it was the worst thing he’d ever heard and couldn’t quite stomach it. I went into fix mode, feeling embarrassed and scared of someone else knowing how Darren spoke to me because they’d expect to do something about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I just didn’t know how. I couldn’t lose my job and I couldn’t say anything other than Darren was mean to me and sometimes made me uncomfortable. Okay, always made me uncomfortable. It wasn’tso much his actions or words, typically, but the way he looked at me that left me squirming. How could I takethatto the school board? He looked at me funny? They’d laugh me right out of the school and into the unemployment line.
I knew the look people got when they thought you were stupid for not fighting back more, though, and I didn’t want to see it on Cole’s face. I looked down at my feet and blew out a long sigh. “I wasn’t-”
Cole’s hand gripped my jaw and tilted my head up. “Don’t lie to me. Not about this, Callie.”
I didn’t see any judgement in his gaze. There was anger, plenty of anger, but it wasn’t directed at me. My body finally relaxed against the wall and he was there, scooping me up and carrying me back to bed. I let him hold me in his lap and felt the remaining tension drain out of me. “He’s never come here. That was…too much.”
“I heard you tell him that you’d prefer to meet at school with your union rep. Good girl. You shut him down perfectly.” He shocked me by praising my response. “I just have one note.”
I stiffened. “I can’t file-”
“I want to teach you some self-defense moves, just in case he ever takes it further. I don’t know enough about school politics to give you a half-baked opinion wrapped up as good advice. But I can teach you how to protect yourself and fight back if he, or anyone else, ever crosses you.”
