Ford

I’m half asleep on the sofa Friday night when the faintest knock on my door has me convinced I’m dreaming.

Until I hear it again.

Peeling myself up, I finger comb my hair into place and shuffle to the door. If it’s Melissa fucking Gunderson, I’m going to scream.

But it’s not Melissa.

Quite the contrary.

“Halston.” She’s the last person I expected to see standing at my doorstep at eleven thirty on a Friday night, but there she is, her clothes and hair disheveled, and her shoes covered in mud.

“I need a place to stay.”

“And your principal’s house seemed like the best option?” I lift a brow, pretending that’s the more pressing concern when really I want to know why the fuck she looks worse for the wear.

“Yeah.” She pushes past me, showing herself in. Halston slides her dirty shoes off and leaves them on the rug by the door. “Believe it or not.”

Glancing outside, I make sure no one saw her come inside, and then I lock the door. “What happened? You okay?”

Halston rolls her eyes before taking a seat in my chair. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

“If I’m taking you in, I need to know why,” I say, a million scenarios running through my head. Every part of me knows this is wrong, and if anyone caught us, they’d never believe that my intentions were noble. But every part of me knows I can’t shut her out.

“My aunt and uncle think I’m staying with a friend. I was really going to stay with a guy.” She exhales, running her tongue along her full lips. They’re swollen, like she spent the last several hours making out. Her elbows rest on her knees, her body hunched forward. “Long story short, he thought he was going to fuck me, and I asked him to take me home. When he wouldn’t, I got out of the car and walked … through a muddy cornfield … down a gravel road ... and into town.”

Exhaling, I hide my relief.

“Smart,” I say.

Her emerald gaze flicks to mine. “I don’t need your validation.”

Smirking, I place my palms up. “All right.”

Reaching for a book on my coffee table, she examines the cover. “A Wrinkle in Time. Why would you read this depressing shit?”

“It’s a classic.”

“It’s sad as fuck.” She tosses it aside, reaching for another book, making faces when she doesn’t find one that suits her liking.

“I have more upstairs,” I say. “In my library. But you can’t go up there.”

She arches a brow. “Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Tossing her head back, she laughs. “Nothing about me being here with you right now is appropriate. I think we passed that a long time ago, don’t you?”

“I’m sitting here.” I drag my teeth along my lower lip, watching how she brushes her hair over her shoulder and tilts her head as she checks out my living room. “You’re over there. I’d say we’re being pretty fucking appropriate right now.”

“Then can I see your library?”

“No.”

Her brows meet. “What are you worried about?”

That I’ll get her upstairs, mere feet from my bedroom. That I’ll want to kiss her. That I won’t be able to stop. That I’ll lose all fucking control. That everything I’ve ever worked for will go down in flames because of a young woman named Halston Kessler.

“I’m not worried about anything,” I lie. “But you’re still not going upstairs.”

“You’re really high strung. Explains why you’re such a control freak.”

I shrug, refusing to apologize for my inherent need for power over every situation.

“When was the last time you got laid?” she asks.

“I’m not discussing my sex life with you. Not anymore.”

“I don’t know what the difference is between now and a few weeks ago,” she says. “I’m still Absinthe. You’re still Kerouac. Only this time we’re in the same room, sitting here trying to pretend we’re not ridiculously attracted to each other and that you haven’t wondered what it would feel like to touch me.”

I exhale, refusing to dignify her with a response.

“Admit it. You’ve thought about me.” She drags a fingertip down the front of her twisted lips, fighting a chuckle. “My mouth on your cock. Your fingers in my pussy. I know I’ve thought about it. So much.”

Glancing away, I pull in a tight breath and let it go. “I’m your principal and you’re my student. I would never touch you. I would never cross that line.”

“But what if you could? What if you knew with one-hundred percent certainty that we would never get caught?” She crosses her legs, angling her body toward me. “Would you do it?”

“No.”

“I would.” Her bee stung lips tug up at one side. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m just being honest.”

“You’re not making me uncomfortable.” I sigh, covering my face with my hands. I’ve thought about fucking her. I’ve thought about how her curves would feel under my palms, ample and soft, how her lips would taste, like cherries or cinnamon, how her body would feel pressed warm against mine, how safe and protected I would make her feel. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Halston.”

“You were my best friend this summer,” she says, her voice softer, quieter. “I told you more than I’ve ever told anyone before. I was myself with you, unfiltered, unedited. For whatever it’s worth, I just wanted you to know that.”

“Likewise.”

“It’s too bad we can’t be friends.” Halston leans back in my leather chair, her hands resting on her stomach. “But I understand. I don’t want to jeopardize your career or anything. Just miss talking to you, is all.”

“I miss talking to you too.”

Her eyelids flutter, and she flashes a sleepy smile. Rising, I grab a pillow and blanket from a hall closet and make the sofa into a bed. I’d let her have the guestroom, but having that extra floor between us feels safer tonight.

“Here,” I help her to the sofa, keeping back as she makes herself comfortable.

Spreading the covers over her body, she reaches toward me, her hand resting on mine. “Thank you. If you didn’t answer your door tonight, I was probably going to sleep at the park.”

She says it like it’s no big deal, like she’s done it hundreds of times before.

“You’re fearless,” I say. “That’s not always a good thing.”

Halston lets her hand fall from mine before rolling to her side. “I know.”

Within seconds, she’s out, and I switch off the lamp beside her.

Every time I closed my eyes this week, I saw her. Every waking moment of every hour of every day, I thought of her. And now that she’s here, in my house, it takes everything I have to walk away, when all I want to do is stay all night by her side, devouring books, reading our favorite lines to each other until we give in to the inevitable.

But the inevitable can’t happen.

I won’t allow it.

* * *

She’s gone before the sun comes up, her blanket neatly folded at the end of the sofa and a scribbled note left on the coffee table.

Kerouac,

You’re a good man, maybe even the best one I’ve ever known.

xoxo—

Absinthe

PS – “I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” – Ernest Hemingway

PPS – Those are friendly and “appropriate” x’s and o’s.

I fold the paper in half and press it between the pages of Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus.

If things were different, she could be mine.

And we could be happy.