Page 4 of Working for the Teacher

He was always gorgeous. Even back in high school, with dark hair that was always falling into his eyes and a smile that made you wonder what he knew that you didn’t.

Gorgeous and dangerous.

He was sixteen, a junior when I was a freshman, and exactly the kind of boy every parent in Forge Creek warned their daughters about. Fights. Detentions that turned into suspensions. Trouble seemed to find him everywhere he went.

And for some reason, Ryder Kane had noticed me. I never understood why.

I was a freshman. Quiet. A good student. The kind of girl who actually worried about getting caught if I was two minutes late to class. But somehow Ryder always seemed to find me in the hallways. He’d lean against a locker and watch me walk past with that dangerous smile. Sometimes he’d say my name. Sometimes he didn’t have to.

I knew I should stay away from him. I also knew I liked that he noticed me far more than I ever would have admitted.

Then one day, he disappeared.

The story spread through school before lunch. Ryder had broken into Eddie “Wrench” Morales’s house. Eddie had apparently come home from work early and caught him inside. The police showed up, Ryder was arrested, and when you added that to the laundry list of trouble he’d already been in, this time there was no suspension and no second chance.

He got sent to juvenile detention, or juvie as everyone around Forge Creek called it, and for a while, it was all anyone at school talked about.

I thought about him more than I should have after that. Once, I even considered writing to him. I remember sitting on my bed wondering what I would possibly say.

Hi, Ryder. Sorry you're in juvie. Remember me from the hallway?

Absolutely not. Besides, what was I doing, writing letters to a prisoner? Who was I?

So I didn’t.

There were whispers about him for years afterward. He got out of juvie. Got into more trouble. Got out of that trouble. Someone would mention seeing him around town, and I'd pretend I wasn't interested while listening to every word.

But I never saw him again.

Eventually, I left Forge Creek, and Ryder Kane faded into the background with everything else from high school. That's what happens when you leave your hometown. The people you once couldn't stop thinking about become stories you barely remember.

Until one of them is standing across a parking lot.

And staring right back at you.

Our eyes meet, and suddenly I’m fourteen again, hyperaware of every inch of myself because Ryder Kane has decided to look at me.

A nervous little flutter starts low in my stomach, embarrassingly familiar.

I break eye contact first and practically race the rest of the way to my car. I toss my bag onto the passenger seat, climb in, and pull out of the parking lot before I can talk myself into looking at him again.

I do anyway. One quick glance in the rearview mirror.

Ryder is still standing beside the truck. Still watching me.

2

RYDER

Charlotte Hayes.

I've got a stack of two by fours balanced on my shoulder and my brain has decided this is the moment to short-circuit over a girl I haven't seen since I was sixteen.

Brown hair. Brown eyes. Freckles she used to hate and I used to think were the best thing about her face. She wore her hair down back then, and now it's pulled back in some kind of clip that's already coming loose, pieces falling around her jaw. Same glasses, more or less. She used to smell like fresh cut roses, and I have no business remembering that after all these years, but here I am, remembering it.

She was never going to look twice at a guy like me back then. I was the kid who got hauled into the principal’s office more than I sat through class. Charlotte had perfect grades and a future everyone knew was going somewhere.

I had a probation officer.