Teach Me

by Olivia Dade

  Another minute passed before he spoke. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

  Tuesday afternoon, he’d staggered into her office, half-drunk with exhaustion. He’d left wracked by guilt over what his arrival in Marysburg meant for her and the AP program. Too much guilt. So much guilt that she had to wonder yet again who had hurt that man, and how badly.

  Whenever she thought about it, those coals in her chest roared to life once more.

  How could she keep trying to hate a man who worked that hard? Who cared that much?

  She couldn’t. She’d given up the fight.

  And at this moment, she had to admit it: She liked him. Which made sense, because he was a very likeable person. Thoughtful. Smart. Funny. A great dad. Committed to his students.

  Devoid of a wedding ring. Hmmm.

  “I’ve been thinking about ways to keep your AP U.S. History enrollment high.” A notebook appeared in his hand, and if anything, those lines scoring his forehead had deepened. “My main thought is that we need to familiarize my Honors World History kids with you and your class before they have to choose their schedule for the next year.”

  She propped her butt against the counter and rested one slouchy boot-clad ankle over the other. “In the hopes they’ll be irresistibly enticed by my teaching prowess, I take it.”

  His sober mien cracked, and the cologne model reappeared with a smile. “Helpless against your pedagogical wiles.”

  “How do you want that to work?” She crossed her arms and drummed her fingers against her biceps. “Do you want me to guest-teach your honors classes a day or two? Because we’d need to ask Keisha for permission. You’d have to fill in for my classes, too, and I don’t know how comfortable you are with U.S. History.”

  He dismissed that concern with a flick of his hand. “I taught U.S. history at my old school for a long time, so don’t worry about that.”

  “I could put together a world history lesson that would approximate what they’d experience in my AP class. Primary sources. Critical thinking exercises. Assigned reading and note taking.” She squinted in thought. “Maybe something about mummies. Kids love desiccated human remains.”

  He straightened, blue eyes going bright. “The ancient Egypt unit is my favorite.”

  “When it comes to world history, mine too.” She let herself smile at him without reserve. “So that’s the plan?”

  “That’s the beginning of the plan,” he corrected. “During the year, we’ll do other crossover lessons and brainstorm some different strategies.”

  “In case my classroom allure proves insufficient?” The click of her tongue chided him. “Ye of little faith.”

  “I have great faith in your allure.” His smile faltered, and his cheeks turned ruddy. “When it comes to teaching, I mean.”

  Adorable. Simply adorable. So sweet she might as well call him dessert.

  She considered him for a long moment.

  His hair might boast a conservative cut and remain an unremarkable gray-templed brown, but it was thick and shiny, and when pieces fell onto his forehead, they somehow emphasized the startling blue of his eyes. He might possess the world’s most boring wardrobe and wear a button-down and tie even on teacher workdays, but those clothes covered a lean, capable frame replete with surprising strength. He might wear reading glasses when grading or working on his laptop, but they lent him a sexy professor vibe she didn’t mind in the slightest.

  And when he smiled, that lean, ascetic face transformed in a way where no one in her right mind could doubt it: The man was sexy. Not to mention educated, intelligent, funny, perceptive, hardworking, and kind.

  But none of that would have swayed her, not on its own. She’d turned aside handsome men before, smart ones, even pleasant ones that made her laugh. But Martin did something for her none of those men ever had or could.

  With him, she felt...safe.

  The man he’d shown himself to be, she couldn’t picture trying to make her feel small. Pitying her, rather than sympathizing with her. Hurting her with derision or snide judgment. Talking down to her.

  And she could swear he was into her, at least a little bit. He watched her when he thought she didn’t notice, and it wasn’t always the casual glance of a friendly but professional colleague. He’d blushed when talking about her allure just now. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t visited anyone else’s classroom for casual chats, not even on that first day.

  No one needed to know if they became more than coworkers and casual friends. Not a single soul. Martin seemed more than capable of discretion, and maintaining strict, protective boundaries around her privacy required absolutely no effort on her part. Not after all these years.

  So she was doing this, even though her entire history cautioned against it. But the defenses that had kept her inviolate for so long also kept him out, so she was willing to breach them, at least a little bit. At least enough to ask one simple question.

  “Martin?” She met his eyes, beat back her incipient panic, and offered a ladder to her tower. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

  Martin’s muscles lost all ability to move, including his tongue.

  Which was fine for the moment, because every conceivable answer to her inconceivable question was ricocheting around his overtaxed mind.

  Yes! Holy fuck, yes!

  No. Nononono.

  Excuse me, were you talking to me? Old Sobersides? Are you certain?

  She was waiting there patiently for his response, her round bottom resting against the countertop, her arms crossed. But it didn’t seem to be a defensive gesture, oddly enough.

  As soon as she’d entered the department office today, he’d noticed the change, despite his preoccupation with the heartbreaking phone call to Kevin.

  She’d come to him a woman exposed.

  Still impeccably dressed, in a black blouse with big bell-shaped sleeves dipped in gold at the ends and a matching skirt that faithfully molded itself to her bountiful thighs. His mouth had gone dry when he’d first spotted that skirt, those thighs, in the morning.

  Her hair sleeked back into a flawless ponytail in the back, and her face formed a perfect ivory-and-pink oval, punctuated by big brown eyes and lush lips. But that face…

  That face.

  For the first time, she’d granted him the same face she showed her students, his daughter. Expressive. Warm with humor and affection and tolerance. And she’d revealed it not for just a moment, or in response to some stupid joke he’d made. He’d received the gift—and it was a gift, he knew that—of a Rose Owens freed of her self-imposed restraints for the entirety of his phone call and their subsequent conversation.

  Then…then she’d asked him on a date.

  Again: holy fuck.

  Now those crossed arms seemed more a gesture of self-warming than defensiveness, since the department office got chilly at times. He wanted to offer his jacket, but he didn’t think it would fit her. Besides, that would involve muscle movement, which was beyond his capabilities at the moment.

  “Martin?” Still no impatience.

  He wanted to say yes to the woman who’d appeared today. Hell, he wanted to say yes to the woman who’d greeted him in the same department office three weeks ago, icy remove intact. Both those women intrigued him, impressed him, and—unprofessional though it might be—aroused him.

  But he’d fled her room in a panic earlier that week for good reason.

  He wasn’t worthless or weak or mute, or anything else his father and brother had called him. But he’d just emerged from a twenty-four-year marriage with the one and only girlfriend he’d ever had. A simple, straightforward woman, with simple, straightforward needs.

  He hadn’t been able to meet them. He’d bored the living hell out of her.

  So how the fuck could he even pretend he’d be able to give Rose what she needed? She was two women in one, and he didn’t truly understand either of them, much as he admired both. Her motivations, her desires, her capabilities all
eluded his grasp.

  Maybe more time spent together would remedy his befuddlement. But even if he understood her, what exactly could he offer her? A middle-aged, divorced man with Resting Proctologist Face mourning the imminent departure of his daughter to college?

  Rose was a powerhouse. Gorgeous and complicated and vibrating with authority. She could do better than him. She’d realize that at some point, if the date blossomed into something more.

  At the thought of her disappointment, her anger, as he failed to offer what she deserved, all the wild hope that had pinwheeled to life the moment she’d asked him for a date shrank and shriveled into nothingness. He shriveled. Became small and awkward and quiet.

  Bullies, he could now handle. A potential lover, not so much.

  He tried to swallow. Failed. “Um…thank you so much, Rose.”

  From his first, halting syllable, her amber eyes sharpened on him, and her spine returned to its usual pin-straight posture. But she was still waiting, still silent, so he needed to continue fumbling through this and offer her an explanation she’d understand. One with a certain amount of truth in it. One that wouldn’t humiliate him quite as much as the entire truth.

  “I wish I could,” he added.

  He really did, although her expression didn’t seem to indicate an inordinate amount of faith in his sincerity. Dammit.

  Then he was talking, talking, talking, desperate for any words that might erase the momentary flash of hurt he’d seen in those amber eyes before they turned frigid. “It’s just that I only moved here last month, and I’m still settling into the house. And into Marysburg, for that matter, and the school.” He offered her a smile with more teeth than sincerity. “The beginning of the school year is so hard and so exhausting, I don’t know how I’d find time for dating. Especially since I have Bea every other week, and she’s searching for the right college. Not to mention what might happen if things didn’t work out, and we still had to share your classroom and coexist in the same depart—”

  She raised a queenly hand. “Enough. I understand.”

  Uncrossing her ankles, she rose to her full height. She inclined her head, fully encased by whatever restraints she’d snapped into place around herself.

  “Please rest assured that this conversation won’t need to be repeated.” Her fingers, wrapped around a ream of blue paper from the supply closet, didn’t tremble, and her eyes didn’t lower from his. “I apologize if I’ve made our working relationship awkward.”

  She was apologizing? In what world did she need to apologize?

  “You didn’t.” He let out a slow breath, regret seeping into his instinctive panic. “Rose, I don’t—”

  But she was already turning for the door. Which had remained cracked the entire conversation, he now realized. And was opening, inch by inch, to reveal—

  Oh, no.

  The vulpine face of Dale Locke, suffused with the eager glee of a man who’d finally, finally cornered his prey. Keisha stood beside him, brows drawn in distress.

  Martin would like to believe they’d just arrived at the door. That they’d heard nothing.

  Dale’s first, overloud words smashed that hope. “You’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar, Brandi. Thought you were old enough to know that.”

  Brandi? Was he talking to Rose?

  She held Dale’s stare, silent.

  To her credit, Keisha tried to intervene. “Dale, she goes by Rose, which you’ve known for fifteen years. Please call her that. And we can look at the numbers later. We should let them finish their conversation in peace.”

  But Dale didn’t move. Didn’t look away from Rose.

  God, he must hate her. Loathe her with every fiber of his unfortunate being, every beat of his piggish heart. A woman like her would be a waving red flag to a bully, an invitation to charge and break through that pride, that pristine self-containment.

  No wonder he’d fucked with her schedule. No wonder he’d struck at the heart of her AP program. No wonder he’d taken away her classroom for both planning periods.

  There she stood, a woman. To be blunt—although Martin didn’t consider it an insult, not by any means—a fat woman. No longer a young woman. Dale’s inferior, if only in organizational terms.

  But she wasn’t conceding an inch. Not in height, not in dignity. Wasn’t deigning to acknowledge his faux-jocular insult with a single sound.

  Somehow, Dale didn’t realize he’d already been beaten. Already declared irrelevant.

  “Sorry we overheard your conversation with Mr. Krause.” Dale offered a sly grin. “Hope you’re not embarrassed.”

  Each sentence meant its opposite, and they all knew it.

  Then Rose smiled, and Martin realized he hadn’t truly seen her before now. Not even a sliver of her.

  Because that smile was bright and terrifying and cold enough to shatter them all into glittering shards. She’d gone beyond ice. She was absolute zero in female form, so frigid no life could survive in her presence. Certainly not a prick of Dale’s insignificance.

  “I’m not. Please excuse me.” With another glorious, annihilating smile, she left the office.

  Dale stepped out of her way, the glee scrubbed from his face as if it had never existed.

  And then, for the first time, Martin understood. Not everything, but enough.

  He should have realized it before, but he’d been too deep in his own muddled head to piece together an accurate representation of hers.

  A woman capable of such sincere, bone-dissolving warmth toward the young and vulnerable didn’t armor herself with fierce, chilly composure for no reason.

  Rose had dealt with bullies before.

  Rose had been hurt. Badly.

  Rose would likely understand his own fears. Might have even been patient with them. Might have helped him overcome them.

  And because of those fears, he’d just turned down her unguarded overture of interest, hurt her feelings, and pricked her pride. All in front of the last person she’d ever want to see her vulnerable.

  His guess? He’d never get another chance. Never see her unveiled and unprotected again. Not as a friend, and certainly not as a potential lover. Not even if they worked together until retirement.

  If he could find a spare time machine, he’d go back ten minutes, extract his head from his ass, and then kick that ass until he shouted his acceptance of her invitation, bloody and exultant. But unless the science department had progressed far beyond the state’s standards of learning, he had no access to a time machine.

  He’d have to find another way into her tower, even though his head swam at great heights, and he imagined there would be thorns aplenty along his climb.

  It would require time. Patience. Faith in himself.

  He had plenty of the first two, less of the latter.

  But he was a teacher, goddammit. He’d learn.

  Six

  He’d said no. Of course he’d said no.

  To Martin’s credit, he’d fumbled through the flustered refusal with seemingly genuine regret, and only after a long, fraught hesitation. But in the end, after all the labored explanations, the answer was simple.

  No.

  Suddenly, Rose didn’t feel so safe after all. Especially after that encounter with Dale.

  Vulnerability meant pain. Pity. Judgment. Humiliation. Snide pleasure at her downfall.

  She should have known. She had known.

  Due to her own misjudgments, her privacy had been compromised, her pride wounded. And she knew what she needed to do, to be, now.

  Just as she reached her door, Martin exited the department office. Chin high, she stepped inside her classroom with deliberate slowness—he wouldn’t see her run or hide from him, ever—only to hear a horrible, horrible sound. Footsteps. Familiar ones, originating from the direction of the office.

  Shit. A man like him couldn’t let it lie, could he? He’d want to smooth things over. Make sure they left matters on the right note. Reassure himself that she was o
kay, they were okay, everything was just perfectly, unequivocally okay.

  Sure enough, he appeared in her doorway a moment later, his face set in an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. She didn’t try, either. His emotions did not concern her, and hers had been deposited safely out of his reach.

  He glanced at the purse on her desk and her closed laptop. “You’re almost done for the evening?”

  A lie would reveal too much. “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll walk you to the parking lot.”

  A direct refusal would do the same. “Won’t Dale want to speak with you? Shouldn’t you go back to the office?”

  “Probably.”

  He appeared neither bothered by the prospect of Dale’s displeasure nor intimidated by her hauteur. Instead, he just stood there and waited for her to gather her belongings.

  Once she had, he preceded her out the door, stood quietly when she locked it behind them, and kept her brisk pace down the stairs and toward the main entrance. Once they reached the nearly-empty parking lot, he scanned their surroundings as they walked.

  A few feet from her car door—so close to freedom—he finally spoke. “Does Dale have much influence over your career?”

  His voice remained low enough not to carry, a gesture she reluctantly appreciated.

  She was too tired for subtlety. “Are you asking me how I’ve avoided disciplinary measures when Dale and I obviously despise one another, and I barely speak to him?”

  “I suppose I am.” Martin watched her unlock her car with her remote. “If you’re willing to answer.”

  He didn’t need to know. Then again, she’d seen no evidence that he gossiped. So if it would ease that worried furrow in his brow—although she didn’t care anymore whether he was anxious, not in the slightest—she could give him the faintest outlines of the truth.

  She swung open the driver’s side door, and he held it wide. “I have influential friends.”

  Her former in-laws might have raised an egocentric, pompous ass of a son, but from the beginning, they’d treated her with the generous kindness of doting relatives. Sent cards and called on her birthday. Had thoughtful gifts—midnight-dark cashmere gloves during a cold winter, or DVDs of historical documentaries they thought she might enjoy—delivered to the home she shared with Barton. Taught her how to navigate through the iceberg-studded waters of moneyed society. Inquired about her career and supported her training to become an AP teacher.