I can’t believe we did it right there in his classroom. Things are getting out of hand. Serena knows about us. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the school does, too. I doubt someone like her will keep it to herself for long. What does she care about grades or getting into a good graduate school? Her parents are probably alumni and she has a free ticket as long as she passes.

The next day in chemistry, Loche is late like usual. My eyes fall immediately to his empty desk when I walk in the room. My gaze lingers there until laughter around me grows loud enough to get my attention. When I look up to see what all the laughter is about, my heart squeezes as if it’s being wrung out, and my breath lodges in my throat. Tacked to the walls, covering every inch of blank space, are 8x10 glossy still shots from the porno Loche was in. Blown up big enough to see his face and other bits too. Full-frontal.

No.

Serena and Chad sit on top of their desks, smiling and admiring their handy work.

No, no, no.

I drop my backpack and immediately start to tear down the photos, crumpling them into one large ball. How could Serena be so cruel?

She comes up behind me. I smell her perfume and know it’s her before she even speaks. The room starts to close in on me. “What, you don’t like my art project?” she says over my shoulder.

I turn around to face her. It takes all the willpower inside of me not to punch her smug face.

“Why are you such a bitch?” I say, spitting the words at her. “This is someone’s life. He’s not some plaything for you and your minion to tear apart.”

“That’s precious,” Chad says, examining his nails as if he’s already bored with the show. “She’s standing by her man.”

Other students, getting only bits and pieces of the whole story, start to whisper about my involvement.

I’m like a tornado spinning through the room, reaching, grabbing at photos, pulling them into my vortex. My classmates watch me, doing nothing to help. How can they all be so callous toward such an amazing teacher, one who puts up with a lot of bullshit from a lot of ungrateful, trust-fund assholes?

I’d hoped to have all of the pictures down by the time Loche got back to the classroom, but no such luck. He walks in, holding his leather satchel that he always has with him full of our assignments. He shaved. It gives him a completely different look, one that is more GQ than mountain man, but I like both looks equally. At this point I think I’d find him beautiful even if he grew out some gratuitous biblical beard. I want to go up to him and touch his skin, but, of course, there are more pressing matters at hand.

His eyes skim the rows of photos I have yet to take down. He doesn’t look scared or upset at all—maybe somewhat surprised, but only a little. He does nothing to try to take the rest down. If it were me and those were my naked photos everywhere, I would flee and never return, maybe have myself committed somewhere so no one would ever see my face again. But Loche just stands there. His gaze searches the room until he finds me in my corner, a large wad of paper in my hands and tears in my eyes.

“I tried to take them down,” I say, my voice weak and desperate.

His mouth clamps down, eyes hard when he looks at me. My stomach drops to the floor. He’s pissed at me. Somehow, this is all my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t been so curious about the video in the first place Serena would’ve let it go. But I had to open my big mouth and become a part of whatever this is. I’m so fucked. The thought of him being mad at me scares me more than anything. That’s when I realize my feelings for him run deeper than I thought.

“Georgia, outside. Now.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Now.”

My breath wavers and I swallow down the sick feeling in my stomach. Dropping the photos in the trash bin, I head out of the classroom. On my way, people whisper “good luck” and “you’re in deep shit now,” as if I did all this. They have to know I didn’t do this. I would never. My furious gaze lands on Serena, but she’s not looking at me. Her head is bent over a textbook as if she’s innocent.

Bitch.

Before the door even shuts behind me, I’m already trying to explain myself. “Loche, I swear I would never—”

He grabs my shoulders, pushes me against the wall, and presses his lips against mine in a furious kiss. I’m so stunned at first I don’t kiss him back. But as his warm lips caress mine, I start to sink into his arms, and all the worry I’d felt flutters away for the briefest moment. My tongue slides against his teeth, behind them, the roof of his mouth. I explore, wanting to feel every part of him. He takes my bottom lip between my teeth, gently biting before kissing me again. If we weren’t in the middle of the school day, I’d be climbing out of my clothes right now. He’s impossible to resist, even with the lingering fear of getting caught sitting in the back of my mind.

When he pulls away I say, “I thought you were pissed at me.”

His lips and the skin around them are stained pink from the friction of our kiss. Without the stubble on his face I’d never seen them like that before. If I wasn’t scared to death about the consequences of those photos, I’d be smiling. But my expression is incapable of doing anything other than showing fear.

“How could I be pissed at you?” he says. I’m left breathless by the adoring way he looks at me. With the tips of his fingers he caresses my cheek. No man has ever looked at me like that before. “You were defending me in there. I saw the whole thing. I was by the door. I heard what you said to Serena.”

He hugs me again, burying his face in my hair. I look up and down the halls. We’re alone for now, but we won’t be for long. “We can’t hug and kiss like this at school.”

“I know we can’t. Meet me tonight.”

“If I go to your house, Serena will see us,” I say.

“Then we’ll go somewhere else. I’ll pick you up in front of the bus station down the street from the dorms at seven.”

“Okay.” I sigh, looking back at the classroom. “What are we going to do about all those pictures?”

“I’ll take care of it,” he says.

But he doesn’t have to, because by the time we get back into the classroom, they’ve already been take down. My only fear is who has them and what they will do with them next.