by Kayla, Mia
Teacher I Want To Date
Mia Kayla
Copyright © 2020 by Mia Kayla
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.authormiakayla.com
Cover Designer: Jersey Girl Designs,
www.jerseygirl-designs.com
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Proof: Julie Deaton
jdproofs.wixsite.com/jddeaton
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9996757-6-2
Created with Vellum
To my Stepdad, who just celebrated his birthday.
Thank you for your patience, love, and ability to read contracts. This book is dedicated to you, but this page is the only page you should be reading.
Because… awkward.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Stay In Touch
Also by Mia Kayla
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Mason
What man turned down a woman when her hand was on his dick? No sane man—that was for sure. So, that meant I was officially crazy.
The windows were fogged up, and Janice’s legs were wrapped around my hips, her lips on my neck, her hands everywhere.
“We need to stop,” I croaked out, but it didn’t sound convincing.
We’d broken up six months ago. Why couldn’t my dick get the memo? And how had we gone from talking to locking lips and a hand job over my jeans?
When her hands trailed down my chest to my zipper, I stilled and held her shoulders, breathing heavily. We both were.
“Janice.”
She peered up at me with her emerald-green eyes, and my heart seized. I loved this girl. Well, I’d once loved her—for years, since college. If I could force the love to return, I would. But it wasn’t that way between us anymore. It hadn’t been that way for quite a while now. For the longest time, we had only been together for convenience, the familiarity of knowing each other, the comfort of having someone.
What had really driven a wedge between us was that we wanted different things. And we weren’t the same people we had been back in college.
She huffed and slid back to her seat, arms crossed over her chest and eyes staring out into the street of parked cars in front of us, near her condo.
“We can’t keep doing this,” I panted, trying to catch my breath.
Because we couldn’t. But there was always this push and pull between us. The arguments, the making out, the sex—it all had to stop.
She’d said she had to talk to me—again. And like many times before—too many to count—talking had turned into arguing, which turned into consoling and would end in sex. It was an unhealthy cycle.
I groaned, hating myself for turning down sex with her, but it had to be done. “I don’t want to keep doing this back and forth with you, Janice. It’s not fair to either of us.”
She flipped toward me, eyes narrowed, blazing fire. “Then, don’t do the back and forth. I gave you your ‘break.’” She put the word in air quotes, as though it were a word without backing, like I hadn’t meant it. “And now, it’s officially over.” She nodded, her lips pursing out.
I exhaled and closed my eyes, leaning my head against the headrest. How many times did I have to tell her? We weren’t on a “break.” We were broken up. Done. Forever. For good.
The tipping point had been her pressuring me to get married. I understood that marriage was the natural progression of any couple who’d been together for years. But when I thought of forever with her … well, I couldn’t. That was the problem. I couldn’t picture us together for the long haul, until we were gray and old like my parents.
I couldn’t picture her as a mom. I couldn’t get myself to imagine reciting vows to this woman, unsure if she’d mean it back. In sickness and in health. I’d taken care of her when she was drunk or had a cold, but I couldn’t say I’d received the same treatment. Janice simply was not the nurturing type. She had good qualities, great ones, but none of them included raising a family, which was important to me.
Where I had grown up in a household of brothers and a loving mother whose sole job was taking care of us, Janice had grown up as an only child. Her father and mother worked odd jobs to make ends meet, and Janice was passed from babysitter to babysitter, ones who were neither nurturing nor loving and who saw her simply as a paycheck. This had shaped Janice into the ambitious woman that she was. It was one of her greatest qualities—her ability to always strive for the best, to have more than what her parents had. I should have been flattered because, obviously, she’d picked me, right?
But when I thought about children, of which I wanted many, I couldn’t picture Janice being a mother like I’d had—the one who dried up every tear, kissed every bruise, taught us to be compassionate and that family was of the utmost importance. If I had to pinpoint where our relationship had gone sour, it was not only the marriage pressure, but also the fact that she was unsure if she wanted children.
“If you really want children, we can have one,” she had told me once. “But I’m not the type of woman who needs children to fulfill me.”
And I got that. But I was the type of man who knew that children would fulfill me. With two brothers myself and two nieces I adored, I knew I wanted a big family of my own.
“We’re done, Janice. It’s better. For me. For you.” I turned to face her, and honesty was all I had. “I can’t picture us getting married.”
She opened her mouth to speak, peered up at the ceiling, and blinked back to focus, her voice quieter this time. “If you’re freaking out, then fine, we’ll wait.” Her eyes softened, and then she reached for me, placing a light hand on my forearm. “I love you, Mason. We’ve been through so much together. Are you telling me you’re going to let our history, our past, everything we shared go? Why? For what, baby? Because you’re scared to get married?”
Because I’m scared to marry you. The words rang clear in my head.
It wasn’t because I was afraid of commitment. My parents had been happily married for thirty years. Charles had the happiest marriage out there. Brad was practically on his way down the aisle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he proposed within the next six months. I wanted commitment. I was the until death do us part kind of guy.
“I really have to go,” I said, mentally exhausted from this merry-go-round of emotions.
She practically growled and pushed out her lip, “Fine.”
“We need time apart right now.” My gaze
dropped to the clutch of my Porsche. “I just don’t think we can be friends with everything going on, so it’s better …” I dared to look up at her. Her eyes screamed murder, but I’d take it. I’d take an angry Janice over a crying Janice. “It’s better if we don’t see each other at all.”
She huffed and placed a red-manicured hand on the door handle before shoving it open. She stepped out of the car and then leaned in. “Mason?” she said in the sweetest voice possible.
“Yeah?”
She smiled a vindictive smile. “Fuck you.” Then, she slammed the door shut.
I watched her storm to her condo. Not until after she threw up her middle finger and slipped inside did I let my head rest against the wheel of my car.
I am officially done with all women.
Gabby
It was a late Saturday evening, and I was immersed in grading papers for my eighth grade class, but for the life of me, I couldn’t concentrate. Usually, I’d be out at a salsa club on a Saturday, but I hadn’t been dancing in weeks.
I sat at our kitchen table, which was also our dining room table since we didn’t have a dining room. I was ignoring the noise around me—the coffee machine brewing in the background and the TV sitting on the counter, broadcasting the late-night news.
All I could focus on were the pictures in front of me. Pictures of Mike, my boyfriend—I should clarify, my ex-boyfriend. Pictures that had been sent to me.
Why couldn’t I date a normal guy?
My first boyfriend had been a professional pickpocket. Of course, I hadn’t known this at the time. I’d thought he got paid big bucks at Jack’s Pizza Place, which was why he could afford to buy me a Rolex watch and a Louis Vuitton purse at the tender age of seventeen.
My second serious boyfriend had been a gangbanger. Maybe I should’ve known this since he only wore red—all the freaking time. But I had been dumb and naive and young in love. I still should’ve been smarter.
“Mija, que te preocupa?”
I lifted my head to my mother walking into the room and pushed my math papers over the photos. What’s the matter? Everything.
“Nothing. Just grading papers.” I gave my mother my winning smile, and her eyes narrowed.
“Hmm. This late?” was all she said, moving to the fridge, not believing a word that had spewed out of my mouth. That was Ana Cruz for you. She always knew when something was up.
“Yeah.” I deflected. “What are you doing up?”
She shrugged. “I was hungry.”
“This late?”
She laughed and then sauntered to the fridge, took out a dozen eggs, and moved to the stove. She gave me her all-knowing once-over and retrieved a frying pan from the cabinet.
My mother’s dark brown hair was pulled up into a bun, and the soft lines in between her eyebrows creased.
“Mija, there have been things bothering you. I’ve asked you about Mike, but you won’t tell me what’s wrong. The fact that we haven’t seen him for a month makes me believe you’ve broken up with him.” She cracked an egg on the pan and turned to face me. It was the first time she’d asked me about him, why he hadn’t been around. “Have you?”
“Yes,” I said with finality that I felt in my gut.
She placed both hands on her hips. “What happened? If you can’t tell me what’s wrong, how am I going to help you?”
Her ratty, old nightgown bunched up at her hips. It was her favorite. Though I bought her new ones every year at Christmas, she still wore the same one my father had given to her years ago.
I tidied up the papers in front of me and stuffed them into my laptop bag. “Mama, I’m twenty-six, a grown woman, so don’t worry about me.”
I blew her a kiss for good measure, and she huffed, speaking in Spanish under her breath.
I twisted my hair between my fingertips, and my heartbeat increased in tempo, the way it did after I spent the night salsa dancing. But yet, here I sat, perfectly still.
“I forgot to grab the mail this morning. I’ll grab it now.”
She knew I was avoiding this dreaded conversation, so I didn’t meet her eyes as I stood and walked straight out the back door in my T-shirt and sweatpants.
If I stayed in my mother’s vicinity long enough, her silence would guilt me into telling her. I practically told her everything going on in my life as it was. She was a single mother, which had forced me to be years beyond my actual age, helping her raise my two younger sisters.
I rounded to the front of the house. My hand rested on our mailbox by the curb, and my eyes went to Mr. Garcia’s house, where I could hear him playing “Bailando.” As I listened, my hips moved of their own accord.
Man, I wanted to get back on the dance floor. My mother always told me I’d been born dancing. Even in the womb, I’d danced. I didn’t doubt her. I’d been on my high school dance team and on the cheer squad for my college’s basketball team. Lately, my days were so busy that the only time I ever got to dance was at the salsa clubs with my girlfriends.
Where I lived wasn’t a shithole, but Elgin wasn’t like the area around Preston Elite Academy in Barrington, where I taught. In that prestigious suburb, three of my houses could fit in one of their McMansions. In our neighborhood, homes were modest, and for a family of four, we lived in a decent house. My two younger sisters had to share a room, but that was the worst of it, except one single bathroom among the four women in the household.
My mother had grown up in Mexico, and we heard stories about three whole families sharing a home smaller than the one we lived in now. This was my mother’s dream, this little house that she worked so hard to afford.
And goodness, it was because of her that I was thankful for everything, happy living here in our sweet home. Though I taught in one of the most prestigious areas in the country, I was grateful for what I had and never needed a life of wealth and privilege.
My mother’s favorite saying pushed through. “A house is made of wood and stone, but family is what makes a home.”
And what we did have was family—not only us, but also a whole slew of extended family.
I trekked back to the house and up the stairs, and as soon as I stepped on the landing, I could smell the scent of eggs and sausage and hear laughter bubbling inside. I guessed the girls were awake this late in the evening.
One might think that being twenty-six, I should get a place of my own. But I was helping my two younger sisters through community college, and I didn’t want to live without my mama. Family meant everything to me.
I stepped in, and Martina and Alma were sitting at the kitchen table, cutting up green peppers for the omelet I assumed they wanted Mama to make.
“Something smells good.” I walked toward my mother by the stove and kissed her cheek.
Her brow was furrowed from earlier, and it ate at my insides. When I entered a house, the first thing I had to do was greet all my relatives, besos all around. If not, I’d get an earful, and even though I was an adult, my mother still frightened me.
She’d lived her life, worrying about raising three girls alone, so there was no time for my drama, and it wasn’t her mess anyway.
“Mama, don’t worry.” I patted her shoulder and joined my sisters at the table, chopping up cilantro while the other two finished the peppers.
The television was off, but now, the faint beats of Latin music played in the background, and my mother’s hips swayed with the music. The roots of her hair were gray, peeking out from the brown, and yet she rocked it, wearing her grays like an armor, a testimony to all the hard work and heartache she’d been through.
My father had left us when I turned ten. I remembered the day because I’d watched him walk out the door and my mother break down in tears.
My mother had been through so much, raising three girls by herself and not getting a dime from my deadbeat father, who had left us and started a new family.
We didn’t talk to him anymore. Well, none of us, except Martina, who had a heart of gold and felt sorry for ev
erybody.
How could you feel sorry for someone who couldn’t be bothered to send a support check once in a while? Yeah, no.
“Alma, you’re home?” I asked. Because she was never home, especially on a Saturday night.
“My date for tonight got moved to tomorrow,” Alma singsonged, pushing up her sleeves.
I wanted to lecture her about boys and needing to place school above them, but hell, I’d been there before. Young and free and dating, where heartbreak was frequent.
“What happened to Carl?” Martina said, chopping the green peppers in front of her.
Alma waved a hand, and a pepper flew off her fingers. “Carl was too boring.” She flicked her long, dark bangs from her face. “You should go out with him.”
I pinched her side just as I’d done when she was younger. “She doesn’t want your leftovers.”
Alma smirked. “I meant, they are so alike that they’d get along.”
I pinched her again.
“I meant …” Alma said, blowing the bangs from her face, addressing Martina, “I just meant that you need to get out more.”
Martina rolled her eyes. “Just because I choose to stay in doesn’t mean I’m boring.”
I had to think about it though. When was the last time Martina had gone on a date? I liked to believe that she went on dates but never told us. I huffed under my breath. Yeah, probably not. Where Alma needed to stay in more, Martina never got out enough.
“She’s going out with me next weekend,” I said, piping up, defending her.
