My second day of school hadn’t gone any better than the first, at least not regarding how I felt.

Granted, the meeting with Parker’s dad had gone well, in fact, too well, and it was all I could think about after he'd left my office. It didn’t help that George was devastatingly good-looking in the best sort of southern gentleman fashion. Our conversation was strange, borderline flirtatious, but it felt so right.

There were only a few problems. Namely, George was Parker’s dad, and he was at least twice my age. Granted, that'd never been an issue for me before. What the hell was I even saying? George was Parker’s parent, that put him strictly in the off-limits category, no matter how much chemistry we may have had between us.

Still, I couldn’t shake the way George looked at me. He had an intensity to him that seemed to pierce right through me, all of my defenses peeled away in an instant. I didn’t know if I liked that or if it terrified me, but either way, it fascinated me.

There was something mysterious about George, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. He mentioned he and Parker both were new to their arrangement, that George had been absent for most of Parker’s life, and I wanted to know more about that too. It wasn’t just for my benefit; it was for Parker’s as well. I'd taken a liking to the kid, for some reason, probably because I saw myself in him. He was a bit of an outcast, a little different from everybody else, and he was the new kid in town. We shared that along with everything else.

All this thinking about Parker and George both brought me back to my original hesitation. However I sliced it, each time I turned it over in my head, George was still Parker’s dad. He might’ve been handsome, he might’ve been sweet, he might've had all the makings of a good dad, but he was still Parker’s dad.

But that didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends, couldn’t bond over our shared interest in Parker and his well-being. Right?

I packed up my laptop and the rest of my papers and shoved them into the little carrying case I'd been taking with me to school. After my meeting with George, I had to stay behind for a little bit longer just to get my head on straight before I even thought about driving. It was amazing to me how much one meeting with a parent could throw me for a loop.

I never expected to meet someone I'd be interested in in this tiny town, much less someone who pressed all my buttons, but I had, and I hadn’t even been looking. But was George even gay? I was relatively sure Parker might be, hence our connection and the way we'd become close, but George was still a mystery to me.

Maybe George hadn't figured himself out yet either. It would explain why he seemed both interested and afraid of me all at once.

Across the parking lot of the school, my beat up old Civic sat under the shade of a tree. It wasn’t the most beautiful car in the world, but it was all my struggling budget could afford. I threw my things into the backseat and climbed in, turned the key, and sat waiting for a few moments while the breeze blew in through the open windows.

It was hard to believe today was only my second day on the job. Things had gone much smoother than the first day, but how couldn't they have? It wasn’t every day that students took swings at each other, so I took it for granted that today had been a better day. Well, except for when George came to see me.

Why was I so messed up after that? I didn't have a good answer, or at least not one I wanted to admit. I'd spent so much of the last few years of my life focused on my career and school I hadn’t even had the time to think about dating, but now that someone who piqued my interest had come along, I couldn't think about anything else.

Sighing, I put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, driving back toward Main Street to head to my tiny little apartment.

As I drove down Main Street, I paid attention to all the other businesses. During the morning drive to school, I was usually so wrapped up in my lesson plans that I never stopped to notice anything else going on in town, especially not the other establishments. There were bars, of course, but there were also restaurants, coffee shops, and lots of other random mom-and-pop shops. I had to admit, Beauclaire was cute despite its tiny size.

I didn't miss the hustle and bustle of New York. One of my favorite things as a teenager and young adult was the constant busyness of the city, but now that I'd gotten a little older and settled into a career, I couldn’t imagine going back to that world.

A bar called Second Chances caught my eye as I drove past, but it wasn’t because of the bar itself—it was because of the two people standing outside it. They looked remarkably like George and Parker, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I almost crashed the car because I was so focused on their figures. It couldn’t possibly be them, could it?

Then again, there were only so many bars in town, and they all seem to be located right there on Main Street, so it was entirely possible that this was George’s place. If I’d been worried about being found by a parent or student before, the paranoia in my stomach doubled now.

Beauclaire was a tiny town, the kind place where everyone knew each other and each other’s business. If I even remotely stepped out of line, everyone would find out about it fast.

With my heart pounding and my mind racing, I pulled into my apartment complex's driveway a few minutes later. I sat with the car idling, gripping the steering wheel, trying to wrap my head around everything. I felt sorry for Parker, and I felt even worse for George, but it was up to me to make sure I didn’t cross a line. It was okay for me to have sympathy for the two of them, but I couldn’t let it turn into something more than that.

I'd worked too hard and for too long to land this job, and I'd never get another opportunity like it again. No matter how I sliced it, George and Parker had to stay friends at best—especially George.

My phone rang in my pocket, making me jump. I reached inside to grab it, pulled it out, and groaned when I saw my mother’s face on the screen. It was only a matter of time before she called to see how I was doing but now was the worst time. My mind was scattered, and I just needed to catch a breath and catch a break, not deal with her.

Still, I hadn’t talked to her for almost a week, so I couldn’t ignore her.

“Hi, mom,” I said as I answered the phone.

“Oh, Clay, it’s so good to hear your voice again,” my mom said. “How are things going? I was starting to get worried; you haven’t called.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s been hectic since I hit the ground running down here. Between finding a place to live and getting ready to teach, it’s been crazy,” I said. It wasn’t the total truth, but it was close enough. Mom didn’t need to know about Parker and George and all the other excitement I'd seen so far.

“How are things going? Do you like it?” Mom asked. She wasn’t trying to be skeptical or make me feel like I'd made bad decisions, but that’s how it came across.

Teaching was never supposed to be in the cards for me. If my mom and dad had their way, I would’ve taken over Dad’s construction business and earned an honest living this way. Mom had come around relatively quickly when I told her I wanted to go into education, but Dad had never really seen eye to eye with me after that.

While Mom tried to be supportive and usually was, for the most part, there were times when I heard my dad’s skepticism bleeding through her in her words.

“I don't know if I can say just yet, but I'm enjoying being down here,” I said. It was true. There wasn’t a single part of me that regretted coming to Beauclaire High—or at least not yet.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it. Have you met anyone yet? Any of the staff? Do you have friends?” she asked. Typical mom things to worry about, but cute nonetheless.

“No, like I said, it’s been pretty busy, so I haven’t had time to get out there yet. I’m planning on it, but I also started up this afterschool music program, so I don’t have a lot of free time after school either,” I said.

“Oh, Clay, don’t overwork yourself. I know how you are, but you can’t be everything for everyone,” she said. She wasn’t wrong. I’d always been an overachiever, the type of person who went out of their way for no other reason than the praise. Now that I was finally out of school and teaching, the habit hadn’t left me.

“I’m trying not to, but I figure it’s the best way to meet people. The parents seem pretty supportive so far,” I said, George's face flashing in my mind.

“Don’t you think you need to make friends outside of school?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, probably, but that’ll have to come later I guess,” I said.

“I wish you weren’t so far away. I miss you,” Mom said.

“I miss you too,” I said. I did miss her, but not enough to stay in New York, and not enough to go back.

“I still don’t see why you couldn’t have gotten the job up here,” mom said. “Surely there are more jobs for music teachers here than there are down there.”

“No, actually, there aren’t. I thought we went over this,” I said.

It struck me then that part of the reason I'd decided to come down to North Carolina was that I was looking to settle down. I wanted a family, more than anything else, and somehow I just didn’t think I was going to find that in the city. Sure, it was possible, but there was something about the easy-going way of life in the South that appealed to me.

George and Parker swam into my mind, and despite myself, I imagined what it might be like to be a family with them. It was crazy, and I knew it was as soon as the thought occurred to me, but I still couldn’t shake it.

I realized that more than almost anything else, I wanted a family. I wanted someone I could love, depend on, and help me support and raise a kid.

But no matter how badly I wanted that, it was insanity to think it might happen with George and Parker. I barely knew them, and as cool as Parker was, he probably wouldn’t be very open to his dad dating his teacher—not that I would blame him.

“Clay? Clay, are you still there?” Mom asked, stirring me out of my reverie. It was for the best because it was a dangerous path to go down, even in fantasy.

“Yeah, I’m still here, sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay. You're tired. I can hear it in your voice. I'll let you go; I just wanted to check in and make sure everything was okay. Call me again sometime next week; I can’t wait to hear how things are going,” mom said. “I love you.”

“I love you too mom,” I said and hung up. I sat behind the wheel staring out into the distance, unable to believe the direction my thoughts had taken.

It reminded me that first and foremost I had a job to do, and I owed it to myself to keep that clear. No matter what happened, no matter how close I got with Parker and by extension, George, I had to keep my distance. My future depended on my performance in this job and given the likelihood of gossip to spread like wildfire in town it was risky beyond belief to let anything grow between George and me. The last thing I wanted was to screw this job up and have to go back to New York with my tail between my legs.

As much of a fantasy as George was, that’s all he could ever be.