Her Imaginary Husband (Contemporary Romance)

by Lia London

  “Yeah.” Nikki rubbed circles on Janna’s back. “Like I said, behave yourself for the next little bit, and I’ll introduce you to Charlie.”

  “He’s a good guy, huh?” Janna pulled back and dabbed at her eyes.

  “I want to marry someone just like him when I grow up,” said Nikki with a wink.

  23~Friday the 13th

  Two weeks had passed since Halloween, and Nikki started to feel like life had settled into a comfortable routine. She got her car replaced, and she bought some more comfortable shoes. Both Will and Amanda behaved themselves better than ever, and she still shared a daily apple with Officer Ross, no longer worrying who her secret admirer might be. David Pembroke’s grade had stabilized thanks to Sammi, and Robert had published an article in the local newspaper. Life was as it should be.

  And then a brawl took place right outside of Nikki’s classroom during lunch. A crowd gathered, and limbs were flying. She was pretty sure girls were at the center of the commotion, but a burly boy’s fist swung wide and almost caught her in the ear.

  “Hey, break it up!” she yelled. No one noticed. “Yo! Teacher here! Stop fighting!”

  One of the spectators gave her a venomous look. “Back off!”

  Nikki snapped into her indignant teacher mode, a cocky look on her face, and her hands on her hips. “Excuse me? Step aside. I am a teacher!” She held up her lanyard ID.

  Nothing.

  The fight continued, so Nikki decided on a different tactic and took off running to the main office. Half way down the hall, she saw Mr. Geoffreys. Grabbing his arm, she said, “Hurry. Come with me. Cat fight.”

  He stopped and looked at her with a paternal smile. “Now, Nikki. You can handle that just fine.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “But you’re a teacher.”

  “Tell that to them.” She tried to drag him forward. “They think I’m one of them.”

  “That never happens to me.”

  Nikki turned a get-serious look on him. “That’d be because (a) you’re the principal; (b) you’re a foot taller than I am; (c) you’re a man.” And (d) you’re bald. “You’re obviously not a student. You have to come stop them!”

  Mr. Geoffreys lifted an appeasing hand and trotted after her through the student traffic. They rounded the corner into the fray just as Officer Ross was lifting one of the fighters. A moment later the other one stood—with a bloody lip and blue hair.

  “Amanda!” gasped Nikki.

  “Ms. F!” Her eyes darted to Mr. Geoffreys and then back to Nikki with dismay. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Miss Zane, come with me!” barked Mr. Geoffreys, his jovial face morphing into his official boss mode. He turned to Nikki. “You may safely assume Amanda will no longer be in your class, Ms. Fallon. You won’t have to deal with her anymore.”

  “No, wait. I didn’t know—” Gaaak! I’m finally getting along with her! Nikki reached after Amanda, who looked back over her shoulder in tears.

  “Ms. F, I’m sorry!”

  “Amanda, I…” Nikki’s hands fell helplessly to her side.

  Officer Ross escorted the other combatant down the hall after Mr. Geoffreys, leaving Nikki feeling powerless in the hall as the crowd dispersed.

  No. I don’t want Amanda out of my class for something that had nothing to do with me. She took off down the hall, weaving in and out of the students. A whistle pierced the air. “Hey! No running in the halls!”

  Nikki spun around. “Will, it’s me!”

  An alarmed smile lit his face and he moved swiftly to join her. “Where’s the fire?”

  “Amanda Zane just got in a fight, and now Geoffreys is about to pull her from my class.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m the one who reported it, except I didn’t know it was her!”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Nikki rolled her eyes and headed for the office. “It’s a long story. But I don’t want her out of my class. We were just starting to make some real progress.”

  Will held open the office door for her. “Maybe I can help.” He strode up to the counter and gave Katie his winning smile. “Is boss in there with Amanda?”

  “Yep. And Tiffany.”

  Justin burst into the office, distraught. “Ms. F, have you seen Amanda? I heard she and Tiffany—”

  “In there,” said Nikki, cocking her head at the closed door of the principal’s office.

  “Oh man, this is all my fault.” He squeezed his face between his palms. “They were fighting over me.”

  “What?” Will barely masked his amusement.

  “Is Tiffany your ex-girlfriend?” asked Nikki.

  “Yeah. She’s been giving Amanda a really hard time.”

  Will slid around the counter. “So this really had nothing to do with Ms. F?”

  “What? No!”

  Will knocked on Mr. Geoffreys’ door. Winking at Nikki, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him about not taking her out of your class. She’s been telling me she likes you now.” He gestured at Justin. “You take care of loverboy there.”

  Nikki’s heart filled with gratitude. The door opened and Ross poked out his head. He and Will whispered for a moment, and then Will entered and Ross came out.

  “Ah, there you are, Ms. Fallon,” he said.

  “What’s up in there?”

  Katie glanced at Ross. “Ooh, that’s not your pretty face.”

  His lips pressed in a thin line. “I was coming to find you when I bumped into the fight. Isn’t your new car white, Ms. Fallon?”

  Nikki’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. Why do you ask? What’s going on with Amanda?”

  “Did you park in your usual spot?”

  Katie crossed her arms and leaned on her desk. “Why the inquisition, Ross? What happened?”

  He looked to Nikki. “You got a minute? I think you’re going to want to see this.”

  Nikki hesitated. “But Amanda—”

  “Mr. Carlin’s explaining,” he said, all business-like. “Come along.”

  “Can Justin stay until they get it all resolved?” asked Nikki.

  Katie gave a thumbs up, and Justin plopped into a hard plastic chair to wait.

  Moments later, Nikki stared in disbelief at the obscenities etched on her driver side door. “But…this isn’t even addressed to me,” she said.

  “Nope. Obviously someone thinks Lisa Barley drives this car and is after her boyfriend.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “So this is a new…decoration?” he confirmed.

  “It wasn’t there this morning.” Nikki blinked back a tear. “This has been a day. A real Friday the 13th, you know?”

  “Everything going wrong?”

  A tear slid down her nose. “Everything.”

  In one smooth move, Ross retrieved a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her tear away.

  Nikki grasped his hand in both of hers and choked back a sob. “Where’s your white steed, Officer?” she asked, laughing weakly. “You’re so gallant. Surely you have a damsel waiting for you in a high tower somewhere?”

  He reached into his pocket for his notebook. “No such luck,” he said. “Come on, let’s get the report filed.”

  “Yeah,” she said, tracing the scratches with her finger. “My insurance is going to go through the roof.”

  “Why don’t you ask Doug to take a look at it?”

  “You really think he could do something?”

  Ross brushed his fingers over the vandalism. “It’s not very deep. He might be able to buff it out. You’re lucky it’s white. He’s been touching up Mrs. Woo’s car. He might have some paint left, if it’s a match.”

  Nikki hurried back into the building and down to Doug’s lair. He had just promised to look at it after lunch when the end-of-lunch bell rang. “Oh crud. I’ve gotta go!” I didn’t even get to eat yet! Squeezing Doug’s arm affectionately, she turned and ran up the stairs. On the second to last step, her foot slipped and sh
e landed hard, scraping her shin and hitting her funny bone. Instead of rising to run, she crumpled into the railing and cried.

  A kind arm surrounded her shoulders, and she turned to accept a hug. “Oh, Doug. This has been the worst day ever.”

  “Doug?”

  The smell of Will’s cologne brought Nikki abruptly back to business, and she pulled back.

  “You okay?” he asked. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” she said, swiping the back of her hand over her cheeks.

  “Tears aren’t ‘nothing’,” he said. “Tell Coach all about it.”

  “I can’t, Will. I’m late.” She hesitated. “How’d it go with Geoffreys?”

  “I think he’ll let her stay…after she comes back from suspension for fighting.”

  “That girl is never going to graduate.”

  “She will. Just like David Pembroke. You’re doing a great job, Nikki.”

  “Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Nikki slid into her classroom with the last three stragglers and made a show of chatting with them so that they were all late together.

  

  Just as Nikki was about to go find Officer Ross to fill out the paperwork about the vandalism, she got a call on her classroom phone from an angry parent who wanted to know why her son’s standardized tests scores were so abysmal. Try as she might to assure the woman that the scores would not affect his grade and that there was no reason to be hostile, the woman railed on, calling Nikki “incompetent”, “frivolous” and “not as good as Mr. Dustin.”

  Nikki finally gave up and let the woman rage while she dabbed at her runny nose and dripping eyes with the last of her Kleenex. As she sat mumbling placating syllables, Amanda and Justin entered, clearly wanting to say something about the fight. Nikki pantomimed that she was trapped on the phone. As soon as they saw her tears, they backed away and whispered with each other. Nikki leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed and listened to the Chihuahua bark in her ear, willing the day to end. When she glanced up, Justin and Amanda were picking up wrappers and straightening the desks.

  Their timely kindness knocked the last of her composure, and she burst into tears, hanging up even as the woman still spoke.

  “Did you just hang up on someone?” asked Amanda, astonished and amused.

  “She won’t notice for another five minutes,” said Nikki. “Guys, thanks so much! You have no idea how much I needed that today.”

  Justin gave her a half-smile. “We know about bad days.”

  “I guess you do.” She sighed. “So, what’s the verdict, Amanda?”

  The girl ran both hands through her blue hair and frowned. “I’ll be back in another two weeks. I’m so sorry, Ms. F. I tried to keep it together.”

  “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble, Amanda. I just saw a fight…”

  “I know. I don’t blame you. I do need my assignments, though.” She smiled. “I don’t want to fall behind.”

  Wow. That’s huge. “That’d be awesome.” She grabbed her lesson plan book and began writing the next assignments on a post-it.

  Amanda sighed. “Maybe your day will pick up, too.” Her eyes caught movement at the door. “Yeah, I think it will.”

  “Oh?” Nikki handed her the post-it. “Grab a class copy of the text. I’ll have Justin send you more next week.”

  “Okay.”

  “Amanda,” said Nikki gently. “Fresh start. You can start with a clean slate when you get back—in my book, anyway—and finish strong.”

  Amanda nodded and tugged Justin out the door just as Will entered carrying a small bouquet of flowers. He shut the door behind him. “Hey there,” he said, his voice husky and his gaze curious. “Things going any better?”

  “Yeah. Kids can sure surprise you sometimes with how thoughtful they are.”

  He held the bouquet of bright carnations up to his nose and peeked over them playfully. Affecting a younger voice, he said, “Hi teacher! I got these for you to cheer you up.”

  Nikki accepted the flowers. “Thanks, Will. They’re beautiful.” She giggled. “You get an A for the day.” I needed this.

  His eyes flashed with eagerness before settling back to concern. “I heard about your car.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Doug,” he said, shrugging. “He’s keeping it over the weekend, huh?”

  “Yeah. I hope he’s the miracle worker everyone says he is.”

  “He is.”

  Nikki threw her wad of Kleenex in the trashcan. “I forgot about a ride home, and Janna works—”

  “I can take you home.” He took a step back. “Unless you’re going to call your husband for a ride?”

  Nikki ground her teeth. “He won’t be able to come.”

  “So…”

  I’ve just had the worst day of the year. I can let someone be nice to me. “So, I’d be very grateful for a ride. Let me just get the paperwork signed with Officer Ross, and we can go.”

  Thirty minutes later, Nikki fought back tears as Will opened the door to his car for her. The damage to her door was probably going to ruin her insurance rates, not to mention the cost of the deductible, recently raised because of the accident a few weeks ago. More work waited for her at home, but no one to hold her and tell her it would all be okay.

  “Hanging in there?” asked Will.

  “Do you really want to know?” She dabbed at her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.

  He paused with his hand on the key in the ignition. “Do you need to go home right away?”

  Nikki shrugged miserably. “Nothing else to do. I’ve got a ton of essays to read and laundry to fold and bills to pay.”

  “Can you play hookie for a couple of hours? Just go play? You look like you need a break from life right now.”

  Nikki met his eyes, touched by his tender tone. “It’s been a day, for sure.”

  “If you didn’t have to be responsible right now, what would you do?”

  She sniffed and tossed her hands in the air. “Uh, go to a sunny beach and read a book.”

  Will smiled warmly. “Okay, something closer?”

  Nikki looked at him again. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  She looked out through the windshield and shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe take in a funny movie. Take my mind off stuff for a bit.”

  “I can drop you off at the cinema downtown.”

  Nikki laughed. “With all my stacks of papers? I don’t think so.”

  “Oh yeah.” He turned the key and adjusted the blasting volume of his stereo to a more tolerable decibel.

  “Whoah! You like your music loud, huh?”

  “You know us football coaches. We’re all deaf from all the noise at games.” He pulled out of the parking lot heading down the street towards the main drag that ran though the center of town and out to Rakefield.

  Nikki leaned back into the seat, half-listening to the love song on the radio and wishing she could just take Christmas vacation a month early. I told Nikki and Amanda they could start fresh. What about Will? He’s being so kind. Maybe he started over... She caught Will glancing at her sideways and admired his features as casually as she could. Through the window beyond him, she saw the cinema complex. She huffed out a breath and made a decision. “Go ahead and drop me off at the movie.”

  Will’s eyebrows leapt. “Really?”

  “Yeah, I’ll stick around for the next showing of Two Men and a Waffle.”

  “You’re kidding. Not Vandals for Hire?” Will cast her an inquisitive smirk. “You’re not kidding. All right, then.” He switched lanes abruptly, preparing to enter the cinema parking lot. “How will you get home?”

  “Oh.” Nikki felt deflated.

  “I could come back for you.”

  Nikki rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to do that, you might as well stay and watch…” She caught herself too late.

  “Would you like me to?”

  Ugh. If I say no, I’ll seem
like a total user jerk. He’s being nice, after all. “Oh, surely you don’t want to. You can go get stuff done, and I’ll call my friend when she gets off work.”

  “I don’t mind. It’ll be fun.” He parked the car and turned to grin at her. “Let it be my treat? Consider it an offset to your upcoming body shop expenses.”

  Nikki looked at him steadily. Too many conflicting emotions burbled inside of her, and she didn’t trust herself to act rationally in her current state. “This is not a date, Will.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  “Not a date.”

  “I know. I’m just treating a friend and colleague to a much-needed break from reality.”

  Nikki looked down at the tall stack of essays on the floor by her feet. “What the heck. Let’s see what time it starts.” I must be crazy. “How am I going to explain this if anyone sees us?”

  “No one will see us.”

  “This isn’t a date, Will. You understand that, right?”

  “Of course not. I won’t even buy you popcorn.”

  “Good.”

  They sat in front of a row of college aged kids who were laughing and sending last minute texts. Nikki knocked her knees together nervously, feeling like a teenager who had snuck out of her bedroom window while grounded. What am I doing? What am I doing? She took a long drink from her Dr. Pepper. I’m going out to a movie with a hunky colleague who has been nice to me all day. He’s been awesome, in fact. I’m a full-grown adult. There’s nothing wrong with that. She crammed a handful of popcorn in her mouth. And if he tries anything? She gulped and tried to ignore his cologne. He won’t try anything. Will he? She ventured a glance and found him watching her. Oh, crud. I hope he doesn’t try anything.

  The lights dimmed as the last moviegoers entered. A very tall couple planted themselves right in front of Nikki so that she had to lean towards Will in order to see. She propped herself on her elbow and listed as far as she dared without actually touching shoulders with him. He smiled at this, his eyes hinting at a wolf.

  Dang, he smells good. Dang, he smells good. She closed her eyes and willed her senses to stop firing messages to her brain, but instead they registered his nearness, his strength, his—