After spending the weekend—yes, the entire weekend—rolling around in bed with Roxie and repeatedly infiltrating her erogenous zones with all manner of biological explosives, returning to the Land of Drudgery and Malaise at Bracken Middle is a total downer. And having to keep my cock chained down when she walks into the room after she texted from the bus that she’s wearing no underwear beneath her floor-length skirt is an exercise in futility.

#CommandoSkirt

Perversions aside, I’m interested to see how Roxie handles the language arts class I’m turning over to her today so she can get the ball rolling on her unit.

“Good morning,” Roxie says from the front of the room once everyone settles in first period. “How was your weekend?”

Half-hearted Monday-morning mumbles meander through the aisles, followed by a couple of yawns. There’s already one head down on a desk. On the way from the back of the room to my computer, I detour over to Shandra and loudly tap the book beside her ear. She sits up, notices me, and rolls her eyes.

“What’d she say?” Attila asks. “How was my weekend? Oh, it was good.” He draws out the last word and beans me with some side-eye.

Shit.

Keep your mouth shut, little fucker.

“I seen you and Mr. Slater up at the bagel shop. You remember, don’t you, miss?” Attila’s grin is pure evil.

Here we go.

“I do.” Roxie nods confidently, not giving up the fear Attila’s gunning for. “It was nice to run into you.”

“That ain’t the only thing she was runnin’ into,” Attila remarks under his breath.

Quentin laughs beside him. Then he seems to register an underlying meaning and glances at his friend for clarification. Attila just smiles.

Thankfully, Roxie bulldozes over his chance to say anything further. “You’ve known for a while that I’d be taking over this class, and today’s the day I become your teacher.”

“What about him?” a kid yells, throwing a nod toward me. “He ain’t our teacher no more?”

“He’s still your teacher, but I’m leading the class until winter break. And to get that going, let’s start with an overview of what we’ll be doing for the next few months.” Roxie taps the projector remote. Her presentation loads up on the whiteboard.

Groans surface like Pop Rocks tossed in a bottle of seltzer.

“Do we have to write this down?” a girl asks.

“I can’t see that,” another kid says, squinting.

“What are we doing?”

“Can I borrow a pencil?”

I resist the urge to correct the behavior and lift my brows at Roxie. She has to figure out how to control them on her own. But an ache fills my chest at watching her flounder.

Come on, Roxie. You can do this.

She holds up her hands. “Okay, hold on a second—”

“Miss?” a boy shouts. “What’s your name again?”

“Miss Rambling,” Roxie says loudly over the increasing cacophony.

The gnashing grate of the pencil sharpener amps up the noise level.

Chair and desk legs shrill over the tiles.

“Ooh! Miss Rambling,” Catrese yells, pointing at the kid next to her. His right arm is under the desk, moving rapidly. “Dante’s sexually harassin’ hisself!”

Roxie looks at me, frustrated. I gently shake my head. She rushes to the back of the room where Dante is indeed sexually harassin’ hisself. Eyes wide with shock as she stands over him, she says, “Okay, everybody, hands on top of desks. Come on. Get ’em up there.”

A couple kids follow her directions, but most don’t care to listen, or they can’t hear over the roars of laughter surrounding Dante’s corner of the room. The noise continues to grow for a few more seconds. Roxie’s shoulders lift with a deep breath and a lot of frustration.

I knew this would happen, but she didn’t believe me. She’s too nice, too granola, just like Love a couple doors down. We’re not here to be our students’ friends. It doesn’t work. The fact that the kids are eating her alive proves my point.

There are some things you can only learn through experience, and this is gonna be a tough lesson for her. But I promised to keep my mouth shut, and I’ll stand by that vow unless she signals for help.

She covers her mouth with a thumb and index finger and whistles loud enough to wake the dead. All heads pop up and silence falls for a heartbeat.

Roxie claps loudly. “I want to see your hands on top of your desks, your body facing the front, and eyes up here, everyone.”

More grumbles and bellyaching.

“Thank you.” She turns to her presentation. “As I was saying …”

No one is engaged as she drones through the project overview. More heads drop to desks. Eyes shut. Brains tune out. She’s not monitoring because she won’t leave the whiteboard.

The students are bored to death, and if I weren’t dreaming about what’s under that skirt, I would be too. By the end of the period, the ring of the bell signaling the class change is like the sound of a scream in a mercy killing.

“Don’t forget to fill in the interest inventory I gave you,” Roxie reminds as the kids file out like zombies. “It’s due tomorrow.”

When the last student is gone, she says, “I know. It was terrible. But I’m gonna fix it. I have some ideas.”

“We’ll talk during planning,” I say dubiously, happy to retake control of the lessons for the rest of the day.

As soon as the students leave for their connections classes, I shut the door and sit across from Roxie, crossing an ankle over my knee. She’s been poring over her notes since this morning, searching for stuff online, and writing like crazy on the pages we put together over the weekend. I’ll give her credit. She’s tenacious.

“Okay, so I just need to make a few adjustments,” she says, gathering the papers to show me. “My supervisor told me it’s totally normal to run into snags the first few times you teach. My mistake was using a boring PowerPoint. There wasn’t anything in it to engage the students and activate interest. I just need to find some cool pictures or songs to grab their attention. Maybe a video …”

“I use PowerPoints every day,” I say. “It wasn’t that.”

She looks at me and sighs. “Yes. It was. No offense, but your presentations put the kids to sleep.”

Irritation nips me between the nuts. “No, they don’t. The kids are terrible. They refuse to pay attention. It’s not my fault they’re rude and disrespectful.” I fold my hands on top of my head. “This whole unit is gonna blow up in your face, Roxie. Mark my words.”

Roxie’s cheek ticks. Her stormy eyes narrow into daggers trained on me. Visions of the thirteen-year-old version of her spring to my mind, complete with teeth sucking and neck twisting. Shit, she’s cranking up to blow.

I resist the urge to duck.

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?” Her voice is low, slow, and cold.

Incoming!

“You think you know everything because you taught gifted students for a few years. These kids,” she points to a random desk, her eyes sparking with lightning, “ain’t in the gifted program. They’re normal, everyday students. Some of them have learning or behavior disorders and need a little more motivation than the geniuses you’re used to dealing with. They have bigger steps to take and farther to go.

“Our job as teachers is to encourage them to cultivate their own motivation and help them get where they need to be, not demand they simply do what we tell them to, and then get pissed when it doesn’t magically happen. I’m trying to facilitate learning, not beat it into them. That’s what you should’ve done for me and a hundred others like me. Like Attila and Quentin and Catrese.”

Fire buns up my throat at her accusations. I rise from my seat and stand over her, seeing the brat she used to be, and cut loose the fury I’ve been holding back since she first darkened my door a few weeks ago.

“It’s students like you who make teachers have to act like jerks. That shit you pulled with Isabella ruined my fucking life. Why the hell are you surprised I got a grudge against Attila and Quentin and Catrese? They’re like your goddamn clones.”

Red undertones heat the brown of her skin in a flush that would be beautiful if I weren’t so fucking pissed.

“Who the hell is Isabella?” she blurts.

“Don’t play innocent with me, Roxie. You know damn well what you did. I’m over it, and I forgive you, but just so we’re clear, you should know how much it hurt.”

She stands up, matching my defensive stance, fists balled at her sides, and stares me down. Her eyes are like matches hungry for a bite of flint to light my gasoline-drenched body. “I literally have no idea what you’re talking about, but you know what? I don’t give a shit. You’re an asshole, Mr. Slater. A grade-A, USDA-certified hog’s rectum. I hope you get worms.”

I laugh bitterly and shake my head. “You’re a terrible liar, but for the sake of argument, I’ll refresh your memory.

“The day you stole my car and left it in the strip club parking lot? Ringing any bells?”

She hitches her hands to her hips and stares back, defiant. “Yeah, I stole your car. What about it?”

“Ding-a-ling-a-ling? The car wasn’t the only thing you stole that day, was it? No, you got hold of my phone and dialed my girlfriend, the love of my life, whom I planned to marry, and told her I was cheating on her. You pretended to be ‘the other woman’ and made up an elaborate story about being a teacher at the school and having an affair with me. You said McSlutbag was a beast in bed and everyone wanted a piece of me, but you were the only one who was woman enough to handle me.”

My ears burn, and though my conscience and the hurt look on Roxie’s face are screaming for me to hold my horses, the stampede shows no signs of slowing. I keep galloping.

“You destroyed Isabella and you destroyed me. She refused to speak to me after that—wouldn’t even give me a chance to defend myself. She threw all my shit in the front yard and told me never to set foot in our house again. That’s why I got no sympathy for kids like you or them.” I thrust my index finger furiously at the door.

Roxie’s turn to laugh bitterly. “You’re shitting me, right? I might’ve been a bitch, but I would never be so cruel as to try to ruin someone’s relationship, no matter how much I hated him.”

I hesitate. Of course, she did it. She’s the one who started the McSlutbag thing.

Why is she denying it so vehemently?

“I know it was you. Don’t lie.” My voice loses some of its steam.

She lifts her brows accusingly. “Got proof? If you remember correctly, I confessed, without protest, to stealing your car. Spent a week suspended from school because of it. If I’m so vindictive, why wouldn’t I have confessed to calling your girlfriend too?”

I’m not sure. She hated me enough to rub the car theft in my face several times that year, but she’s right. She never mentioned anything about ruining my relationship, which Roxie totally would’ve been proud of back then if she’d actually done it.

Could I have wrongly blamed Roxie all these years for breaking Isabella and me up? If not her, then who would do such a thing? My mind races with this new information, and suddenly, I feel sick.

“I wouldn’t,” Roxie answers her own question. “Because I don’t know anything about that. If you wanna know who did it, go ask Darcy Kuntz. She had it in for you back then, always giving you snide looks and talking about you behind your back and snickering when she overheard me and my friends calling you McSlutbag.”

At what must be my shocked expression, she cocks her head.

“What, you think students don’t know what goes on behind the scenes at school?” she says. “You’re naïve if you don’t think they’re paying attention. We all knew Kuntz hated you. We laughed about it at lunch and exchanged little niblets of gossip between classes.”

I’m so stunned, I drop into the nearest chair without realizing it.

Roxie had been a troublemaker, but she wasn’t malicious or manipulative. Darcy Kuntz was. Darcy Kuntz still is.

Silence drives a bigger wedge between us. After a brief staring contest that I lose, Roxie gathers her stuff and heads for the door. She’s steaming. “I’m going to the media center. If you want me to teach something different, tell me. I’ll redo my lesson plans to accommodate your wishes.”

“Roxie—”

“You’re the boss, Mr. Slater. What you say goes. Just tell me what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. Expelling a long breath, I look at her beautiful, heartbroken face. My chest aches. “Don’t go. We should talk about this.”

“I’ve said everything I know to say. You hate my plan. Fine. I’ll whip up some boring, easy shit to keep the kids busy and, most importantly, quiet.”

“That’s not what I meant. We can work on something different. Together. Come to my place tonight.”

She flattens her lips together. “No. I’m done doing battle with you. And I have something else to do tonight. I’ll email you the first couple days of my revised lessons this afternoon.”

I bristle at the stab.

She tilts her head to hide her expression, but I catch wetness pooled at the corners of her lids. Her throat bobs with a swallow. “Is there anything else?”

I close my eyes. “No. Nothing else.”

The door shuts with a quiet click, and the sweet smell of the woman I’ve fallen hard for disappears.

I’ve just royally fucked things up. Roxie and I may be beyond repair.

---