“I’ve seen how he treats you. This is harassment, Had. You said no, and he got mad. This time he hurled obscenities at you. I heard it all the way down the hall. Maybe it’s time to talk to someone in the office about it. I can go with you, if you want. I’ve seen and heard plenty. Or maybe contact someone at the teacher’s association?”
“I feel like that will just make it worse.” If I come clean about the photos, no one is ever going to look at me the same way again. Oh my God, I want to throw up.
“It’ll make what worse, exactly?” When I don’t answer, he shoots out of the chair, pacing the room, his fingers intertwined on top of his head. “Okay, Hadleigh, let’s come at this from another angle. Pretend this didn’t just happen. I’m just a student teacher who wants to know what to do if someone makes advances that I don’t like. As my mentor, you’d tell me I’m supposed to report it. Right?”
“Of course.”
He scratches his head. “I don’t get it. Why are you letting him do this to you? Your girlfriends haven’t said anything to you about him?”
“They don’t like him, but they don’t know how bad it’s gotten. Sawyer, he …” My voice trails off and I slump in my seat. I can’t tell him. I don’t want him to know. Instead, I ask out of frustration, “Why are you being like this?” The last word catches in my throat as I try to stop tears from welling in my eyes.
Taking note of my distress, he sits down again and scoots closer, his voice low and comforting. “Like what?”
How can I explain this to him without telling him everything and humiliating myself? “We weren’t in a good place earlier today, and I’m sorry for that, but it had to do with all this stuff going on.” I wring my hands in front of me. “I’m a hot mess today, completely unprofessional. Yet, you’ve been nothing but kind to me. How are you able to do that?”
“I told you, I have sisters—two of them—and I have Willow. I would never allow them to be treated the way he just treated you.” He studies my features, and I know I’m not fooling him at all. “You’re scared of him. There’s something you haven’t told me. I can see it on your face.”
I never should have trusted Ed to delete those photos of me. I should have made him hand the phone over and done it myself. What a dumb, stupid, irresponsible thing to have let happen. How do I tell Sawyer that another man has nude photos of me? Photos that could be construed as very provocative if cropped the right way. My eyes cast down as shame radiates through me in deep waves.
Crap. Here I stand, dripping wet, and I’ve left my towel on the bed. “Ed?” I raise my voice, hopeful he can hear me through the door of the bathroom. I’d left him watching TV in the bedroom while I’d taken a quick shower, but who knows if he’s fallen asleep.
I give an exasperated sigh, irritated with myself. I step out of the tub onto the bath mat. The soft click of the door opening behind me has me glancing over my shoulder. Ed stands in the doorway. There’s what can only be described as an appreciative gleam in his eyes. “I forgot my towel.” I scoop my wet hair up onto my head, twisting it around and holding it there. “Would you mind grabbing it for me?”
“Your ass is fucking fantastic.” I glance back at him again and realize he’s not only not getting my towel, but he’s propped himself up against the doorway. At the look on Ed’s face, I can tell he couldn’t care less about my towel.
I smirk. “Take a photo, it’ll last longer.”
He chuckles. “I could do that. Like I’m a famous photographer or something, and you’re my model.”
I think nothing of it when he holds his phone up like he’s looking for the best angle to get that perfect shot. I give him a little booty pop and stick my boobs out further, winking at him and playing along.
Click. My face falls. Click. I turn around. Click. “You’re not really taking photos, are you?” I cover my breasts with my forearm and squeeze my legs together, my concern rising the longer he continues to tap at the screen.
Ed just grins. “Of course not.” Click.
“Oh my God, Ed, stop.” I cross the bathroom to him holding my hand up in front of the phone. “Stop. That’s not funny.”
“Come on, baby. Can’t I have a little something for the nights you aren’t here?”
“Ed, I don’t want nude photos of me floating around. Delete them. Now.”
At the look on my face, he finally concedes. “Fine, fine. Deleting now.” He pokes the screen of his phone a few times. “There. They’re gone.”
My brow furrows, taking in his expression. Is he telling me the truth? I can only imagine the shitstorm I’d face if naked photos of me circulated through town. I’d moved here to get away from the stigma of living with a parent who had sown her wild oats the whole time I was growing up. People talk. I don’t want them talking about me. “Did you really delete them?”
He holds up his hands with a chuckle. “Yes. Jeez, babe, calm down. I was just playing.”
My eyes fill. He hadn’t deleted them. He’s been holding them over my head ever since I confirmed after winter break that I didn’t want to date him anymore. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want Sawyer to know. And adding to the mess that is my life … now Ed knows I’m seeing Sawyer.
With a sniffle, I realize I at least need to warn Sawyer about that much. “None of it matters anyway. Don’t you see? Even if I want to talk to someone about what he’s been doing, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because, he knows, Sawyer.” Our eyes connect and lock. “He knows about us.”
Chapter 26
Sawyer
Not only am I sure that fucker is threatening her with exposing the nature of our relationship, I’m fairly certain there is something else at play here, too. Something she’s holding back and keeping from me. Something that has her so freaked out she’s willing to push me away because of it.
At least now I’m confident that her cold shoulder over the weekend had nothing to do with anything I’d done. When I approached the workroom, I’d heard Ed say something about e-mailing the whole school, but I can’t fathom what it could be. I’ve done nothing but worry all day about Hadleigh and whatever Ed is holding over her head.
I’ve got to get her out of here. Away. Help her get her mind off of it. And if she trusts me enough, maybe she’ll eventually tell me just what the hell is going on.
At the end of the school day, we exit the building side by side, and when we get to her car and my truck, I stop her with a hand to her elbow.
She looks at me in surprise, her eyes questioning me. She looks even more exhausted than she had first thing this morning, the strain of the day evident all over her face.
“Let me take you to get something to eat.”
“Oh. You don’t have to do that.” She casts her eyes downward as she absentmindedly kicks at a rock.
“Well, I know I don’t, but I also noticed how you barely picked at your lunch after Ed left. I know you’re still upset. I was just hoping to take you somewhere and get your mind off of everything for a while. We can talk about it. Or not. That’s up to you. But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” She’ll tell me she’s fine if I ask, but her body is tense, her face a complex web of emotions. “Come on. Liberty steak and french fries.” I roll my eyes playfully and poke her in the stomach. “You know you want some.”
That finally does it. She looks up at me and wrinkles her nose. “Liberty steak? Oh! Right. That was from your lesson the other day.” She covers her mouth and laughs. “I guess I could go for a hamburger.”
“Let’s just take one vehicle. I know a great place, but it’s a few miles out of town. Is that okay?”
She nods. “Okay, but I’d like to drop my car off at my place first. I don’t want—”
“Your car left here.” Realization dawns on me. “Did he see your car in the parking lot the other night after we left the bar? Did he see us leave together?” I rub my hand over my cheek. “Is that part of this?”
She nods again. “He texted
me on Saturday about it.”
I blow a sharp breath out through my nose. Things are becoming a little bit clearer. “Okay. No need to draw attention to us, then.” I help her into her car and lean down. “I’ll follow you to your place.”
She gives me a small smile, and I can still see the worry in her eyes. Damned Ed will be lucky if he doesn’t get my foot up his ass for how he was speaking to her and how he continues to upset her.
Quickly, I circle around to my truck. Just before I get in, motion from the gymnasium gets my attention. Ed is standing outside the building with his arms crossed, staring in our direction. I don’t know if Hadleigh saw him there, but I’m not acknowledging him. Given the way he’s still oddly possessive of his ex-girlfriend, I’m sure even seeing her talking to me is going to go over really well. He’d probably flip if he realized I’m about to take her out to dinner. As I climb into my truck, I decide there’s no way I’m mentioning to Hadleigh that he was watching us just now. It’ll only upset her even more.
After we drop her car off, I take Hadleigh to my favorite little country diner not too far outside of town, but far enough away that I don’t recognize anyone. Hadleigh and I sit at a small two-person booth with black upholstered seats and a red tablecloth. A pair of plastic-coated menus rests between us on the table.
I can feel Hadleigh’s leg bouncing a million miles a minute under the table. I sure hope I can help take her mind off of things.
“This is a fun little place. How’d you manage to find it?” Hadleigh’s gaze hasn’t stopped roaming since we got here, taking in each new customer as they walk in. I think she’s worried someone will see us together. It’s just dinner, though. No big deal.
“Willow’s apartment is only like ten minutes from here. We come here sometimes when I don’t want to cook. They have decent burgers and fries, and kick-ass milkshakes.” I tap the back of my menu. “There’s a whole list of flavor combinations. You should get one.”
Once we’ve ordered—two cheeseburgers, two fries, two waters, and one gigantic Oreo-mint milkshake—we talk for a few minutes about when Hadleigh thinks I’ll be ready to take on another class.
Before long, though, we stray into other topics outside of school and teaching.
The waitress drops off our food, and we dig right in. Hadleigh’s leg has finally stopped bouncing, and she looks a little calmer now. She’s busy trying to get ketchup from the bottle onto her plate when I can’t help but bust out one of my favorite little bits of trivia. “Weird history fact. In the 1830s, ketchup was sold as a cure for—what, do you think?”
Hadleigh smirks. “I don’t know. Erectile dysfunction?”
My eyes go really wide as I choke on the water I’d just sipped. I shake my head, alternately coughing and laughing. Okay, she’s definitely feeling a little better. “No. The correct answer is indigestion. An Ohio physician named John Cook somehow thought tomatoes would do the trick. Thanks for almost making me die, though.”
She grins. “No problem. And that’s really weird. Tomatoes are really acidic. They actually give me heartburn sometimes.”
“Right?” I shake my head. “I thought that was a pretty weird one. Maybe that was Dr. Cook’s evil plan, though.”
Hadleigh laughs. “Sounds like Dr. Cook was out to make money off of people who didn’t have brains enough to think about what they were ingesting.”
With a laugh of my own, I say, “I think you may be right.” I pop a fry into my mouth, studying her as she continues to shake ketchup out of the bottle. “Here.” I hold out my hand, and she reluctantly gives it to me. “You have to smack it right here.” I give the bottle a good whack right on the “57” imprinted on the bottle and ketchup flows out.
A slow smile spreads across her face. “How do you know these things? Thank you.”
I shrug. “I pay attention to things I like.”
“And you like ketchup?”
“I do. And I like you.”
She blushes.
“I might more than like you.”
She looks down at the food on her plate for a second. “Sawyer, I’m beginning to think maybe you’re too good for me. Like maybe I’m going to drag you into all of my crap, and you’re going to regret it.”
I wipe my hands on the napkin in my lap. “Why don’t you leave that up to me to decide? Nothing that happened today has scared me away. You and me? We aren’t a mistake. I guarantee it.” I wink at her, and her blush deepens. “So, put that idea right out of your head. I want to know more about you, crap and all.”
She heaves a sigh and drags a few fries through her ketchup, but doesn’t bother to put them in her mouth. “My mom loved the spa package, by the way. Thank you for the suggestion.”
“Good.” I take a big bite of my burger and make it clear with a raise of my brows that I’m waiting for her to continue.
“I don’t think I’ve told you this—I left home just about as soon as I could manage it, right out of high school. I didn’t even stay the summer. I was desperate to be somewhere I wasn’t Karen Beckett’s daughter.”
“Tell me more about her.”
She presses those pretty lips of hers together for a second, and then finally lets it all tumble out. “I love my mom, Sawyer, but she had me really young and raised me alone. It’s almost like she forgot I was her daughter and she was supposed to be taking care of me instead of the other way around. She’d talk to me about all the guys she was dating as if I were her girlfriend or sister. She always picked guys who didn’t treat her right. Real assholes.” She finally eats a few fries while I take another bite of my burger. I want her to keep talking. Her shoulders lift and fall. “It would appear I didn’t get away without inheriting some of her tendencies.” She sighs. “I’d like to learn from my mom’s mistakes, but I fear I haven’t. I seem to surround myself with the wrong people.” She pauses, thinking. “Well, not all of them. My friends are good. You’ve met Zoey, Madison, and Piper. There’s also Sophia and Quinn from the science department.”
I grimace. “Sounds like what you really meant is that you tend to pick the wrong men. That’s what you’re getting at, right?”
She slides her milkshake my way. “Want some?”
“Sure.” I pick up the fountain glass and take a slow sip as I eye her, willing her to answer me. Nope, not happening. “Mm. That’s very good, but are you trying to distract me with your milkshake?”
“No. I just don’t know what to say about it. The evidence would imply that yes, I pick the wrong men. That I’m a poor judge of character.” She plays with her napkin for a second, thinking. She visibly swallows. “I’ve never admitted this before … but maybe I choose men I know it won’t work out with because I don’t think I deserve better.”
I raise my brows. “Wow, okay.” I stop to think for a second, wondering if she thinks I’m one of those guys that she thinks it won’t work out with. Studying her, I chew on the inside of my mouth. “Hadleigh, I hope you don’t think I’m like these other assholes you’ve dated. In fact, I promise you I’m not. I’d like to think I’m the right one for you. And maybe there’s some hard stuff happening right now, but we’ll figure it out.” I reach out and grab one of her hands where it rests on the table. “You deserve everything. Every. Fucking. Thing. No matter what, whether it’s me or someone else. Hadleigh, you deserve to be happy.”
She nods and draws in a ragged breath. She’s blinking a lot, and I think she’s trying hard not to let her emotions get the best of her. “I’d started to think I’d never find anyone who actually cared about me, so thank you for saying that. And now that I’ve found you …” She gets a little choked up, and her voice trails off.
Her emotional torment causes me physical pain; my chest is so tight I can hardly breathe. I squeeze her hand in mine, urging her to finish her thought.
She looks up at me, her eyes glassy. “I’m very worried about what Ed’s next move is going to be. He’s still oddly possessive of me when he has no right to be and seems to want
to see me hurting if he can’t have me.”
“I’ll admit I’m curious about why you started dating him in the first place.” I brush my knee against hers under the table, and her eyes meet mine as she sips on her milkshake.
“Let’s just say he was nice until he wasn’t. He shows this person who is a charismatic, fun-loving guy to everyone at school, but he’s much different one-on-one. And now that he knows about us? You saw him. He’s pissed. I’m just waiting for him to say something about us to someone and really cause us trouble.” She heaves a deep sigh.
I look down for a second and pick at a stray thread on the tablecloth before I catch her eye. I don’t want her to see how ticked off I am that he’s doing this to her or that I’m about two seconds from jumping out of my seat and going after this guy. I’d be happy to put an end to it once and for all by putting my fist in his smug fucking face.
Instead of doing that, though, I keep my cool and give Hadleigh a chance to see that she’s not the only one who makes mistakes. No one is perfect or has a perfect relationship. “You know, I didn’t exactly pick a winner for my last girlfriend, either.” I let it hang there for a second, watching the questions flicker over her face. “The reason Willow wanted to meet you the other night was because of Tara, the girl I dated before you. Willow spent a lot of time picking me up and helping me not feel like a total failure after Tara was finished with me.”
“What happened with her? I didn’t know if I should ask you about her when Willow brought her up the other night.”
“We dated for most of last year, and then I found out she’d been playing the field while I thought we were exclusive.” I sigh. “I trusted her, and I guess I shouldn’t have.”
“Isn’t that the normal thing to do, though? In a relationship, I mean?” She shrugs. “Not that I’m a great judge of what a relationship should be like. But shouldn’t it mean there is a certain level of trust there?”
Fight for You (Flirting with Forever Book 2) Page 14
