by Susan Stoker
Marcy is a fight for another day because if she doesn’t hurry, I’m going to be late.
“Justin’s teacher is in room 114. When was your appointment?”
“Twelve fifteen.”
“And you’re already late.”
“Thank you,” I say instead of reminding her that jumping through hoops in a school that has an average of twelve students in each grade is ridiculous.
The familiar yet spicy scent of the hallway as I leave the office is as good as fresh air compared to the tainted, allergy-infested air of the front office.
Traveling familiar halls doesn’t bring a sense of nostalgia because I’m late. I hate being late more than anything.
I breathe in with a sense of relief as I put the weird day behind me.
That is until I find room 114 and discover the girl who broke my ability to flirt sitting behind the desk.
When I open the door and her eyes meet mine, I try again.
She slowly blinks at my teasing smile, and it immediately puts me off-kilter.
Yep, still broken.
“You’re not Mrs. Eaton.”
She frowns further. “Is that another weight joke?”
I want to reach for my phone and swipe through the emails to find the right teacher’s name. I pick my nephew up from school most days because my sister works a later shift and can’t take off. As a professor at Lindell University, I don’t have an afternoon class. Justin started the year with a Mrs. Eaton. I know this for a fact because I attended meet the teacher, and that woman loved me.
“His…” I point to my phone as if she can read my mind. “Justin’s teacher’s name is Mrs. Easton.”
“Was.”
“Huh?”
“Was. Mrs. Easton took a leave of absence to tend to a sick family member. I’m McKenna Kaiser, her replacement for the remainder of the year. You’re here for Justin Alexander?”
I shake my head, trying to refocus my attention on her words rather than the shiny lips producing them.
“Kalen Alexander,” I tell her, approaching and holding my hand out.
She looks down at my proffered hand but doesn’t reach for it.
“With the display in the hallway and your lack of listening skills, I can see where Justin gets it from. Please have a seat, Mr. Alexander. We have a lot to discuss, and you’re already ten minutes late.”
I obey the best I can, but folding myself into the tiny, blue chair is nearly impossible.
“Let’s talk about Justin catcalling the little girls on the playground, shall we?”
2
Kalen
“What did you do to that girl?” I ask, my eyes on the paperwork on the podium.
“Nothing,” he grumbles. “She hates me for no good reason.”
“Women don’t hate people for no reason,” I assure him. “You did something, Collins.”
I look up at my younger cousin, a smirk on my face. This wouldn’t be the first time the guy has angered a woman. It’s a family trait. After what happened at the elementary school last week, I’d say the legacy continues.
“I swear,” he hisses. “I’ve tried to talk to her a hundred times, and she just turns her nose up at me. Most days, she stares right through me as if I never opened my mouth.”
“Immune to your charms?” I chuckle, feeling a little wounded myself. Damn McKenna Kaiser and her pretty eyes, perfect mouth, and sultry voice. “How does that make you feel?”
His eyes travel back to the very end of the first row in my classroom. Oakleigh Guthrie, a junior here at Lindell University, is focused on her notes, and I don’t miss the fact that every other woman in the classroom has their sights set on us, or more specifically my cousin, Collins Alexander.
Many people don’t know he’s Linnie the Lemur, the small town university’s infamous mascot, and that’s by design. His contract—connected to his full-ride scholarship—with the school requires that his identity is kept a secret, a source of irritation for him because he wants everyone to know he’s the guy in the costume that has had more viral online videos than can be counted.
“Move on from her then.”
“I can’t. She’s—” His eyes scrape up her body from the no-nonsense Chucks on her feet to the pile of hair on top of her messy head. “She’s perfect.”
I shake my head.
“And she doesn’t know you exist.”
“You’re one to talk,” he says, shoving me in the shoulder.
I cock an eyebrow and glare at him. “You can’t do that here. Everyone in this room just witnessed you shoving a teacher. I’m a freaking professional.”
His grin grows at my growl, his eyes darting around the room. It’s as if he’s just now noticing the other twenty people or so in the room looking at him. He’s no stranger to attention, and it’s clear he doesn’t normally pay it any mind.
“You’re one to talk,” he hisses, his head and voice lowered now that he realizes we’re not the only two privy to this conversation.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I may be hot for Oakleigh, but you’re hot for teacher.”
Suddenly, the paperwork on the podium becomes insanely interesting. I should’ve known people were already talking. I wouldn’t doubt that Marcy saw and heard my bumbling attempt to flirt with McKenna and spread it all over town. It would explain the looks I keep getting at Brew and Chew when I go in for my morning cup of coffee.
“Have you even spoken with her?” he prods.
“I have class, Mr. Alexander. Can you please take your seat so we can get started?”
With his back fully facing the classroom, he stares at me as if he’s a barrier to the focused eyes in the room. “You haven’t, have you, Mr. Alexander?”
I grind my teeth, not entirely annoyed with him, but getting there quickly. Getting shot down is one thing. Getting shot down and the entire town hearing about it is another.
“You see her every day,” he reminds me.
I don’t need the reminder. Picking up my nephew is now the highlight of my day. So, what if I’m a little tortured by his new teacher supervising the car pickup line?
“Do you get tongue tied at the sight of her? Does she make butterflies swim in your little belly?” he teases.
Yes and yes. More specifically, I stare straight ahead when I sense her looking in my direction because I’ve never put my foot in my mouth so quickly before.
“No,” I lie.
“Yeah, right.”
I want to grab him by his shirt collar when he turns to walk away, thinking he got the last word.
“At least she talks to me!” I say a little too loud to his back. I mean, she did during the parent/teacher conference, and that has to count for something, right? “That’s more than you can say about, Oak—”
When I feel my cousin’s crush snap her eyes up at me, I slam on the brakes.
Didn’t I just tell that idiot I’m a professional?
That’s the bad thing about teaching at my hometown college. I know half the people I’m tasked with teaching. They’ve heard the stories of how wild I was in high school and then again attending this very college. They know a litany of things no student should know about their instructors, especially if the instructor expects to be respected in his field.
Collins glares at me as he takes his seat in the fourth row back, but when Oakleigh flips her hair over her shoulder to start taking notes for class, he forgets all about me. If he thinks I’m going to keep emailing notes from class because he’s too busy staring at her, he’s wrong.
I shove thoughts of McKenna away as best I can and begin class. It’ll only be a few more hours until I can pretend I don’t see her outside of the school.
“He did it twice again yesterday,” my sister Kristina says as she stirs macaroni and cheese on the stove.
My eyes turned to my nephew, Justin. “Seriously, dude?”
A five-year-old little boy just looks at me, a lost expression on his face,
and shrugs his tiny shoulders.
“We talked about this, man. You can’t be grabbing your junk on the playground at school.”
“Maybe if you wouldn’t—”
I turn to glare at my sister. “I don’t grab my junk. That’s something that Collins would do, not me.”
“Collins doesn’t come around very often. If he’s acting like that at school, he gets it from you.”
I turn my attention back to Justin. “Who have you seen grabbing their junk?”
My nephew, focused on the small pile of Legos in front of him, shrugs again.
“Are you listening to me? Don’t do that sh-stuff anymore.” I think I’ve grown out of dick grabbing as a response to something I didn’t like in high school.
“Just because you have a crush on my teacher doesn’t mean that I can act any differently at school.”
My eyes narrow. “I do not have a crush on your teacher.”
The little five-year-old scoffs, a sarcastic sound making my hackles go up. It’s bad enough that I go to the Brew and Chew and get stared at now, but now I have to deal with this shit at home to?
Kristina laughs. “Really?”
“Don’t even pretend you haven’t heard about what happened at the parent/ teacher conference,” I mutter.
“Oh, I heard, but it was because Ms. Kaiser called me.”
“Called you?” I look around the room for my sister’s phone. If that beauty called, then her phone number is now accessible.
“She didn’t feel like you were paying attention. He can’t keep getting into trouble in school, Kalen. I don’t want my son to be that kid in class.”
“He’s not that kid,” I argue. “He has a personality. You don’t want him to be a drone.”
“I went to the corner store and Marlene asked me if I’d gotten a handle on Justin’s filthy mouth.” She turns to glare at me.
It’s my turn to shrug, but Kristina isn’t going to give me the leeway we both give to Justin.
“What? He’s sneaky. I can’t help it if he’s always lurking around, listening to adult conversations. He should be in trouble, not me.”
“You should be more aware,” she reminds me—a conversation we’ve had many times in the last two years that they’ve lived with me. “It’s bad enough that—”
Her eyes dart to Justin who seems like he’s fully concentrating on the Legos, but we both know better. Her voice becomes a low whisper that even I have trouble hearing.
“He’s already the kid who doesn’t have a dad. I don’t want him to be alienated further.”
Justin has a dad. I mean, obviously. Kristina at twenty-six years old didn’t go to a sperm bank to be impregnated. According to the rumors that fly around town, that happy occurrence happened in the back seat of Kyle Lingram’s Dodge Charger. The guy was always a douche growing up, and that didn’t change the day Kristina told him he was going to be a father. It took the man less than a month to disappear from Lindell, and he hasn’t been seen since.
“He does just fine,” I remind her. “He’s the most popular boy in his class.”
I’ve witnessed this—all the other kids waiting for parents in the pickup line waving at him as he climbs in my truck.
“Aren’t you going out?”
I cock an eyebrow. “Trying to get rid of me already?”
She does that hand on her hip thing, very similar to the way McKenna did it days ago in the school hallway, and it makes me wonder if this is something girls are taught early in life to display their annoyance.
I raise my hands in surrender, knowing a grumpy sister has the ability to make my life a living hell.
“I’m going.” I shoot her a wink. “Don’t wait up.”
“Get it, Uncle Kalen.” Looking over, I find Justin dancing like a fool, hip thrusts included.
I laugh of course, because it’s hilarious to see my forty pound nephew swinging his hips around, but Kristina growls at him.
“Go get washed up for dinner,” she tells him, exhaustion in her tone.
My laughter dies on my lips when I open the front door to find none other than McKenna Kaiser with her hand raised as if she was about to knock.
Play it cool, Kalen. This is your second chance.
“Funny seeing you here.”
Not my best, but definitely not my worst.
I still scrunch my nose up, hating that this girl has the power to fluster me so badly.
“Mr. Alexander,” she snips, but I don’t miss the way her eyes trail over my bicep that flexes when I lean into the doorframe. I’m hoping for a casual approach, but when her eyes meet mine again, I just feel like an idiot.
“McKenna,” I purr, but she doesn’t grin with the way her name rolls off my tongue.
“I’m here to see, Kristina,” she says, making it apparent she’s ready to see the end of me.
I search her eyes. This girl isn’t playing hard to get. I encounter that on occasion, women who spend too much time gossiping with others in town. They form an opinion of me quickly, but the charm and good looks eventually win them over.
God, even in my head I sound like a complete douchebag.
McKenna Kaiser isn’t one of those women. I don’t impress her at all. No games, no hint that I should try harder, just flat out leave me alone, I don’t have time for you.
“She’s in the kitchen,” I mutter as I step to the side.
If she paused walking into the house, if she tilted her head the slightest fraction, I’d stick around and try my luck, but she doesn’t. Getting shot down for a third time by this woman would be too much of a blow to my ego.
So, I close her inside, grumbling the entire way to my truck, and go about my night.
3
Kalen
I growl at my best friend, pausing only to take a long pull from my beer.
It only makes him laugh harder.
“Remind me why we’re friends again?”
He grins around the mouth of his own beer. “Slim pickings.”
There’s probably more truth to that than he knows. Lindell is small, despite the atmosphere of The Hairy Frog. Being the only bar in town, it pulls not only the locals but students from the college as well. There are probably more people in here tonight than the population listed on the city limits sign.
It’s Friday night, and that means the place is pulsing with music and people having a good time. The energy surrounding me would normally be enough to draw me in, make me smile and want to dance.
I’ve had the requisite three beers needed to get me on the dance floor, but my mood has been sour since leaving McKenna—sexy as hell, but unreasonable—Kaiser inside my house.
Adam thinks the entire situation is hilarious, but he’s been bouncing between beer and shots tonight so everything is funny to him right now.
“So, she shot you down. Get over it.”
“I’m over it,” I hiss.
More laughter bubbles out of his throat. If I weren’t unwilling to listen to him go on and on about my mood for the next month, I’d walk out of here. I mean, I can’t go home because McKenna is there, but I could go sit and sulk at the local park until Sheriff Hodson threatened to call my mom as if I’m an unruly teen rather than a thirty-two-year-old man.
“You know what I always say.” He grins wide. “The best way to get over one woman is to get under another.”
Adam pulls off his cowboy hat, swirling it around his head like he’s riding a bronco. Several cheers from across the bar encourage him, but I look away when he starts smacking his jean-clad ass with his free hand. Idiots encouraging idiots.
“So why don’t you try that?”
“Can’t I enjoy my beer in peace?”
“Or,” he waggles his eyes brows comically, “you could go see what that fine specimen is drinking and offer to buy her another.”
I shake my head, not even bothering to look in the direction he’s indicating. There’s too great of a chance that whomever he’s pointing at is a college studen
t. Lindell is already a small pond, and one I refuse to go fishing in. I’m not taking the chance that I end up getting lucky with a woman only for her to direct me to the damn college dorms at the end of the night when I take her home. I like my job and hooking up with a student is the quickest way to get a foot in my ass.
We may be less than an hour away from Austin, but no night of fun is worth that daily drive.
“Look,” he urges, physically taking my head in his hands and turning it in the direction of the bar.
And God, do I look, because it’s not a college student standing at the bar with a wide grin, her perfect lips circling the straw sticking out of her fruity drink. It’s McKenna. Her long blonde hair shines in the soft overhead lighting as she talks with another women I’ve never seen around town.
“See?” Adam prods. “Now go buy her a drink. Twenty bucks says you can get her in your truck in less than an hour.”
I growl, the sound rumbling from deep in my chest. “Don’t.”
The single word means don’t objectify her. Don’t imply that she’s easy. Don’t look at her. Just… don’t.
“Noooo,” he hisses, his eyes darting between me and the gorgeous woman at the bar. He must not be drinking at the same rate as me because he has caught on way too quickly for my taste. “That’s her?”
I don’t justify his question with an answer. I simply turn my beer up to my mouth. My skin feels like it’s on fire with her being so close.
“Shit, man. Now I see what the fuss is all about.” I turn to face him, forcing him to stand on his tiptoes to see over my shoulder. “She’s hot as hell. How many times have you imagined gripping a handful of that hair and—”
I shove him back before he gets too far into the hip thrusts very similar to what Justin was doing earlier tonight.
