by Rebel Hart
Thanks to Avery lobbing topics at me, I was able to be more talkative during dinner and calm my parents’ fear about my sudden odd behavior by blaming it on not knowing what I wanted to do for school. My mom told me not to rush it, that something would come up, but I honestly wasn’t sure anything would. Didn’t most people have an idea by now? Avery knew exactly what she wanted to do and exactly where she wanted to do it. Why didn’t I have a better idea?
“You promise you’ll be okay?” Avery asked when she was preparing to leave the next day.
“I promise. I’m going to do homework in the living room so that I’m not being a hermit and then watch a movie with Gus,” I explained. “I’ll be glad to get back to school tomorrow.”
“Me too.” She gasped. “Oh god. Are we nerds?”
“I don’t know about me, but you definitely are,” I replied with a smile before giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Ugh, go be with your cute boyfriend who loves you.”
She chuckled. “Well, don’t be so happy for me.”
I stepped back and waved as she pulled out of the driveway and then went back inside and did exactly as I promised. I grabbed my backpack and computer and holed up in the living room to work where my parents could be assured that I wasn’t receding again, and eventually, Gus wandered down with his homework, set up next to me, and started working as well.
“Hey, bud,” I said.
“You were weird yesterday,” he said immediately. Gotta love kids’ lack of filter.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m fine now. When you get older, you’ll understand.”
He looked straight into my eyes with all of his little-brotherly innocence and asked, “Did something happen with Deon?”
It threw me for such a loop that I almost didn’t know how to answer. “Um. Why do you think that?”
He shrugged. “You were so happy when he came back, but now you’re sad again like you were right after he left before.”
I hadn’t even put those things together, but I probably was acting pretty similarly to how I was right after Deon disappeared four years ago. Maybe that was what triggered my parents so badly too. “I did something that upset him, but I’m going to apologize soon.”
He nodded. “Good. Hurry up so you guys can have a baby.”
“What!” I yelped. “A baby?”
He tilted his head and looked at me with the most naive expression. “Isn’t that what happens when you love someone?”
Note to self—tell dad it’s time for The Talk. “Uh, no, buddy. Not quite that quickly, but yeah. Don’t worry. I’ll do it soon.”
It probably wasn’t Gus’s intention to have my mind running off to a future having children with Deon, but after that, it was all I could think about. It was the only thing that felt right when I thought about what I wanted in my future. Sure, I wanted to develop a skill and get a job doing something I loved, but when I thought about raising a couple of kids, being married to Deon, working hard with him to give our family better than what we had—that was a clear future for me.
Alistair, Colette, and Avery found Gus’s confusion about relationships hilarious as I told them about it on the way to lunch at school the next day.
“That’s so fucking cute,” Alistair said.
“He’s also not totally wrong,” Avery said. “A lot of people jump from not even dating to babies.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want my baby brother thinking that,” I whined. “Although, in truth, it kind of made me happy to think about, you know? A little family with Deon? I might like that.”
Colette wrinkled up her nose at me. “That’s what you’re striving for?”
“Shut up, Colette,” Avery snapped. “It’s perfectly normal for someone to want to be a stay-at-home parent. That’s a really difficult job.”
“I’m not saying I have it all figured out, anyway. I’m sure I’ll want more than that, but I at least want that,” I said.
“Well, you’re probably going to have to get going ending things with Nathan and making nice with Deon,” Alistair said. “Otherwise, things are gonna get awkward pretty quickly.”
“Thanks, Ali,” I grumbled.
“Speaking of which,” Avery said. “There’s Sicily.” Avery was pointing toward where Sicily was sitting at a table alone. “If you go quick, you can miss Deon, maybe.”
“Good point. I’m gonna go. I’ll talk to you guys later,” I said and peeled away from them as they kept going.
“Why does she need to talk to him?” I heard Colette huff, and I wished Avery a bit of silent good luck in covering for me.
I waited patiently while a group of students passed me by, and then I started making my way across the lunchroom toward Sicily. I was feeling good that I could make my request without having to have a weird interaction with Deon, but before I could make my way all the way over to the table, Deon sat down across from Sicily with a tray of food.
“Shit,” I hissed to myself.
I kept going, at least having prepared myself for seeing him. What I hadn’t prepared for was what happened next. I was near the table when someone else walked over and sat down next to Deon. She didn’t have any food, but she snuck a grape off of Deon’s tray like it was nothing and perched it between her lips. All my movement slowed to a halt as I watched Deon lean in and wrap his lips around the grape, kissing the girl in the process. My stomach turned immediately, and I struggled to catch my breath.
Had Deon moved on already?
I wanted to turn around and run away, but I thought about Nathan and the position he was in and knew I had to keep going. It was difficult not to cry as I watched Deon and the woman continue to brazenly kiss and flirt, and I watched my family dream go up in smoke.
When I was within a few feet of the table, I stopped. I couldn’t stand to get any closer, so I just put my hands up on either side of my mouth and called out, “Sicily!”
Sicily turned around, and both Deon and the girl at his side looked up at me. Deon watched me for a minute before turning and whispering something to the girl next to him. She nodded her head and chuckled, and then he stole another kiss from her. If he was trying to make me jealous, it was certainly working, but I did my best to ignore it and waved Sicily over. He got up from the table and came over to me with a smile on his face.
“Your highness,” he greeted.
“Um.” I nodded toward Deon and the woman. “Who’s that? With Deon?”
“Oh, that’s my sister, Annika. They met when he came for a sleepover, and they hit it off like crazy. Been inseparable ever since,” he said.
“Have they, um…” My throat burned as I thought about Deon with someone else, so I pushed my brain away from the subject. “Nevermind. I need a favor. I can pay.”
“Well, money is the language I speak,” Sicily replied. “What do ya need?”
No matter how hard I tried not to, I kept glancing back toward Deon and Annika, but I begged my brain to focus. “Uh. Can you bug a classroom? Audio would be good, but video would be even better.”
He let out a hollow whistle. “Bug a teacher? I’m sorry, your highness, but that’s gonna cost, even for you. That’s risky business.”
“Money’s no object,” I said. “Just bill me when it’s over. Can you do both audio and video?”
“Of course. Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asked with a smile. “Who’s the teacher?”
“Miss Abrams.”
Sicily crossed his arms. “Trying to get video proof about the ol’ king eh?”
“Something like that,” I replied.
“I’m on it, your highness. Consider it done. I’ll reach out when I’ve got what you need.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
After that, Sicily turned around and returned to his table. I couldn’t stop staring at Deon and Annika until Deon finally turned and locked eyes with me. I probably looked like an idiot, but I immediately turned and bolted out of the cafeteria just as tears started to stream down my face.
&nbs
p; 21
Deon
Annika started to chuckle in my ear as Cherri went rushing out of the cafeteria. “Uh-oh. I think we went too far.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
I didn’t consider myself a petty or childish person, but what Cherri did to me still kept me up most nights. I really only intended to tell Annika who Cherri was, but when she kissed me, I didn’t stop it. If anything, now Cherri knew that I wasn’t going to be used. If I had to move on, I could. Sicily came walking back over to the table and returned to his seat.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“She wants me to bug a teacher’s classroom,” he said. “She didn’t give me specifics, but I imagine it has something to do with Nathan.”
“Why would she need to bug a teacher’s classroom about Nathan?” I asked.
“Oh,” Annika hummed next to me, “is he the kid that got caught with that teacher last year?”
Sicily nodded. “Yep.” He looked at me. “There was this whole thing last year. One of the history teachers, Miss Abrams, got caught having sex with a student in her classroom. That student was Nathan.”
I scrunched my nose up in disgust. “She still works here, doesn’t she? How could she not lose her job after something like that?”
“No clue,” Sicily replied. “Whatever the cover-up, someone paid big bucks to do it. The working rumor around the school is that she slept with Principal Hix to keep her job, but I don’t know. Principal Hix is a really suave, debonair type of guy. I can’t imagine he’s hurting for women, and as far as my interactions with him, he’s a straight and narrow man. If he was involved with Miss Abrams, he wouldn’t be trying to hide it, and he certainly isn’t taking some teenage brat’s sloppy seconds.”
Annika shook her head. “I don’t know. Miss Abrams is really gorgeous.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s a banana split with all the toppings. I got two eyes, don’t I?” Sicily scoffed. “I don’t know that she’s that hot that Principal Hix would risk his job just so she could keep hers. Trust me. I kept my nose to the ground for months after that, trying to get the expose, and no one knows nothin’. Not teachers. Not students. No one’s got the real scoop about it.”
After spending a year with Nathan, it honestly didn’t seem like the kind of thing he had the stomach for. It was shocking enough, finding out that Nathan had managed to bag Cherri, let alone finding out he was sleeping with a teacher. I’d honestly gotten the sense from my time in the Loche household that Connor wanted his son to be more fearless. He must have shit his pants when he found out his kid got caught fucking a teacher.
“There’s something weird going on there, for sure,” I finally said. “Those twos don’t make four at all.”
Sicily shrugged. “Whatever. Money’s money for me, and I’ll be able to charge that rich bitch a pret—” I was across the table with Sicily’s shirt twisted up in a knot in my fist before I could stop myself. Everyone around us stopped what they were doing and looked over as our corner of the cafeteria fell dead silent. “My bad,” Sicily huffed, his hands gripped around my arm. “My bad.”
It took everything in me not to deck Sicily in the face. In fact, if Annika hadn’t reached out and grabbed my arm, I might have. “Deon,” she huffed. “Let him go. We’re friends.”
With a few deep breaths, I let the anger simmer out of me, and I finally dropped Sicily. He crumpled against the table. I slammed back into my seat and glared at him, halfway shocked at my own reaction. “Watch your fucking mouth,” I growled.
Sicily held up a hand and pointed down at himself. “That’s on me. I was trying to do the whole solidarity thing. Won’t be making that mistake again.”
“You know,” Annika said, “if you would use your powers for good, this shit wouldn’t happen, and you could probably be an above-the-board billionaire.”
Sicily waved a hand through the air. “I’ll worry about that when I’m older.” He straightened his shirt out, fixed his hat, and then held out a hand to me. “I’m sorry, Dee. Forgive me?” His sincere expression was almost humorous, but I was still too angry to laugh. I took his hand and shook it, saying nothing, and he smiled. “Good. ‘Cause I’m gonna need your help with this bug job.”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Annika said. “Deon’s on parole. If he gets caught, he could be in violation.”
“He ain’t gonna be doing anything crazy, just talking to her,” he explained. “Miss Abrams likes ‘em young with pretty faces.”
“Tank. Use your fucking brain for a sec—”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“What?” Annika asked. “Deon. Think about it for a second.”
“I’m doing it,” I responded. There was a wealth of information to be gained from talking to Miss Abrams and finding out what Cherri was up to. If there was any risk she was getting caught up in something bigger than she realized, whether we were together or not, I needed to protect her.
“Cool. We’ll go after school. I gotta get my stuff together,” Sicily said. “She’s in classroom 419 up on the fourth floor. Meet me there after the last bell.”
The rest of the day crawled by at a snail’s pace. My brain was a mix of concerns that Cherri—and Nathan, for that matter—might be in trouble and that I had no idea what to expect from helping Sicily from a job. I was also concerned about the reaction I had when Sicily called Cherri a bitch. Regardless of what I thought might be in my best interest, it was clear that I wasn’t going to be getting over my hangup on Cherri anytime soon. I actually felt kind of bad that I’d reacted so harshly with Sicily. He was only speaking poorly about her because he thought it’d make me feel better. That was the first real flare-up of the temper I’d developed from being locked up, and I didn’t like that it was against a friend.
When the final bell rang, I filtered into the crowd of students flooding out of the classrooms and made my way down to classroom nineteen on the fourth floor, Miss Abrams’s classroom. I could see the allure. She was tall, even more so with a pair of black pumps on, and she wore a dark gray pencil skirt and a magenta blouse that accented her obvious assets. She had wavy brown hair that was cut just above her shoulders, and she wore a pair of glasses that I was almost certain were for the aesthetic as opposed to having any actual function. They looked like the cheap ones guys who needed glasses behind bars were forced to deal with. She waved goodbye to her students before walking back into her classroom and sitting down at her desk, and a few minutes later, Sicily walked up to me.
“All right. You just go in there and introduce yourself and start talking to her or something. I don’t know. You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart kid. Try and get her over by the windows so that I can get up to the corner above her desk. I’m assuming that’s the angle that’ll give Cherri what she’s looking for.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And hey,” Sicily started. “I’m sorry about earlier. I really—”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to react like that honestly. Just… Even if it’s not going well right now, she’s my everything.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m not normally like that with women, either, so lessons learned all around. We’re good, right?” Sicily asked.
I nodded, patting him on his head. “Yeah. We’re good.”
“Cool. Ready?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “Ready.”
Sicily tapped me on my back, and I led the charge, walking into Miss Abrams’ room. There were no other students inside, so apart from those passing by in the hallway, it was pretty quiet and isolated. She didn’t seem to notice me walk in right away, so I made my way all the way over to her desk before clearing my throat.
She looked up and smiled. “Hello. You’re Deon, right?”
She stood up and walked around her desk, to my luck, toward the windows. I walked even closer to the windows to meet her and stuck out my hand to shake. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.”
She had a fairly normal smile on her face.
“Nice to meet you as well.” In the corner of my eye, it felt like I could see Sicily moving into the room, but I didn’t look for fear of drawing attention to him. I just kept my eyes on Miss Abrams and hoped for the best. “So. Can I do something for you?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Maybe I hadn’t thought things all the way through. What did I say to a teacher that I didn’t even have? “I don’t know if you know, but I’m…”
She nodded. “We all had to be briefed as part of your coming to the school,” Miss Abrams said. “Don’t worry. We’ve all been strictly advised not to share your case information with anyone outside of the teacher’s network.”
“Cool. Actually, I need, um… I have Mr. Mead’s history class, and I’m not doing great. I was wondering if—”
She tilted her head. “Oh? I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about you from Wendell.”
Shit. “Really? It, uh, it feels like I’m not getting it, and I was hoping for private lessons, maybe?” That was fine, right? I could come back later and say my mom got me a tutor or that it just got better.
“Private lessons?” Her warm smile faded, and her eyes got creepily wide. “Let me guess, Nathan told you?”
I shook my head. “What?”
“That little brat. He told you, didn’t he?”
“Told me what?” I said. “Seriously, I just heard you’re a great teacher.”
“Oh!” she screamed suddenly. “A great teacher! That’s what you want? You want me to get on my knees, huh?” I did risk a quick look over at Sicily at that, and it looked like he’d successfully attached the camera and was starting to climb down, but he looked just as shocked by the outburst as I was. “Hey!” Miss Abrams screamed, bringing my attention back to her. “My eyes are here!” She pointed to her breasts. “That’s what you want, right?”
“What!”
Sicily walked over. “Uh, couldn’t help but overhear. Is everything okay?”
“You brought a friend? You think you’re going to double team me!” She ran over to the window and started to open it. “This is my life now, right? Opening my legs for any of you who wants a piece.”
