Page 6 of Promises We Meant to Keep (Love in Massachusetts #1)

six

“Go ahead and tell them.” Elia eyed Kamryn carefully. There was something going on here that she wasn’t aware of. But she had to make sure that Kamryn was sober enough to walk to the car without looking drunk. There were students here, a few other staff, and definitely family of Windermere.

She’d ream into Kamryn in the morning about her behavior tonight.

“Oh, it’s not that big a story. Not really anyway.” Kamryn was still looking at her.

If Elia focused on it, she could still feel Kamryn’s lips pressed against hers, the tingle from the kiss, the dampness on her lips that Kamryn had left in her wake.

“We want to hear it. I’m Rosie, by the way. Lauren’s girlfriend.” Rosie was really pushing for this, wasn’t she? Just what was she trying to prove?

“Good to meet you,” Elia answered, keeping Kamryn tucked into her side. “And Kamryn isn’t wrong. It’s not a very elaborate story. We’re working together at the school, and well, one thing led to another.” It was the best she could come up with so quickly. She wasn’t an author, so she certainly didn’t have a flair for the dramatic or the entertaining.

“Did Kamryn ever have a crush on you when she was your student?”

“God, no!” Kamryn nearly shouted. She was way too loud for there not to be an extra meaning in her words, wasn’t she? Even Rosie saw it. Lauren raised her eyebrow, the one that had a piercing through it, and seemed just as surprised by the reaction too. “Dr. Sharpe was—is—an amazing teacher. But I didn’t… we didn’t… not then.”

“No, she didn’t,” Lauren added, still looking the two them over as carefully as possible. “Kamryn was interested in someone else.”

“Oh?” Elia asked, looking at Kamryn for the confirmation. Did Kamryn have a crush on another teacher when she’d been a student?

“Me,” Lauren said simply and quietly. She wasn’t looking at Elia but at Kamryn, betrayal written across her face. “At least I thought that’s the only crush she had.”

“It was,” Kamryn responded, leaning forward just enough that Elia had to pull back to keep her from toppling over. “I was only into you back then.”

“Apparently not.”

Kamryn sighed heavily, and Elia tightened her grip on Kamryn’s arm. So that’s what this was about. “How long did you two date?”

“On and off for twenty years,” Kamryn mumbled, turning away to face the band.

“That’s a long time!” One of the other two women who had been standing quietly around them the entire time added. “Why didn’t you ever get married?”

Kamryn tensed, her entire body going rigid. Elia was up close and personal with her, so she felt it in her own body. That was a touchy subject still, no doubt, and there was no way that Kamryn was going to be able to talk about it.

Jumping in, she made the decision to change the topic. “Those are usually complicated answers. But what about you? How did you and Lauren meet?” Elia looked directly at Rosie, hoping that the fact she seemed to be running this conversation would pull her to talk about herself instead of being cruel to someone else.

“I met Lauren through Andra, actually.”

Kamryn jerked. She was staring at her shoes, her cheeks were red, and her eyes were barely open. Was she holding back tears?

“I’m sure that’s an interesting story, but I’ll have to hear all about it another time.” Elia stated, using her teacher voice that meant she wasn’t going to leave any room for argument. “I forgot that I have an early meeting in the morning, so we should get home so we can get some sleep.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Kamryn leaned into Elia’s side and let her lead them away from the small crowd.

Elia guided Kamryn through the throng of people, ignoring the stares at her back. There was far more to Kamryn than she’d wanted to believe there was. She’d spent the last few weeks trying to make her out to be the enemy who had stolen a job right from under her, but it was anything but that. Kamryn was a person, someone who came with her own history and problems and pain.

And Elia had unwittingly walked right into the center of it all.

She kept Kamryn upright as they walked toward her car. When they stepped off the curb, Kamryn’s voice finally reached her ears. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the school,” Elia said, keeping her tone firm and collected. She was upset still about the scene that Kamryn potentially could have caused, that if she hadn’t stepped in to collect her it could have gotten really bad. She was upset that Kamryn would ever remotely think that getting drunk in public would be a good idea.

But she couldn’t exactly yell at Kamryn right now either. Not while Kamryn was drunk, not while they were still trying to get back to the school. Opening the passenger door and sliding Kamryn into the seat, Elia stepped back after she closed the door and took a deep, steadying breath. Abagail was going to hear all about this before she left for her trip.

Even as adults, Elia was still cleaning up her students’ messes.

How did that responsibility seem to always fall onto her shoulders?

At least it used to when Kamryn had been a student. But ever since then, it was different. Elia had made sure of it. She wouldn’t repeat mistakes.

Sliding behind the wheel, she turned the car on and lowered the volume on the radio. “So you and Lauren dated.” It wasn’t a statement. But Elia was insanely curious how that one had happened and how it had ended. While she’d wanted to stick around for the details from Rosie, she was pretty sure that it wouldn’t have worked out well in Kamryn’s favor.

“Yes. And lived together.” Kamryn ran her fingers over her face. “I’m sorry.”

“For dating Lauren?” Elia asked, already knowing where this conversation was probably going. She could only hope that Kamryn would remember it in the morning though.

“Well, yes.” Kamryn sighed heavily. “But more for putting you in an unethical position. I shouldn’t have… That wasn’t a very wise…” Kamryn groaned. “I’m sorry I kissed you without your permission.”

Permission? That word rang out in Elia’s ears. She’d never had anyone ask for her permission, explicitly, to kiss her before. Not in random kisses she’d had as a teenager and young adult or even within longer-term relationships.

But that bit of knowledge, the admission of guilt and pain that seemed to settle into Kamryn from knowing she’d done something without permission intrigued Elia. What would it have been like to have been asked?

Would it have been that much better? Because that kiss out there had been amazing, even with the alcohol, without the anticipation, without the interest between two parties.

“I should have asked for consent. I was wrong.”

“Kamryn…” Elia stopped herself. She was about to tell Kamryn that it was fine she hadn’t asked, but they would talk about it some other time or just forget that it happened, but she stopped herself. That would be invalidating the confession. “You should have. And to be very clear, I don’t plan on holding that point against you.”

“That point?” Kamryn looked at Elia then, their eyes locking briefly before Elia pulled out into the street.

“Yes. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

“Now you sound like you’re going to make me talk to the Head of School because you caught me drinking.”

Elia snorted lightly, a smile that she hoped Kamryn couldn’t see playing at her lips. She’d done that many times with many students over the years, though she hadn’t ever had to do that with Kamryn. Kamryn had been one of the good kids. Always ready to please, and a very hard worker.

“I suppose I could walk you up to her office in the morning.”

Kamryn groaned and sunk deeper into the seat. “Now everything is spinning.”

“Because you’re drunk.”

“Yeah. I am.” Kamryn was back to covering her face.

The movement of the car likely wasn’t helping the situation. Elia made sure to drive as steady as she possibly could all the way back to the school. She hesitated when she entered the gates, almost taking a right toward the dormitories.

“Is it safe to assume since you were out tonight that you’re not the house parent on duty?”

“Hardly. Charlotte’s on duty.”

“Good.” Elia turned her car away from the student dormitories and drove toward the on-campus housing that was reserved for faculty and staff. She’d lived in one of the houses there for the last decade, and it would be a much better place to recover than someplace where students could come in at any moment and need something.

“Where are we going?”

“My house.” Elia parked the car and turned the engine off. “So you can sleep this off in peace.”

“El…Dr. Sharpe. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll just go back to my apartment.”

Elia paused again, looking Kamryn over. This was a mess that Elia felt compelled to clean up. She was more annoyed with that than any kiss that had happened. The warmth from the car was fading with the engine shut off, and she really didn’t want to sit there and debate this for much longer.

“I think after kissing me, you’ve earned the right to call me Elia.”

“Oh God.” Kamryn covered her face again, shaking her head side to side. She stopped suddenly. “No sharp movements. That was a bad idea.”

“Come along.” Dragging herself out of the car, Elia moved to the passenger side to get Kamryn out. They walked side by side, Elia’s hand around Kamryn’s waist again to keep her steady.

Elia unlocked the door and immediately pocketed the keys while she helped Kamryn inside. There’s no way she would have made it up the stairs to her third-floor apartment. She put Kamryn onto the couch and then stripped out of her jacket and tossed it over the arm of the lounge chair.

“Think you can take your own jacket off or do you need help with that?” Elia asked, annoyance seeping through her words.

“I can do it.” Kamryn huffed, and she started moving and undoing the buttons. “That last shot was a mistake.”

“So were the first two.” Elia walked around the couch and into the kitchen, pulling out a glass from the cabinet and filling it with ice and water. The last thing she had expected tonight was to be taking care of her new boss.

Her new boss who clearly didn’t deserve the job she’d been hired for.

Handing Kamryn the glass, Elia sat down on the chair. “Why did you and Lauren break up?”

“Which time?” Kamryn mumbled.

“Start with the last one.” Why was Elia even asking this? Kamryn’s life wasn’t hers to pry into. And yet, she wasn’t sure she’d ever get an honest answer if she didn’t ask now, and her nosy sensibilities were playing up.

“We both cheated.” Kamryn lay back heavily into the couch. “Not the first time. We never did a really good job of growing up together. Being in a relationship with Lauren was being stuck at sixteen and the first time we snuck off to…” Kamryn stopped talking. “Never mind.”

Have sex.

That had been what Kamryn wasn’t willing to say. And she’d avoided it because Elia had been her teacher at that point. It would have been on her watch because Lauren had been assigned to Elia’s dormitory their last two years at Windermere.

“It’s both of our faults.”

“Lauren cheated with Rosie,” Elia surmised.

“She did.” Kamryn wrinkled her nose in the most adorable way. “It wasn’t pretty when I found out. Greer calls Rosie the Replacement, but I don’t think she’s anything like me.”

“No, I don’t think anyone would accuse you two of that.” Elia couldn’t imagine that. With what she had witnessed tonight, Kamryn would never be as cruel as Rosie so easily was. Even drunk, Kamryn was apologizing and groveling. That nearly brought a smile to Elia’s lips. “What did you do after you graduated?”

“Went to college. Went to graduate school. Got a few degrees, broke my heart a few times. I grew up.” Kamryn stared into her glass like it held all the answers to the questions she wasn’t asking.

Elia could connect with that. She’d stared down at a glass like that more than just a time or two, hoping for some kind of answer to questions she didn’t dare put out into the universe. “Why teach?”

Kamryn looked up at her then. “Is that what this is about? My being the Head of School?”

Elia gave her a slight shrug. “You never told me why you went into teaching.”

“There’s a lot of creativity that can happen in a school room, between teacher and student. You showed me that. I didn’t major in English though, so don’t get any grand ideas that I was trying to become you. I wanted to teach because I want kids to have the freedom to explore their interests, who they are, and to find their place in the world.” Kamryn looked more sober now than she had all night. “I went into administration because that seemed like the biggest roadblock to any student having the ability to learn.”

Elia couldn’t stop the smile at that. Kamryn was absolutely right. “And why did you come back here?” That was the question Elia really wanted answered, wasn’t it? Why had Kamryn taken the opportunity from Elia to become Head of School? Why had she been passed over again?

“This is where I started. Why wouldn’t I want to come back here?”

Putting her hands out to the side, Elia relaxed slightly. She didn’t have an answer to that. She had no desire to go back to her hometown. They never understood her, and she hadn’t wanted to make them try. Starting new and fresh had been a much better option in the long term. And she would say it had paid off.

“Question back to you…and actually answer this time, please?” There was a plea in Kamryn’s voice.

Elia nodded her head, indicating Kamryn could ask.

“Why aren’t you Head of School? You told us that’s what you wanted to do.”

Elia’s stomach twisted hard, that pang of guilt and pain coming right back to haunt her. She planted her feet on the floor and pushed herself to stand. She ignored Kamryn as she walked to the linen closet and grabbed an extra blanket and pillow, setting it next to Kamryn on the couch.

“I would have been a better choice than you.” Elia straightened her back and put her hands on her hips. “I wouldn’t have gotten drunk in public and started a scene in front of my students for starters.”

“There were students there?”

“Yes.” Elia pursed her lips and let out a breath. “We’ll talk more about it in the morning. When you’re hung over and awake.”

She didn’t wait another beat before she walked out of the living room. If Kamryn walked back to the dormitory now, then it was out of her hands. She needed a break from the intensity. She needed to find her center again—that had been the entire reason she’d gone out with Abagail that night.

Changing and crawling under the blankets in her bed, Elia closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the town square, the muted yellow lights adding to the ambiance, the band playing on the stage, and Kamryn’s lips against hers. The heat from the embrace, the arousal it awoke in her, the base desire to touch and be touched.