Teach Me: The Summer of Secrets: Part 3, page 1
Teach Me
The Summer of Secrets: Part 3
J. R. Rogue
TEACH ME
The Summer of Secrets: Part 3
Copyright © 2019 by J.R. Rogue
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Christina Hart of Savage Hart Book Services
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by J.R. Rogue
1
JULY 4, 6:55PM
The hatchback to my Bug closes with an angry thud. Not nearly as angry as I am with myself.
I should be back at Bordeau Books, our family bookstore, with my younger sister, Lucy. I should be helping her out, but in the two weeks since I’ve returned to our lakeside town of Cherry Cove, the tension between us hasn’t lessened much.
Sometimes, a place has such a strong hold on you, you wonder if you’ll ever shake it.
I was a wild teenager. My middle sister, Lucy, was not. She had to pay for every rule I broke, every curfew I ignored.
When our parents died, I stayed around just long enough for Lucy to turn eighteen, studying at the community college two blocks away from our house. When she was old enough to care for herself, and our little sister Kitty, I was gone.
I wasn’t the mothering type. Lucy was. I couldn’t raise Kitty, so I thought it was best to move closer to New York City. And in the city, I was a different person. I wasn’t wild. I wasn’t reckless. I wasn’t the Sophie I was here. I could be Elizabeth. The name our mother gave me. I needed to run away to grow the fuck up.
And now, two weeks into my return to Cherry Cove, I’m back to my old ways.
I turn to my baby sister, Kitty, with two blankets in my hands. “Don’t run off and leave me alone.” I arch an eyebrow at her, but I can see it’s wasted.
She isn’t even looking at me. She is eyeing the crowd, looking for her old friends. She is young enough, at nineteen, that she may find some of her past here she doesn’t hate.
I found a piece of my past I never expected to find. Just last week.
And if I see him again, so soon after what we did in that closet yesterday, I may have to pack my shit and head back to the city. Or hell, back to the bookstore, to help Lucy.
It’s as if God, or some other higher being, hears my thoughts. I walk down to the lake, my Converse padding lightly on the grass, with Kitty trailing behind, waving to every damn person she knows. I’m almost to the water when I see the one person I didn’t want to see. His thick glasses and honey hair are unmistakable. I nearly trip over one of my blankets, and Kitty catches me.
“Fuck, be careful,” she says, her fingers around my elbow.
I watch her eyes peer over my shoulder as I turn to her, adjusting the blankets in my arms.
“Oh shit,” she says, eyes wide.
I don’t want to look in the direction she’s looking. I don’t want to go down this road. My baby sister and I have lived together since she graduated high school and left our town behind just as I had. She can read me now.
“What?” I ask. Because I know there is no way she can know what I’ve done in the past couple of days. What I did just hours ago.
I follow the line of her finger and see she has spotted him—the boy I hoped I wouldn’t see here.
“Do you know who that is?” she replies, dropping her hand.
I shrug my shoulders and choke on my secret.
Because I didn’t know at first. The different last names, due to a shared mother instead of a father, fucked me over.
The attraction was there, before I knew the truth.
Two Weeks Earlier
When I see him, everything stills inside of me. Everything I felt earlier that day, it washes away. Everything I felt deep inside because of my return home, and the fight with Lucy, is gone.
I am still. I am on fire. I am on fire but unmoved.
His blue eyes build a pyre right there in the center of my classroom.
I know I look like a fool. I’m not sure what he said before I froze, exactly. Maybe he introduced himself, perhaps not.
I drop the student assessment I’m clutching in my hands like an idiot, and then he’s there, kneeling next to me, saying, “Let me help you.”
And I am still silent.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but one is on his knees right beside me.
When I finally find my voice, it’s barely a whisper. He furrows his brow, so I clear my throat and speak again. “I’m sorry. Can I help you? I have an appointment here in a moment.”
He stands just as I do, handing me a few stray papers. His fingers brush mine when I reach for them, so I look down, trying to hide the rose of my cheeks, then shove them back into the manila folder in my hands.
“Yes, I’m your appointment.” His voice is soft, soothing.
He walks past me to the seat I set up in front of my desk, and I watch him. He is about six foot two, with honey-colored hair. A leather backpack is slung over his shoulder, and he’s wearing thick black glasses.
He kicks his feet out in front of him when he sits, tapping his red Converse on the metal front of my desk twice.
No, this can’t be right. He looks like a student, but my appointment is with the guardian of one of my students. Fourteen-year-old Adrienne Callahan, according to the notes left for me, has been acting out in class all summer and is now refusing to turn in her homework.
I was only three days into this job, taking over for another teacher who fell ill last week, and I had only been back in my hometown for a week. It would have been naïve of me to assume this new life I came back for would come easily, but I was hopeful.
I push away the tears that always threatened to pour over my cheeks when I thought of my parents and the fact that I wasn’t here to help with the business the way I promised I would.
I walk past the man, the boy, in front of me and pull out my chair, tossing the folder in my hand onto my immaculate desk. “I’m sorry. Who are you?” I take a seat and cross my arms in front of me.
“I’m Adrienne’s guardian, Sloane. I’m her older brother.”
“Oh.” I bite my lip. I wasn’t expecting that. “How old are you?” The question is out before I can stop it. Who are you? Is this a joke?
Sloane isn't an average name, and it sounds familiar.
His own full lip turns up at the side before he answers, “Um, why?”
“Well, as you can see, I'm a little confused. I thought you were a student.” I point to the backpack now hanging on the back of the chair.
He turns, pushing the backpack strap off the back of his chair, and then back to me. “No.” He pauses, then says, “Not a student here, anyway. I go to the community college in town. I had plans, of course, to get out of here. But when our mom died two years ago, I became the parent of a twelve-year-old girl, and things changed.”
No, no, no, no. I felt like an asshole. I should know this. I should know that one of my students was orphaned two years ago. I would have understood her behavior better. A little too well.
My move back was a whirlwind. I gained my new temporary teaching position so easily. I was a model student at Cherry Cove High School over ten years ago. I was close with many of my teachers. Social media made it easy for my old principal to beg me to take over when the previous teacher fell ill.
I worked late into the night every night since my move back to get my new classroom in order, leaving my tiny above-garage apartment a disaster due to lack of time. I planned to organize it once everything settled down.
I shake the catastrophe of my life from my head and focus on the boy in front of me.
I need to think of him as a boy, to remind myself it’s wrong to want him.
He looks so young. Too young to have me sitting before him, pressing my knees together.
It doesn’t help that he’s staring at me so intently. If he were one of my students, I would tell him to sit up straight. He’s so relaxed, so at ease in front of me, leaning back, waiting for something. I want to crawl over my desk, crawl into his lap. What he is probably waiting for, though, is for me to speak again.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I’m new in town. Well,
“Well, Mrs.,” he says, pausing on the question.
“Ms. Bordeau, Elizabeth.” I offer him my formal name. Only my friends and family call me by my middle name—Sophie.
“Ms. Bordeau, sometimes shit happens, and everything we have together falls apart. We can’t stop it. All we can do is try to piece it back into something maybe resembling together. That’s what I’m trying to do. But with Adrienne, I don’t know what to do.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His hair falls over his face, covering the top of his glasses.
I lean forward in my chair, toward him, like a magnet.
“I don’t know how to make it better. I’m her brother, not her father. I was such a little shit when I was her age. And now I’m supposed to make her do her homework? Ground her?” He leans up and pushes his hair back from his face. “I’m only twenty years old. I can’t even legally drink yet, and this shit makes me really want to drink. I don’t know how to handle it all, how to balance this. I was supposed to graduate high school and just have my own ass to look after. Now I have myself, my future, my sister, and more importantly, her future. What can I do?” His voice is pleading, soft, a little broken.
I feel my hand tighten reflexively. It’s crawled up and rested around my throat while he was speaking. The image of his hand there flashes in my mind, causing my own to drop. Shame shimmies over my skin.
“Well,” I say, my voice catching, “Adrienne being here in summer school is a step in the right direction. Being here, even if she is behind, is better than not being here. I don’t know if it’s possible for her to stay after school, but I’m always here until nearly six. I can take her home or if you’re able to pick her up that works, too.”
In front of me, he laces his fingers behind his neck, closes his eyes, and stretches. Is it for my benefit? His white T-shirt wears thin on his broad chest. No, it isn’t for me. This boy is tired and worn down from the life he didn’t ask for. I know the feeling.
How the hell have I gotten here? Twenty-eight years old, lusting over a twenty-year-old boy who looks like the ghost of my high school boyfriend. He isn’t even old enough to drink yet. Fuck.
“I get off work at five every day so, yeah, I can come pick her up. On Tuesdays, I do work late, though, so if you could bring her home on those days, that would be great. We live just behind the bank off the square,” he says.
“I can do that,” I reply, a shiver moving through me at the mention of where his house is.
He stares at me for a moment, a long moment, one that changes my earlier conclusion. Maybe I was wrong when I assumed he wouldn’t be attracted to me, too. I let out a slow breath and push my own glasses back onto the top of my nose.
He smiles again, and it is so shy, I feel goosebumps cover my arms. I want to rub them away, but I can’t let him know how he’s affecting me.
He stands slowly, reaching down for his discarded backpack, and I stand, too, walking around my desk to see him out.
I open my classroom door and peer into the abandoned hallway before turning back to Sloane. “Thank you for coming in to see me. I’m truly sorry I didn’t know more about Adrienne’s situation.” My words are falling out fast. I shoot them into the air, not bothering to look him in the eye. I’m too embarrassed.
Embarrassed that I’m failing at my job. Embarrassed that I’m so attracted to him. That I already imagined what he would look like if he let me tie him up. That I’ve decided he seems more likely to take to my particular tastes than my last boyfriend had.
I try to reach my right hand out. A gentle handshake to end our short and awkward first meeting, but my hand stills and drops to my side as I feel his warm grip on my left wrist. He brushes his thumb over my skin, and I am on fire again. I let out a breath, and he sees it.
He’s so close, towering over me. His hand slips down and grips my palm.
His soft voice drops an octave. “You couldn’t have known, but I appreciate your offer to help now that you do. You’re the expert here. You know what you’re doing. Just teach me.” He lets go of my wrist and walks past me into the hallway.
In my peripheral, I see him look back at me, but I don’t move until he speaks again, saying my name. Not Elizabeth. Not Ms. Bordeau.
He calls me Sophie.
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, my hand around my throat again.
“I said I’ll tell Seth you said hello the next time he calls.” His smile is barely there, at the corner, but it’s there.
And then, he isn’t.
And it hits me. If Sloane’s mother is dead, it means my ex-boyfriend’s mother is dead.
2
JULY 4, 5:15PM
It’s been two weeks since I first saw her, and she is all I can think about. Her short brown hair. Her full pink lips. Her eyes. Fuck, those eyes. I felt a little lightheaded the first time she turned those eyes on me. Sophie. All my thoughts and desires are for Sophie. Or, Ms. Bordeau, as she begged me to call her.
I’m not too worried about the fact that she’s my older half-brother’s high school sweetheart. There is nothing sweet about my brother, Seth. But everything about Sophie is sweet. I bet she tastes sweet.
On the days I get off work at five, I head to the school to pick my sister up. It took me a couple of days to realize that the spot I was parking my Jeep in was right in front of Sophie’s classroom window. Last afternoon, I saw her watching me as I sat there waiting. That’s when I felt like a real asshole. Here she was, helping my little sister out, and I couldn’t even go inside to say hi.
I counted down the hours at work all day today, waiting for my chance to somehow make things less awkward since I brought my brother up the first day we met. It was apparent she had no clue who I was, and I had to open my big, dumbass mouth.
I lived with my mom and dad as a kid. My half-brother, Seth, lived with his dad and stepmom. We shared a mother, but not a home. I knew about him and Sophie because he would bring her up in conversation. Because she had a little sister my age and our small school was all in one building. Kindergarten on through twelfth grade. So, sometimes I saw Kitty Bordeau getting picked up by her older sister Sophie as I was heading to the bus. She was beautiful. A wide smile and tan legs. She wore short denim cut-offs and smoked in the parking lot sometimes. Probably a habit she picked up from Seth.
I should have been crushing on Kitty. It would have been appropriate. But what’s fun about appropriate?
When I pull up to the school, I park in my usual spot, throw my door open, and walk deliberately toward the front doors. I talked myself up all day. Convinced myself that if I hesitated for even a moment I would stay rooted in my Jeep again.
Her classroom is deserted when I make it inside. I don’t see my sister and I don’t see Sophie.
My phone buzzes in my pocket just as I hear something drop in the back of the room. I pull my phone out and begin walking toward the sound, seeing light spilling out of the closet to the right of the large chalkboard in the back of the classroom.
My steps falter when I see the text my sister sent me saying that she got a ride home. And she was sorry she forgot to tell me. I throw out a few curses and shove my phone back into my pocket, continuing my search for the sound in the room.
I find Sophie in the small closet in the back. She’s reaching for something high on the shelf above her and it’s obvious she can’t hear me, so I take a moment to look her over. She’s wearing a skirt that most likely is a sensible length, but with the way she’s reaching, it’s riding up, exposing her long legs. My gaze travels down them and I see she has on nude heels.
