ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance

by Knight, Kylie

  The two of us made love in celebration (me, as much in relief as anything,) and I lay dozing in his arms in the sunlit afterglow, feeling relaxed and serene, as well as more certain about myself and my future than I could ever in my life recall having been...

  THE END

  Forgiving My Bad Boy

  Saundra’s classroom was a gentle cacophony of 5th graders talking amongst themselves while they separated into groups. Most classes around their age group were learning from doing quiet book exercises or listening to the teacher lecture, but Saundra preferred a more hands-on method for teaching.

  The other teachers liked giving her crap about it, saying she only went the extra mile because she was young. “Give it a few years, you’ll see it doesn’t make any difference and you can save yourself a lot of energy.”

  What a horrible way of thinking! Saundra didn’t become a teacher to hang out and get the summers off. She enjoyed working with children, sculpting their minds and helping them learn about the world around them. There were no bad children, just children going through a hard time that haven’t been taught any better way to be. Take lectures for example. It was one thing to tell a student the information, and have them test well on it. It was another to have them actually perform the science or make a fun activity out of the geography homework to help them actually learn the how and the why of it. Then you’re not just teaching a child what to think, but how to think.

  Saundra paced around the room slowly as she watched the children in their groups. They had to match certain colors to the nations of the world, but there were no words or labels. They had to do it by shape. They could talk, but raised voices weren’t allowed. Their classroom had neighbors, after all.

  Suddenly a boy fell backwards out of a group, and Clark, what some would call a trouble child, came around to stand menacingly over him.

  “Clark,” Saundra snapped. She made sure her tone wasn’t aggressive, but she put no hint of fear into it. Saundra was well known as a teacher not to be messed with by anyone.

  “He started it!” Clark said immediately.

  “Wrong answer.” She helped Jonathan to his feet. “What happened?”

  Clark stood with his arms crossed and glared at Jonathan.

  Jonathan said, “I didn’t do anything! All I said was that it wasn’t Italy.”

  “I know what Italy looks like,” Clark yelled and reached out for Jonathan.

  Saundra grabbed Clark by the wrist, twisted her body at the waist, which both twisted his arm and pulled him off balance. She kept him there like that for a moment.

  “We do not handle things physically. If you have an issue or a question, you ask me and I will assist you in handling it. When you make the situation physical, you immediately place yourself in the wrong. Am I understood?”

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “I’m preventing you from hurting someone else. Answer me: am I understood?”

  “Yes!”

  Saundra pulled him so that he had to take a few steps forward, moving him away from the group, and she released his wrists. “According to school policy when is it okay to fight?”

  Clark averted her eyes, which she allowed. She could see the indignant shame in them.

  “Never.”

  “And in my classroom, my rules, when is it okay to fight?”

  Clark looked around, crossing his arms again.

  “All right,” she said, then raised her voice. “Class,” she said to get everyone’s attention, “in my classroom, when is it okay to fight?”

  “Self-defense,” they all said in unison.

  If the principal ever found out she was spreading that rule around, it wouldn’t be pretty for her, but she’d be damned if she was going to raise a class full of victims.

  “Clark, Jonathan did not attack you. So why did you become physical with him?”

  He shrugged.

  “Because he’s stupid,” Jonathan said, which flared up Clark once more.

  Saundra took a step between them. “Jonathan, two demerits for provoking him. Get back to work. Clark—“

  “I’m not stupid! I was looking at the map upside down. I couldn’t tell what was what.”

  “That’s fine, but—“

  “They didn’t know where China was. They kept putting it where Australia was. Like they’re the same size.”

  “Clark, that’s enough.”

  “I’m not stupid, they are!”

  “Outside.”

  The indignant expression on the young boy’s face shifted into shock and frustration.

  “Now.” She pointed to the door to reinforce her point.

  He stomped his feet as he went outside and sat in the chair outside of class. Saundra kept her face as still as possible as she continued to go about the room supervising. Now, though, she kept a sharp eye on the clock and an ear out for any commotion outside the door.

  Clark came from a broken home, and displayed throughout the school year all of the classic signs of abuse. His inability to express himself, and everything coming out as violence were key signs to that. It was one thing to try and talk to him, but one thing she learned with him was that when he grew too worked up, he needed time away from everyone to calm down.

  It was sad, but the same thing worked on her boyfriend. He had so many problems at work, that sometimes when he came home he was just too worked up. If they were to have any sort of an enjoyable night together, she needed to give him his time. When that didn’t work, she had to talk him down.

  After five minutes out of the room, she told the class to keep working and stepped out into the hall. Clark was there silently fuming, but looking a bit calmer.

  “They’re stupid,” he said defensively.

  “Clark, I understand your frustration, but you were in the wrong to push him. We both know you don’t need to be sent to Principal Johnson again.”

  He hung his head. “No.”

  “No. So, you have a choice. When you go back in there, you can continue misbehaving, and I’ll keep you inside for next recess. Continue misbehaving, and I’ll make sure you’re unable to take part in the afterschool baseball program for the next two weeks.”

  He looked up at her, stricken. Saundra lowered herself into a squat so she was eye-to-eye with him.

  “You need to understand, Clark, I’m not going to reward bad behavior. If you want positive attention, if you want me and the other children to look at you kindly, you have to act kindly. Do you understand? I won’t allow anyone to bully anyone in my class. So, you can keep name-calling, and pushing, and I can make your life hell.” She held up a finger, “Or, I’ll make you a deal.”

  This alternative deal got his attention and he licked his lips quickly in anticipation.

  “I have candy in my desk. If you can make it to next recess without name calling, you get one piece of candy. And if – if! – you not only make it to next recess without name calling, but also manage to say something nice to each person in your group, I will give you two pieces of candy.”

  She straightened. “This is a secret deal, and I will take it away if you tell anyone that I did this for you. And if you tell anyone, I won’t ever give you this deal again. It’s our secret. Okay?”

  He nodded excitedly.

  “So, what’s it going to be? No recess or baseball, or candy?”

  “Candy,” he said quickly.

  “All right,” she said, putting strain in her voice. “You’re going to have to work for it though. Can you do the work?”

  He nodded quickly. “I’ll be real nice, you’ll see.”

  “Okay. And if you have any more trouble with Jonathan?”

  His mouth pulled into a frustrated grimace and she could see that she’d stumped him. He was trying so hard to come up with the answer he thought she wanted, but even though she’d just said it inside, he couldn’t think of it. This was the trouble. When a child was raised in a home of violence, it was the only way they could think to solve any issue.

&nbs
p; “Come and…” she said slowly, encouragingly.

  “Come and tell you,” he finished.

  “Right, good. Can you do that?”

  Clark nodded, though this time it was far less enthusiastically.

  Saundra opened the classroom door and ushered him back inside.

  After finishing up at school, she just tried to breathe and brace herself for coming home. She was hoping Miles was in a good mood. It’d been a trying enough day, and she could use a nice quiet night at home that day.

  She loved Miles, without a doubt. No one knew him as well as she did. He’d had a hard life, and like Clark, didn’t know the proper way to react in current situations.

  She knew it sounded like any other abusive relationship, but that was just it: Miles wasn’t abusive. He never yelled at her, never called her names, never touched her with anything but affection. He was just a troubled young man with a horrible past.

  His father had been a semi-famous criminal. Not exactly the pride of the town. All through his childhood, he was pegged as the son of The Butcher. No matter what Miles did, that was how people viewed him. Without a proper way to test how behavior altered people’s perception of him, along with a childhood of violence, it left Miles woefully incapable of life out in the real world.

  That did not mean, however, that Miles was an inherently violent person. If anything, he was one of the sweetest, most genuine people she’d ever met. In everything, he was so earnest to improve himself, to do better. To be better. He just didn’t know how. It was this need to always improve himself, to fix what he knew was broken inside that she had fallen in love with.

  Over the years, she’d helped him where she could and had seen some real progress. He was getting there, but there were still days where it seemed like trouble followed him wherever he went.

  When she arrived home, she found him sitting on the couch with the TV on, but his eyes locked on the corner of the room. It’d been a bad day. Saundra sucked in a breath through her nose and prepared herself mentally for what would come.

  “Hi sweetie,” she said when he didn’t respond to her closing the door and setting her things down.

  “This is such crap,” he said.

  First thing first, a time out. He needed to calm down before he would talk to her. She went to the kitchen, got him a fresh beer and brought it out to him. He thanked her quietly, and she left him there to sit and think while she went and changed into more comfy clothes.

  When she came back out, he seemed more relaxed. It was flattering to know that her presence always seemed to calm him down, even if he never said it outright. She wasn’t even sure he knew it himself, but she could see it in him. He could be upset all day, but the moment they started hanging around one another, he would just relax.

  “So what’s going on?” she asked him and sat on the couch beside him.

  “I’m gonna get fired. I just know I am.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “This guy, Blake, big guy, he keeps coming at me at work. I know what you’re going to ask, and no, I’m not doing anything to provoke the guy. I’m trying to just get through my day, but he comes at me. You know I don’t handle bullies well.”

  “I know, sweetie,” she said and played with some stray bits of his hair.

  “We get busy, and he suddenly things all the jobs are his. I’m not going to sit there and not work, ya know? We need the money too.”

  “Well if there’s enough to go around, can you just wait for him to take what he wants and then do whatever is left?”

  “That’s just it, he doesn’t leave anything. He’ll take it all and then stuff won’t get done in time, and cars will have to hold over until tomorrow. Some of the other guys will take work, but it’s when I come up and challenge him for the work that he suddenly gets in a huff about it.”

  Saundra sighed, conflicted. “I’m sorry. There’s no one you can talk to?”

  Miles pursed his lips into a smirk and shook his head.

  How did this always happen with him? She couldn’t understand it. To hear him tell it, he just kept to himself all the time, and trouble just found him. But every job? Every time? This was his fourth job in six months. She wanted to help, to give him some advice, but what could she possibly say to him? She knew he was trying his best, but it just made it so damn hard to defend him when her family started in on her to leave him already. They’d gotten through worse times. They’d make it through this.

  It was selfish, but Saundra’s tired mind was ready to be done with all this stress and have life get boring for a little while.

  Miles checked the small piece of paper he’d written the tire size on, then looked back up to the rack of new tires. In the storage area under the shop they used to store all of the tires, the air was filled with the smell of rubber. Rubber dust coated the floor, despite multiple sweeps every day.

  Personally he enjoyed the smell. It was interesting, and reminded him of his childhood when he and his dad would work on cars together. Of course, that wasn’t why Miles worked in this shop. This was just another job, but at least he had a bit of experience to leverage in order to get it.

  His work history looked so terrible. So many jobs over such a short period of time made him look like a bad investment. He knew how this worked. Employers had to weight the money lost during the training of a new employee and expect that employee to not only become functional and efficient, but to also work up the money lost, plus turn a profit for the company. It was basic economics.

  The fact that Miles could rarely stay employed long enough to make up that money again made him as unattractive as the one-eyed girl at the prom.

  He grumbled to himself as he searched for the damn set of tires that were supposed to be down there. If he had to go up and ask about them, he knew the attitude he’d get for it. What else was he supposed to do? The system said they were down here. He marked them for the order, and came down to get them. No one should’ve touched them. If they’re not there, it’s not like he can just magically conjure four damn tires out of thin air!

  He’d have to speak to the supervisor about it. There was no way around it. Of course the supervisor would blame him for not being able to find the tires, or just tell him to put on another set. Of course, that wasn’t what the customer asked for and he—

  Miles growled and punched one of the tires as his mind spun in circles. How did people do this? How could they go to work every day and just… deal with it? He couldn’t fathom it. Every place he worked was full of people treating him like a moron, treating him like he was less than them.

  It was this way ever since he was a child, all through school, and now he had to deal with it as an adult. His father had been a criminal, a pretty infamous one, too. That wasn’t his fault any more than these missing damn tires! The customer ordered these four, the inventory said they had them, and he wasn’t going to give the customer something they didn’t order without informing them first. It wasn’t right. Such a small, stupid thing, but he knew it would bring a world of drama down on his head.

  Miles ran up the stairs back to the shop. Pneumatic tools whizzed as the other techs loosened nuts and performed maintenance. Out of the corner of his eye, Miles just happened to notice four tires beside a car Blake was working on. The blue and yellow label on the tires was the same as the ones he was looking for. Blake had already given him grief over taking the four-tire job. If they could be done fast enough, they were pretty lucrative in the commissions. They’d almost come to blows over it, but now, had Blake taken the four tires Miles needed?

  A white hot indignant rage broiled inside of Miles as he marched over to the stack of tires and checked the size against the paper. A match.

  “Get away from my car,” Blake said, coming around the side.

  “These are my tires.”

  Blake opened his arms. “Doesn’t look like it. I need them for this order.”

  Miles looked at the red sedan. It was clearly a family car, the basic steel rim
s were nowhere near large enough for those tires. “Bull,” Miles spat. “Let me see the order. Where is it?”

  “Don’t worry about it, little man. Get back to work.”

  “I am working!”

  Miles scanned the immediate area, spinning in a small circle as he looked for the order sheet for the red sedan. He spotted it hanging against the toolbox. Blake tried to stop him, but Miles leapt over and snatched up the order form. It only took a second for him to find the tire model and size. It wasn’t even the right brand.

  “Hah!” Miles threw the order form back at Blake. “I knew it. These are my tires and I’m taking them.”

  Blake took up a socket wrench with an extended handle as he passed the toolbox. “No you’re not.”

  The fact that Blake meant to intimidate him, that he thought so little of Miles made him so furious he could barely see straight. Struggling to stay in control of his anger, the adrenaline had nowhere to go, and just simmered in his muscles, making him shudder in his rage.

  “You’re shaking,” Blake pointed out, a petulant little smile on his face. “Do I scare you?”

  “Not even a little,” Miles said, and cursed his treacherous tongue for stuttering on the words, making him sound like a frightful liar.

  “Huh, little boy? Do I scare you? Get back to your work and mind your own business.” Blake held the socket wrench ready, as though he meant to swing it.