by Terra Wolf
“Stay close, and remember to look both ways before you cross the street,” I told my troops. Then I lead us out of the park and across the crosswalk.
We were about halfway down the next block and I was just about to glance back again to check on my students, but before I got the chance I heard the familiar sound of Harper squealing. I immediately twirled around and my eyes dart to Harper’s spot in the line, but she wasn’t there anymore. There was an empty spot in the line where Harper was supposed to be. Her partner was standing alone, hand empty, staring to the side.
I jerked my head in the direction that she was staring, and I was immediately relieved when my eyes find Harper. Her nose is pressed onto the glass window of a small cafe.
“Look!” she squealed, hammering her little fist against the window, “It’s Uncle Benjamin!”
I glanced through the window and sure enough, I saw Benjamin sat directly on the other side of the glass. For a split second, my heart started to hammer in my chest, filling with the usual giddy excitement that I felt anytime I was near Benjamin.
That excitement quickly dies when I saw that Benjamin was sharing a table at the cafe with a woman. A busty, blonde, beautiful woman.
My mind couldn’t help but race back to all the gossip sites and tabloid stories I found on Google the other day. To the countless pictures of Benjamin with blonde actresses and models and professional party girls. I felt my heart stutter in my chest, straining with strange, undefined shock.
Before I could fully process what I was witnessing, Harper lurched towards the cafe doors, throwing them open and leapt into the restaurant. I glanced back at Polly who, through a look of wide-eyed horror, gave me an affirmative nod to follow Harper inside.
I thought my heart might burst out of my chest from how hard it was pounding as I pulled open the cafe door and stepped inside.
Harper had already made it across the cafe to Benjamin, and she stood at the edge of his table with her arms wrapped around him in a hug. His eyes flicked up as I shuffled towards the table, and I saw the panic in his face. I wasn’t supposed to be here; we weren’t supposed to be here.
My eyes moved across the table, to his ‘date.’ I could see her better now than I could through the glass. Up close, I saw how the thick paint of her makeup looked garish and greasy, packed into the crevices of her face. I saw the dark brown roots sprouting up like specks of pepper sprinkled through her crunchy head of thin, brittle salon-blonde hair. I saw the strain of her bra, working overtime to hoist her giant fake tits up to her chin.
And somehow, even though she was hideous and fake and oozing with desperation, I felt somehow inadequate. Was this what Benjamin wanted? Because if it was, well, how could I ever compete? I did not have the caked on makeup, the fake blonde hair, the acrylic nails, the tits. And even though I found her repulsive, I felt suddenly self-conscious in my khaki pants and Vivatin Day sweater.
I was just plain old Lia Lewis. I was just a pre-school teacher.
“What are you doing here?” Benjamin asked Harper, refusing to meet my eyes.
“We’re on a field trip,” I answered for her. “To the library. We were just walking past, when Harper spotted you through the window--”
“You can come with us!” Harper told Benjamin joyfully.
“I wish I could,” he said, ruffling Harper’s hair affectionately. “But I’ve got to work, kiddo.”
“This isn’t where you work!” Harper frowned. I couldn’t help but feel a stab of loyal pride for the little girl, she had never been shy about calling someone out.
“This is a work meeting,” Benjamin explained, then he gestures across the table to his ‘date.’ “Miss Owens here is a journalist from the Charleston Times, and she’s asking me some questions so that she can write an article about me.”
“You must be Harper!” the woman beamed, stretching her shiny pink lips into a repulsive sneer of a smile. “My name is Julia! Your uncle has been telling me so much about you!”
Julia offered her hand for Harper to shake, but Harper just looked at it skeptically and frowned. Then she flung herself towards me, wrapping her arms around my legs and angling her chin up so she blinked at me with her giant, pleading eyes.
“Please make Uncle Benjamin come with us,” she whispered loudly up at me.
“Uncle Benjamin has to do grown-up stuff right now,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder and hoping that she’d understand. That she wouldn’t feel as crushed as I do. “But you can tell him all about the library when you go home tonight!”
“Will you be there too?” Harper asked.
“Well, I…” I stammered, unsure of what to say. My eyes flicked up to Benjamin, and I saw his jaw pressed together firmly as his eyes darted between Julia and me.
“Of course not, Harper,” he said. “You know Miss Lewis can’t come home with us.”
“Nuh-uh!” Harper cried, frowning. “Lia always comes over for dinner!”
Julia’s eyes lit up across the table.
“Is Lia your nanny, Harper?” she asked, and I had to fight the incredibly strong urge to dump Julia’s sickly pink cocktail down the front of her flashy blouse.
“No,” Harper shook her head. “She’s Uncle Benjamin’s girlfriend.”
It was hard to tell who was more shocked. Benjamin, Julia, or me. I immediately felt my face turn hot pink, matching the shade of Julia’s cocktail. Benjamin’s eyes went wide and I couldn’t decide whether he looked more flustered or pissed.
“That’s not true, Harper,” Benjamin said sternly. Then he turned to Julia. “Actually, Miss Lewis is just Harper’s pre-school teacher.”
And there it was.
The truth.
The ugly, bitter, undeniable truth.
Whatever happened between Benjamin and I behind closed doors, whatever fantasy world I had been living in, where we had homemade spaghetti dinners and hot sex after bedtime, it didn’t matter. Because in the real world, I was just the teacher. Nothing more.
I was not usually one to be at a loss for words, but as I stared down at Julia and Benjamin, fighting back to the tears that were stinging at my eyes, that was exactly what I was. I was speechless. There was no witty, biting retort on the tip of my tongue. So I grabbed Harper’s hand and pulled her out of the cafe.
The rest of the class had already moved on. I saw them a block ahead of us, following Polly as she took over leading them to the library. I reminded myself to thank her for that later.
“Let’s go, Harper,” I said, softening my grip on her hand and using my free hand to wipe the tears from my eyes, hoping to be subtle.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, squinting up at me. “Why did Uncle Benjamin lie?”
“He didn’t lie, Harper,” I said, as I felt the stab of pain rip through my heart again. That was the kicker, he didn’t lie at all. “I’m not his girlfriend.”
“You are,” Harper insisted. “Boyfriends and girlfriends love each other.”
Before I could correct her, I heard footsteps slapping on the pavement behind us.
“Lia, wait,” it was Benjamin. He just ran from the restaurant and chased us halfway down the block.
“Please,” he said. “Let me explain…”
“There’s nothing to explain,” I said, aware that Harper was listening. “Because, as I was just telling Harper, there’s nothing going on between us. You said so yourself, I’m just the teacher.”
“Lia…”
“I’d prefer it if you called me Miss Lewis,” I said. Then I took one last look at the sadness softening through his face before I turned my back and led Harper away.
18
BENJAMIN
“Ta-dah!” I said, sliding a plate onto the kitchen table across from Harper with a dramatic flourish. “Grilled cheese!”
Harper’s nose wrinkled as she eyed my charred-black attempt at a sandwich. My bear agreed, turning up his nose at the dish as well. So I wasn’t a cook. Not in my skill set.
“I miss L
ia,” she said, her shoulders slumping down in her seat. “Why can’t she come over for dinner anymore?”
I miss Lia, too, I thought sadly. But I couldn’t say that. That would just make things more confusing for Harper. Instead, I had to put on a brave face.
“Miss Lewis is your teacher,” I said carefully. “You see her at school.”
Harper had been asking for Lia every night that week, ever since our encounter at the museum. Every day, Harper had gotten more and more desperate for Lia to come over for dinner or a Disney movie marathon, and every day, it had gotten harder and harder for me to explain why Lia wasn’t coming around anymore. I had been trying to keep my explanations vague, but I knew Harper was losing patience with me.
Harper wasn’t the only person I owed an explanation to. I needed to tell Lia the truth. But ever since our encounter at the cafe, she had all but vanished. She was not on the playground when I went to pick up Harper. She wouldn’t return my calls or texts. She had cut me off, cold-turkey.
And honestly, I couldn’t even blame her. I knew the second I walked into the cafe that agreeing to meet with Julia Owens for a second time had been a mistake. Julia had practically begged for a second meeting to finish up where our last interview had been cut short. She had insisted that she still had questions she needed answered for the profile she was writing for the Times and since I knew it was my fault for walking out on our interview, I had reluctantly agreed.
I had thought meeting in a public cafe would spare me from her blatant attempts to get into my pants, but I was wrong. As soon as I sat down, she made it very clear that the only ‘unfinished business’ she was interested in was her quest to fuck Benjamin Johnson. Well and to get more on the shifter story.
The Johnson Clan; Billionaire Bears
And while I had told Lia the truth about us, I wasn’t about to confirm the whole city’s suspicions. We did have a human client list as well, and if some of them were seen with shifters, investors would end them. People were still so closed minded. I couldn’t afford for that story to go public.
I had been right in the middle of turning her down, once and for all, when Harper had rushed into the cafe. I had tried to defuse the situation but that all went out the window when Harper blurted out that Lia was my girlfriend.
I only lied to protect Lia. To spare her from the tabloid headlines that would inevitably follow: ‘Johnson Hotel Mogul has secret affair with Teacher at Estranged Niece’s Private Shifter Pre-School!’
Lia wouldn’t just lose her privacy. She would lose her job. She was already on thin ice before, and a newspaper scandal would no doubt destroy her prospects at Vivatin Day School. I thought I was doing the right thing, but when I saw how much my words devastated her, I realized I had gone horribly wrong.
“Tell you what,” I said, picking up the plate of grim grilled cheese to change the subject. “Why don’t we forget about Uncle Benjamin’s sad attempt at cooking and just order Chinese? How about that?”
Harper’s face lit up, and she nodded enthusiastically. I may not have known the right way to explain Lia’s absence, but I definitely did know the way to my niece’s heart, noodles.
“Will Miss Johnson be having the usual?” I asked, as I reached for my phone and tapped open the food delivery app. “Chicken lo mein?”
“And two spring rolls!” Harper nodded excitedly.
“Two!” I gasped. “How can one little girl eat two spring rolls?!”
“One for both of us, silly,” Harper giggled. I felt my heart melt a little, and I tapped the order into my phone.
I knew the lo mein was only buying me time. I would have to answer her questions eventually. I would have to offer a better explanation for why Lia suddenly wasn’t around anymore.
And that’s not all I would have to explain.
“Harper,” I said, setting my phone down. “There’s something we should talk about.”
Harper blinked up at me.
“It’s about your mommy.”
In between my attempts to reach Lia, my brain had been in overdrive trying to figure out the best way to tell Harper the truth about her mother.
The day after the cafe fiasco, I got a call from the family attorney. He informed me that my sister had relapsed and left rehab. I believe ‘dropped out’ was the term that he used over the phone, but knowing my sister, I imagined that the truth was more dramatic than that.
I wasn’t shocked to hear that Celeste’s latest attempt to get herself together had failed. But I was shocked by what he revealed next. Apparently before she had left rehab, my sister had been in touch with the attorney. She had requested paperwork be drawn up, granting full custody of Harper to me. My parents, and my brothers, were going to flip.
“She said you were a better parent to Harper than she ever could be,” the lawyer had relayed.
I had gone through the spectrum of emotions. Shock, sadness, concern. And finally, I had settled on relief. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to send Harper back to an unstable home with my unstable sister. And, selfishly, I was relieved that I wouldn’t lose my niece.
While I was more than happy to accept the full responsibility of raising Harper for the foreseeable future, I wasn’t sure how she would react. Would she be happy? Devastated? Confused?
“What about my mommy?” Harper asked now, blinking up at me. She didn’t look afraid or forlorn, just curious.
“Well,” I took a deep breath, “She loves you very, very much, Harper, but… sometimes love isn’t enough. Your mommy knows that you need more than love, and she knows that she can’t give you all of the things you need right now.”
“I know that, Uncle Benjamin,” Harper said bluntly. “I love my mommy too, but she’s a hot mess.”
I had to fight the urge to laugh at my niece’s sass.
“So,” I said. “How would you feel about living with me permanently?”
Harper twisted her face into a thoughtful smirk, then the expression melted into a smile.
“I’d like that. A lot.”
“Good,” I smiled back, relieved. “I want this to feel like your home, Harper. And I want us to be a family.”
“But...” Harper said thoughtfully, her smile fading. “A family is supposed to have a mommy and a daddy.”
“Not all families are the same. Families are people who love and care about each other. Remember our clan is made up of many types of families, there’s Gamma and Grandpa, and Uncle Dillion…”
“I want Lia to be part of our family,” she interrupted.
“You and me both, kid,” I sighed before I could stop myself.
“So why don’t you just ask her?” Harper asked as if it was that simple.
“I wish it worked like that,” I said, “But it’s complicated.” Especially with a human, I wanted to add.
“You say that about everything,” Harper rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should just grow a pair and apologize already.”
“Harper!” I gasped. “Where did you learn to talk like that?”
She just rolled her eyes at me again.
“Please,” she said. “I’m a kid, not a dummy.”
I felt my heart swell with affection for my ridiculously sassy niece, and I grabbed her in a hug. My bear relished in her scent. She was ours now, forever. A real member of the clan.
“You are wise beyond your years, you know that?” I ruffled her hair.
“Enough talk,” she scoffed. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to get Lia back!”
19
LIA
“Come on,” Polly begged, making puppy dog eyes at me from the doorway of my bedroom. “Please come out, you need this!”
“The only thing I need right now is to grade all of these assignments,” I said, ruffling the stack of booklets at the edge of my bed. “And maybe a bottle of wine,” I added with a wink as I reached for the glass of pinot on my nightstand.
I was perched on my bed beside the mountain of homework that I needed to grade by tomorro
w morning. They were turned in Friday, and I had already put them off all weekend, waiting until the last minute to grade them before Monday. I had gotten my red pen and my wine, now all I needed was some peace and quiet.
Unfortunately, ‘peace and quiet’ wasn’t on Polly’s itinerary for the night. Ever since the debacle with Benjamin, she had been attempting to drag me to the bar for a ‘girl’s night out.’ It was easy to brush her off during the week, “it’s a school night!” I would protest, but she became more persistent when the weekend hit. Now, Sunday, her urgency was at an all-time high.
“Maybe next weekend,” I offered, even though I know I have no intention of leaving the comfort of my bed or my sweatpants then, either. I was not like Polly. I was not the type to process my grief on the dancefloor, or between shots of Fireball. I preferred sobbing into my pillow in between binge-watching episodes of Gilmore Girls.
“Fine,” Polly sighed in defeat. “But next weekend I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer!”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded dismissively. I listened to the sound of her footsteps stomping down the hallway and, once I heard our apartment door slam behind her, I collapsed onto the bed.
I stared at my phone, waiting for it to ring even though I knew it wouldn’t. I blocked Benjamin’s number. I had to. What happened in the cafe was a wakeup call. A reminder of why Benjamin and I were always destined to fail.
He was the billionaire shifter and I was the girl from the school. He was the legal guardian of one of my students and I was the teacher. He was notorious for being unable to commit to women, and I was the girl with an inherent inability to trust. We couldn’t be more wrong for each other. And no matter how right things felt when our bodies touched, it was always going to end with someone getting hurt. Better for it to happen now, rather than later. Better for it to have been a clean break, without the school board or the tabloids getting involved.
I had gotten out most of the tears and fought through the anger and resentment phase of our unofficial ‘break up.’ Now I just felt empty. I pulled myself back up on the bed and took a sip of wine, then I reached for the first assignment in the stack of homework projects that I needed to grade.
