by Rayne, Piper
“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
“Goodbye, Austin.”
I open the door and walk out of her office, still feeling like shit.
Why is that?
“Everything okay?” Fay asks as I mindlessly walk out of the half door near her desk.
I force a smile. “Perfect.”
I wink, which brightens her smile. No need for Fay to worry about the Baileys any more than she already does.
* * *
Finally, my shit Monday ends and I get to spend the rest of my afternoon on the baseball diamond—freezing my ass off, but I’m outside and teaching the best game there is.
My buddy Jack strolls up and stands beside me. “Rumors are spreading.”
I laugh at his parka, hat, and gloves. “You grew up here, right?”
“Funny, asshole. I just got back from Cancun, give me a fucking break. I have to reacclimatize.”
“How is wedded bliss?” I ask, watching as the boys warm up by tossing the ball to one another.
“Nah, we’re not talking about me. You need to start talking.” He rubs his gloved hands together.
“Take off those ridiculous gloves and help with the drills.”
“Fine. I tried the nice way.” Jack takes off his gloves, grabs his baseball mitt, and steps over to where the boys are. “Tell me, boys, did Coach Bailey embarrass himself this morning?”
The group of boys laugh.
“You should have seen his face,” Elijah says.
“He’s gonna be dragged around by a collar,” JP adds. “She is one hot piece of ass though.”
“Lap!” I point.
JP drops his mitt and runs to the light pole and back.
Jack glances over his shoulder, silently asking me if they’re telling the truth. I shrug. He laughs and turns around.
“I heard he was practically drooling all over the stage,” Jack eggs them on.
Seriously, how fast does word spread in this town? Jack doesn’t even work at the school. He helps me out with the team because he shares the same love of the game as I do.
“He stared at her ass the entire time she was speaking,” JP says.
The little bastard is back from his lap and I’d make him go again if he was lying. He’s not. But damn, I didn’t think I was that obvious.
“Then I heard he went and saw her during fourth period,” another player says.
“Really? This is all so intriguing. I think I need to visit the principal’s office.” Jack throws the ball to JP to start the drill, then he steps back over to me and lowers his voice. “So?”
I glance around to make sure no one is coming up from behind. “So, she’s my Saturday one-night stand.”
Jack bends over in a fit of laughter. “You’re shittin’ me?”
“Nope.” I shake my head.
“Classic. Can’t wait to meet the lucky lady.”
“Fuck you.”
He clasps me on the shoulder. “Is it bad I kinda hope you fall madly in love with her?”
I quirk an eyebrow.
“Then maybe you’ll stick around.” He shrugs. Other than crying like a baby when Francie walked down the aisle two weeks ago, he’s a typical “show no emotion” Alaskan guy, so I’m surprised he’s bringing this up.
“Play your cards right and maybe they’ll let you be head coach next year. Maybe they’ll even pay you.” I laugh.
He smiles. “I’d rather have you here than be the head coach of a bunch of misbehaved high school guys who can’t control their hormones.”
“It’s not like I won’t be back.”
Jack doesn’t say anything, just steps back up to the field. “JP stop egging Elijah. Go run two laps!”
I get what Jack’s saying. I’ll miss him too. I’ll miss everything in Lake Starlight, but my life has been on hold for practically a decade. It’s time to live for myself now, and I can’t miss the opportunity.
Four
Holly
It’s morning, before classes have started, and I walk into the teachers’ lounge to find most of the teachers. I guess I was wrong to assume they’d be preparing their lessons in their classrooms rather than in here, gabbing about the students. Half are talking about how Elijah Crupe and JP somebody roughed each other up down at the Lard Have Mercy diner over some girl named Becca. I make a mental note to look up everyone. Elijah I know—Miranda Miller gave him his own special write-up about how colleges are looking at him for a baseball scholarship.
I’m sure Coach Bailey would have a flying fit if Elijah was reprimanded at school for anything. Elijah’s record is squeaky clean, but that could be Miranda and Coach Bailey’s doing. Scoring a job at the college level would be easier if some hot recruit picked up one of his students.
“Hi, Principal Radcliffe.” A woman with chin-length, dark brown hair approaches me, her hand out. “We didn’t meet yesterday. I was just returning from my honeymoon. I’m the librarian, Francessca Porter.”
Now her golden skin at the beginning of an Alaskan spring makes sense.
“Nice to meet you, Francessca. Please call me Holly. Yes, I stopped in at the library and the substitute told me about your recent wedding. Congratulations.”
“Thank you so much. Everyone calls me Francie though, so please feel free.” Her friendly smile sets me a bit at ease in this still-new environment.
“Okay, thanks.” I mix creamer into my coffee and throw away the straw.
Francie lingers, hemming and hawing, reluctant to tell me something, I think. “Um… there’s something else.”
I sip my coffee and raise my eyebrows for her to continue.
“My husband, Jack Porter, he’s… um… the owner of Hammer Time Hardware and he… is…”
We’re going to be here all day and I can’t imagine what it is she’s so nervous about. I touch her arm. “What is it, Francie?”
Her shoulders sag. “He’s Austin Bailey’s best friend. I just wanted you to know because I didn’t want you to think I’m lying or withholding information. I heard about the whole assembly thing and then the fact he was in your office and you shut the blinds and—”
She’s talking a mile a minute, but I catch the part about the blinds and my forehead crinkles. “Hold on, what? I never shut the blinds.”
My throat goes dry at the idea that rumors about me are spreading around the school. What is Coach Bailey saying?
“Well, this town’s not that small, but you wouldn’t know it from the Lake Starlight Buzz Wheel. I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s just you’re the new principal and—”
“You have no worries if you’re friends with Austin Bailey.” I smile, hoping to set her at ease. I really have no idea why she would think that would be an issue for me.
She places her hand over her heart and sighs as if I offended her. “Oh, I’m not really. We’re friends through marriage, if that’s a thing. I mean Austin is just… my husband’s best friend.”
Principal Miller sure did a number on this school. They all walk around as though I’m going to be giving out ruler spankings.
“Stop. It’s fine. What is this Lake Starlight Buzz Wheel thing you mentioned?”
Her face reddens, and even though it was just the two of us talking, the room grows silent. Great. I smile through the awkwardness.
“It’s a gossip site?” She says it like she’s guessing the correct answer. She might as well have put in the words “What is” as though she were a contestant on Jeopardy.
“Gossip site?”
A chair squeals across the linoleum floor. “It covers all the news in Lake Starlight,” Fay says.
“Gossip,” someone else clarifies.
“Yeah, and the daily news is erased every day, so you have to be sure to read it before midnight, otherwise you’ll have no idea what it said or who it was about.” Fay acts as though it’s getting confidential files from the US government.
I don’t need to know who’s sleeping with whom or not paying their taxes. Other peo
ple’s business is not my own. “That’s a little tasteless.”
“It is, but no one knows who writes it, so we can’t stop them,” Francie says. Her smirk tells me she’s been a lifelong reader of the blog.
Everyone in the teachers’ lounge is staring at me, and it dawns on me why Francie brought it up in the first place. A thin layer of sweat breaks out on my hairline.
“Am I to assume I was in this blog last night?” I ask.
Silence blankets the small room like fresh snow.
Fay’s eyes stray away from mine, as they always seem to when I ask her a question she doesn’t want to answer.
Francie bites her lip and nods.
“Well, I can assure you that whatever they said, it was wrong,” I announce so the entire room hears it.
No one argues. It was probably something related to Austin’s stupid stunt in the auditorium yesterday.
“I mean, Fay can attest that the blinds were open when Coach Bailey came to my office yesterday.”
No one responds. Not even Fay.
“I mean, it’s ridiculous that I’m even in the blog. I’m not that interesting.”
“Well, you were the Jeep mystery girl, so of course you were in the blog,” a teacher behind me says.
“What?” Coffee sputters out of my mouth onto my light pink blouse.
“Oh, let me help.” Fay runs over to the faucet and comes back armed with a wet paper towel.
“Thanks.” I try to take it from her, but her eyes are a millimeter away from my tit as she tries to stick a hand up my blouse to work out the stain. I swat her hand away with my free one. “Really, I can get it.”
“I’ve got a Tide stick in my desk.” She tosses the paper towel into the garbage can and is about to run out the door except it opens before she reaches it.
Austin stands there wearing jeans and another button-down, this one striped with a sweater over it. He looks so… delectable. Damn him.
“Francie!” His voice booms through the room, interrupting the conversation we were having. His arms swoop Francie up in a hug bear hug. “How was Cancun? Did you swim with the dolphins like we did on our senior trip?”
Francie’s eyes catch mine. Not his friend, my ass.
“Yeah, thanks, Austin.” She pats his shoulders to put her down.
“Tell me about it!”
Francie looks at me and back to him.
“Oh, morning, Holly.” He gives me a nod. “Coffee stain already? Sign of a bad day to come, huh?”
I wish I had that Tide stick, so I could jab it in his eye.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Fay says, flustered as she runs toward the door.
“No, Fay, it’s fine.” I chase after her.
Murmurs commence as I wind through the tables of teachers, and I catch the words “fogged-up windows,” “Jeep,” and “handprint.” I stop beside a table of three teachers and look down at them—one man, two women, all in their fifties. The man looks away, but the women hold my gaze.
“Okay, everyone.” I place my hands on my hips. “Someone is going to tell me what you’ve heard.”
Austin walks toward me. “Holly, let’s go to your office.”
I hold up my hand. “Nope. Someone tell me.”
My patience is at an all-time low, and if they thought Miranda Miller was bad, wait until they see my temper. It doesn’t show itself often, but let’s just say it channels Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.
“Sweetie.” Fay’s hand lands on my forearm. She purses her lips, unsure, and I nod at her to continue. “There were pictures of some mystery girl in Austin’s Jeep on Saturday night. Austin, you know… it was big news because… well, he doesn’t get a lot of—”
“Fay,” Austin snips.
“I pegged it for Sedona and Jamison,” another faculty member calls.
Who the hell are Sedona and Jamison?
“So, after seeing Austin turn white as a ghost at the assembly, and then someone overheard you two talking afterward…” Fay continues.
My gaze shoots to Custodian Kip, who was the only one left in the auditorium. He stares down at his coffee. Chicken shit.
“Buzz Wheel put two and two together, and everyone figures it was you in his Jeep on Saturday night,” Fay finishes in a whisper accompanied by a wince.
“Oh, my God.” I cover my mouth with my hand and run through the halls until I enter the bathroom, where I lose my entire breakfast.
Teenage girls’ “ugh” and “gross” ring out as my knees press into the bathroom floor. Not my proudest moment, but if I’m picking, neither is having the entire town know about my one-night stand.
“Hi, girls, can you give us some privacy?” I recognize Francie’s voice.
“Sure. Miss… or Mrs. Porter now.” They say missus as if she’s the queen. Oh, to be a teenager when marriage seemed so magical.
The sound of running water stops, and I hear the girls shuffle out.
A knock hits the stall door. “Holly? It’s Francie. I’m sorry, I should’ve given you a heads-up.”
I stand, flush the toilet, and try to collect myself. “It’s okay. It’s just so…” Tears threaten. I’m new to this town and I’m already being rumored about.
“Want some gum?” She holds a piece under the stall door. “I have mints too.”
I accept the gum. “Gum’s great, thanks.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“No, thank you. I think I need to just go on with my day.”
“Well, you know where to find me if you do.” She pauses before she continues. “Um… Austin really wants to come in and talk to you.”
“Please tell him no, I’ll talk to him later.”
Francie lets a small chuckle loose. “Oh, you really don’t know Austin, he’s—”
“Not going to accept no. Thanks, Francie.” His deep rumble echoes through the empty bathroom.
“I meant what I said, Holly, whenever you want,” she says before her heels click on the tile as she leaves the bathroom.
Austin wastes no time in climbing on the toilet seat in the stall next to me and peering over the divider. “Thanks for flushing the toilet.”
“Thanks for making me Saturday night news.” I close the lid of the toilet, sit on it, and bring my legs up to my chest.
“I’m just as much of a victim in this as you.”
I look at him with narrowed eyes. “The guy is never the victim when it comes to these things and we both know it. There’s a double standard—I’m the slut and you’re the king.”
He chuckles. “Believe me, I’m not seen as a one-night-stand king around here, and no one sees you as the slut. Promise. Not to mention it’s all hearsay. There’s not one shred of evidence it was actually you.”
“People don’t need evidence. I’m just starting here and now people are going to see me as the woman who slept with a man she didn’t know and later found out he was her employee.” I bring my forehead to my knees.
“Can you unlock the door and come out so we can have a proper conversation?”
“No.”
“Come on. You definitely need a hug, and if you remember, my arms are pretty good at the hugging thing.”
My brain betrays me, and I smile.
“That’s all I need, a picture of me hugging you in the girls’ bathroom at school. Might as well etch my name and number on the door under ‘For a good time call.’”
“Let’s not go too far. You are older than these girls and that could be seen as trying to lure—”
“Austin!”
He chuckles again. “Come on, don’t make me crawl under the door and unlock it.”
I stare at him. He shrugs, and I can tell that if I don’t do as he asks, he’s going to do it for me. I stand and unlock the door.
“Good.” He jumps down and is in front of me in a second. His arms open, waving me into his body.
My brain betrays me again and I step into him. His arms wrap around my body, holding me tight.
“See, doesn’t
this make all that worry go away?”
“No,” I mumble, but it kind of does. I feel safe and protected in his arms.
“It’s today’s news, and tomorrow it will be someone else. Don’t sweat this, okay? The Buzz Wheel isn’t something to be crying over.” He leans back, his thumb wiping the tears off my cheek.
His smile warms me, and for the first time since I arrived in Lake Starlight, I feel as though I have an ally. Which I could really use, given why I came here in the first place.
“Thanks,” I say into his hard chest.
He squeezes me. “Any time. I know we got off on the wrong foot—after we got off”—I chuckle into his chest—“but I want you to know, I’m here for you if you need me.”
“I appreciate that.”
We pull apart, and I use a paper towel to dab at my makeup. We leave the bathroom after the first period bell has rung, so all the students are in their classrooms.
“You better go,” I say when we reach the hall.
“Francie’s in my class until I get there.”
I stand there, taking in his chiseled jaw and stubble that’s darker than the tips of his hair—something I don’t think is from a salon, but comes to him naturally—his lean, muscled body, and his brown eyes, and I realize that this man may not be what I pegged him for after the auditorium incident. I think he really might be one of the good guys.
“You good?” he asks in a way that makes me think I may have been staring at him longer than I thought I was.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He squeezes my hand before releasing it. “You’re welcome.”
He winks at me with a grin, and this time my stomach flip and flops as if I’m a student here and not the principal. I’m unsure whether I’m happy about my discovery or not. Because knowing Austin isn’t the jerk I thought he was is only going to make it that much harder to stay away from him.
