Page 40 of Hot for Her

Maybe that would take the attention off the bags under my bloodshot eyes.

I dabbed on some Armani cologne but her scent still lingered. It kept me up most nights, hoping she’d appear like she’d done before. I was a self-destructive addict that couldn’t bring myself to walk away and return to my room inside the house. I didn’t want to risk not being in the camper if she came back. I even slept with the door unlocked.

There was a thunderstorm the first day of school, causing the scent of rain and wildflowers to assault my senses as I entered my empty classroom that morning. Being ghosted and haunted were both new for me. I didn’t like it. I wondered if I’d ever caused anyone to feel this way. From now on, I knew I had to be more careful with the women I was intimate with. I did my best to shake off my jangled nerves as I printed my name on the board in blue dry erase marker.

Mr. Singleton.

It seemed so adult, so formal. I would’ve preferred just to be called Coach, but I remembered what I’d learned from my student advisor—if I didn’t establish my authority during the first week of school, I never would.

I took a deep breath, greeting my students as they began to trickle in a few at a time.

Not long ago, I was a high school student myself. And yet, looking at them, it felt like a lifetime ago. They seemed like children—so sure of themselves and so blissfully unaware of the harsh real world realities breathing down their necks. Most of them stared at cell phones or continued conversations with each other, barely paying me any attention.

It wasn’t until a tall, athletic-looking kid with a nasty shiner took his seat that I started to doubt my abilities.

The entire right side of his face showed the faint hint of bruising and he was limping a little. Surely he wasn’t being physically abused at home or bullied here at school already.

I reminded myself that I got into plenty of fights in high school. He was a senior, practically a grown man for all intents and purposes, and it wasn’t my business anyway. Except, as his teacher it actually was. This was the part I wasn’t prepared for. They don’t put that in the books.

When the final morning bell rang, I closed the classroom door. Feeling suddenly hot and claustrophobic, I undid the buttons on the cuffs of my shirt, rolling up my sleeves before starting class.

“Good morning,” I greeted the students in my homeroom, lifting the stack of papers off my desk. I handed several to the students in the front rows to pass backward. “I’m Mr. Singleton. What you’ll find in this packet is everything you need to successfully pass Government this semester. As you already know, it’s a requirement to graduate.”

A petite but curvy redhead entered late and snuck quietly toward the back. I hadn’t taken attendance yet, so I didn’t make an issue of it. She smiled apologetically. Hopefully it wouldn’t continue to be a problem.

Once the packets were distributed, I picked up the blue cards with their schedules and grabbed the class roster to take attendance. Figuring it’d been easier to handle them both at once, I began handing them out as I read off their names. When I got to the E’s and shiner kid answeredhereto Drew Echols, my world tilted off its axis.

That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

I hardly recognized him not covered in blood, but it was definitely the same hair and same build. Emersyn’s friend Drew was in high school in Elksboro? In my class of all things. What were the odds? Having a link to her, even an entirely inappropriate one that I’d be a complete moron to utilize, gave me a modicum of relief.

When I got to the T’s, my relief evaporated.

Come-fucking-pletely.

The girl I’d been looking all over campus for, she was here. Well, not here, in person, but here on paper.

Tyler, Emersyn Elizabeth.

The room threatened to spin and my breakfast flirted with the notion of making a return appearance. I’d only just read her full name and hadn’t quite processed the implications of it being on this particular list, when I heard the classroom door click shut with one more late arrival.

As if I’d conjured her by reading the black and white words on paper, she stepped inside the classroom the same way she’d appeared in my bed two weeks ago.

Silently. Without a word of explanation.

My heart pounded in my chest, rushing blood into my ears so quickly that the morning announcements on the overhead PA system seemed muffled. She kept her head down as I scrutinized the name on the list again to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

She took her seat and finally looked up at where I stood, her wide, panicked eyes meeting mine.

The only woman I wanted in the one place in the world I never wanted to see her.

Emersyn Tyler.

The art major.

A high school student.

A liar.

My complete and utter destruction.