12. Georgia

TWELVE

Georgia

I have an appointment with my therapist the next day. I tell her about what happened during that meeting. I tell her what happened with my team on my first day at PS 2. Her face is blurry over the virtual meeting screen, but her voice is clear.

“Georgia, there are two things we need to unpack here. These are perfect examples of what we spoke about some time ago. You seem to be testing people, and you seem to be lashing out. Why do you think that is?”

I fidget with the corner of my laptop. “I’m… not sure. This is a new job, and I really need to keep it.”

She fills the space with silence, forcing me to talk it out.

“Regarding the lashing out towards my boss… Well, I’m trying to figure out when it first started, and I think it really started at the beginning. The first, or I guess technically the second time I met him, he was so antagonistic, in a way that no one else was. He was rude, and I thought I was just meeting him where he was at.” I pause, thinking. “He didn’t believe in me. He was the only one who didn’t see how awesome I was, and he didn’t get off my case.”

She nods, her face jerking on the video screen. “Has he been that way the entire time?”

I think. “Yes.”

She is silent for a while, digesting. “It’s your natural ‘fight’ response, one part of the self-destructive tendencies you sometimes display,” she says.

“I agree.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Probably has to do with all my issues. Jake, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Jake was a terrible break up, but he isn’t ‘your issue.’ Remember that what he did had everything to do with him, and nothing to do with you.” She pushes the glasses up her nose. “Think about the link that connects these two things. Jake used to control you. Emotionally, financially. After you broke up?—”

“You mean after he dumped me, after I confronted him for cheating on me for months,” I mutter.

She continues without missing a beat. “After all of that, after all the gaslighting and manipulation, after you broke up, you’ve strived for freedom.”

“Especially because after he dumped me, like right after my parents died, he got engaged to his parent’s family friend’s daughter a week later.”

“Yes. You want to get rid of all the control and heartache he held over you.” She nods morosely on the laptop screen.

“So you think I get pissy when I sense people are trying to control me. Or control my independence,” I tell her begrudgingly. Jake was a fucking douchebag. “The annoying part is that my boss warned me this would happen. Before he hired me. I knew he would be on my case. I guess I just didn’t realize how controlling he would be.”

She nods. “But he’s your boss, Georgia. He has the right to be in your case. He has the right to control you. He didn’t even have to warn you about it, but he did. Generally, you have to earn people’s respect, especially in the workplace.”

I roll my eyes.

She ignores it. “How about the incident with your team? This is connected, too.”

I sigh. “We’ve talked about that a million times. I know where that comes from. After my parents died, after all the shit with Jake… I need to test the people I find important to me. I need them to prove themselves.”

She nods. “What do you think you can do to adjust this type of behavior?”

“I have no idea. Why don’t you tell me?”

There is a beat of silence as she looks at me through the screen, her eyes looking over my face. “Georgia, let me gently point out that you are feeling cornered right now, and you are beginning to exhibit signs of both testing and lashing out at me, too. I’m going to pause our session here.” She scribbles something next to her laptop. “I think that’s something you should sit with this week. Think about some strategies you can employ that would be beneficial for your trust in relationships. Perhaps, as you dig into this, you’ll uncover more about your thought processes, and then you will be able to break your behavioral patterns.”

I obviously procrastinate my therapy homework. I mean, who actually does their therapy homework? Right?! Instead, I think about how I am going to apologize to Oliver with the mother and father of all apologies. I think about how I need to comply with all of his directives, and then some. Maybe even offer to suck his dick.

Kidding. But I need to make him happy. I need to keep this job.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to see him before I leave for the weekend. I think I see him for a split second outside my door, while Oni is in the middle of a presentation about Nigerian traditions, dressed in a beautiful ankara , but I can’t say for sure. But at least he doesn’t storm into my classroom and fire me. And at least it gives me more time to think about how I can take the feedback he gave me about my culture and identity unit and incorporate it in a way that knocks his socks off.

I don’t get too long, though.

Saturdays are Fort Greene farmer’s market days.

Saturdays are when Eloise and I wander over to Fort Greene with two tasks.

The first is to scope out four million dollar brownstones with “For Sale” signs in the front so that I can simultaneously dream about owning one and mope about never being able to own one. Eloise joins me for moral support, because she actually probably can afford one.

The second task is for both of us, and that’s scoping out the celebrities who live in the neighborhood and are known to frequent the farmer’s market.

Actually purchasing fruits and/or vegetables is infrequently a third task, as both of us are pretty whatever about cooking and baking. Eloise doesn’t have the time, and I don’t have the patience. As evidenced by the Undercooked Chicken Fiasco.

I elbow Eloise in the ribs, as we pretend to peruse a table of leafy greens. “I think that’s the guy from Succession,” I whisper at the kale .

She dips her head a centimeter to the left. “Oh shit,” she says. “I think that is him.”

“He’s shorter than I expected him to be.”

“He looks way nicer than his character, too.”

We wander over to a table of tomatoes. I pick one up and pretend to inspect its firmness, confused as to why it is a bright yellow. I get an elbow in the ribs this time.

“I think that’s the guy from Crazy Rich Asians,” she whispers.

“Oh shit. The same one who jumped out of the car trunk naked in The Hangover?”

“No,” she says, poking at what I think is called a leek. “The hot one. The main character. The love interest.”

“Oh, shit.” I’m wearing my reflective sunglasses on purpose, so potential celebs can’t see where my eyes are looking. I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable while I’m ogling them, okay? Celebrities are people, too. I turn my head ever so slightly, giving my eyes a wide berth to search the crowd.

My heart drops. “Oh, shit ,” I repeat.

“Right?!” Eloise stage whispers. “He’s much hotter in person!”

“Eloise, that’s…” I panic.

“He’s walking this way,” she whisper-screams.

I drop the yellow tomato, and it hits the sidewalk without a bounce, with more of a splat. “Hey, Mr. Flores,” I croon up at him.

He looks down at me, surprise in his eyes, glowing golden in the autumn sun. “Oh.”

I huff. “It’s me. Georgia Baker.”

“I know who you are,” he says, picking up the tomato I just dropped and placing it in his tote bag.

Eloise, the worst friend in the entire universe, does not save me. She puts her phone to her ear. “Oh, hello, Mother!” she says, with exaggerated brightness. “How lovely of you to call on this glorious fall morning!”

“Your mom is on safari in the middle of Kenya right now, you cunt,” I growl from between clenched teeth. “You haven’t been able to contact her in weeks.”

She waves at me and Mr. Flores, walking away backwards, smiling and nodding and pointing at her phone. “No way! Lions? Warthogs? Meerkat?!” she yells.

“Those are the animals from the Lion King, you traitorous bitch!” I yell back.

I turn back to my principal, who is currently staring at me, head tilted and slightly horrified, as if he has just found a long hair in his lunch.

I smile my unhinged Cheshire Cat smile at him. “So… come here often?”

He hums in his throat, turning back to his precious produce. “Every weekend.”

“Do you live nearby?” I poke.

“Few blocks,” he answers.

“You like to cook?”

He grunts. We’ve gone from diatribe lashings to two words responses to guttural noises.

“You seem like the type of person who likes to cook,” I say, desperate to fill the space. “You seem like the type of guy who likes precise measurements. Orderly steps. Control over your craft. Predictable final results.”

He stops what he’s doing and stares at me again, the surprise in his eyes returning.

I smile. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

He huffs, walking over to the cashier to pay for his items.

I follow like a desperate puppy.

“Ms. Baker, I’d like to remind you that the last time we saw one another, you yelled at me. Your boss. You said that I was…” He pretends to think. “One of those administrators who couldn’t hack it as a teacher.”

I scream internally. “Listen,” I pull him aside by his arm. He flexes involuntarily, and I am shocked and appalled to find that the bicep currently encased in flannel is rock fucking hard. “I really wanted to apologize to you yesterday, but I didn’t see you all day, and you weren’t in your office when I left school.”

He raises a thick eyebrow.

I sigh. “I am truly sorry for what I said. It was completely out of line. This new job… it’s brought up some stuff for me, and I lost it. But it was totally inappropriate. You’re my boss. I should never speak to you that way.”

He remains silent. I take my sunglasses off, so he can maybe see how sincere I’m being.

“I am really, really sorry. I love working at PS 2, and I’ll do anything I can to keep this job.” I’m trying to toe the line between staying professional and straight up getting down on my knees and begging.

His eyes search mine, the same color as the honey being sold at a stand next to us. “You know, I wrote you a third letter.”

My heart drops. “And?”

He looks away, silent for a few moments. “I ripped it up. You’re a good teacher. You…” He shakes his head, turning back to me. “It wouldn’t make sense to write you up or fire you this far into the school year. You’re too valuable to our community at this point.” He starts, as if he didn’t mean to add that last part. “At least that’s what the team thinks,” he adds, backtracking.

Relief spreads through my limbs. Something shifts in Oliver’s eyes after he sees the look on my face. “Thank you,” I whisper. “You won’t regret it.”

He maps my face for half a second. Then he clears his throat, serious again. “I also owe you an apology.” He looks directly into my eyes, and I am both surprised and elated. There’s nothing more satisfying than a man making full eye contact while saying he is sorry. “We got off on the wrong foot, and I take full responsibility. I am your boss and your superior. My behavior and my attitude were unacceptable, and I apologize if I’ve made you feel uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form. It will not happen again.”

Am I… wet ?

“I am not normally so condescending, or at least I try not to be. I am not quite sure why I was towards you.” He turns his head now, his eyes distant. “If you haven’t realized, I require a certain amount of organization in my life. Control. Perhaps the condescension was a response to not having control. Or feeling a lack of control when it came to you, at least. But it’s no excuse. I’ve been an arrogant asshole, and I’m sorry,” he says, looking directly into my eyes again.

I slowly squeeze my legs together, discretely checking my slickness. Apparently, sincere apologies and self-humbling behaviors from an extremely attractive asshole did, in fact, turn me on. “Um, wow, Mr. Flores, sir. Yes, please—I mean—I accept. I accept your apology, and thank you for apologizing.”

He smiles, a small one, not a full-watt, and I fixate on his crooked front tooth. “Of course.”

We stand there looking at one another, and I’m thinking how unfair it is when men have both long and thick eyelashes, when a mom wearing hundreds of dollars of coral colored athleisure runs over my toe with her gigantic stroller.

“Watch it—” I start, but she’s already hurried away, the ice shaking in her iced latte a fading sound.

I look back at him, but the surly bureaucrat I know has returned. He nods and starts walking away.

“Wait!” I race after him .

He turns, sighing.

I don’t want him to leave yet. “What… What are you cooking?”

He shifts on his feet. “I’m making the most of the end of tomato season. I’m making tomato sauce, gazpacho, and a tomato tartine.”

“A what?”

“A tomato sauce, gazpacho, and a tomato tartine,” he repeats.

“I heard you the first time. But what’s that last thing?” I ask impatiently.

“A tartine. It’s… a tart,” he says simply.

“So why can’t you just call it a tart?” I ask.

“Testing my patience so soon after mutual apologies?” he asks sternly, eyebrow raised, but there is a shadow of a smile on his face.

I salute. “Sorry, sir.”

He turns away quickly. We amble in the same direction, as he stops to poke at tomatoes at various stands.

“I didn’t know there was a tomato season. Of course you would know peak vegetable months,” I tell him, after watching his strong hands squeeze yet another tomato. I wonder what it would feel like squeezing my?—

“Have you tried one?” he asks me.

I shake my head, indicating no, but also trying to rid that stray thought from my head. He picks up a cherry tomato from a little container and drops it in my hand.

“Try it,” he tells me.

He watches me closely as I bring it to my mouth, watches as my lips close around it as I pop it in. He stares at my mouth for longer than necessary, even after I finish chewing and swallow it down. He shakes his head in the same way I just did, turning to look back at the table .

“It’s amazing,” I tell him, and I’m not kidding. “It’s really sweet.”

He grunts. We’re back to cave dweller noises. I take it as a cue that he needs a change of environment. I touch his arm again, mostly because I want to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating his muscles. I wasn’t.

“Mr. Flores,” I blurt out, feeling strangely impulsive.

He looks at me again.

“Wanna get out of here?” I ask my boss , only flinching a little. What are you doing?

His only reaction is an eyebrow lifting.

“It’ll be fun. An adventure. I promise.”

A beat passes, then, “What about me screams ‘spontaneous adventurer’ to you?”

I bark a laugh. “He’s got jokes.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

I sigh, going for it now, fully committing. “Fine. I’m on the hunt for a place of my own. I almost have enough for a down payment, so I like to spend my weekends going to open houses. Get a sense of the market. There’s an open house I want to go to nearby.”

“That’s…” I see him rolling words around in his mouth, tasting them. “…impressive,” he manages.

This stings. “What, that I can get my shit together enough to manage something like that? I’m surprised you know how to count, Ms. Baker, much less balance a budget ,” I say, in a poor imitation of his deep voice. Fuck it. I’m honestly sick and tired of men. I don’t know what I was thinking. You don’t know what you’re doing, Jake always said. “Forget it?—”

“Hey,” he stops me, stepping closer, his carved face softening slightly. “Stop projecting. I wasn’t being disparaging. I’m serious. I really am impressed.”

I search his face, looking for any sort of maliciousness, but I only see a hint of worry. Concern. I also find flecks of gold in the light of his eyes, bits of yellow and maybe green in what I thought was more of a pure caramel color.

He runs his tongue between his teeth and his lips. “Let’s go,” he tells me.

“Really?”

He shrugs. “I finished my shopping.”

“You’re sure this won’t interfere with your meticulously scheduled agenda for the day?”

“I have exactly,” he glances down at his watch, “one hour, thirty-six minutes, and forty-two seconds until my next appointment.”

“More than enough time,” I say, smiling and already walking away. I head east. He inexplicably follows, and we begin our weird little field trip.

We meander our way through the sleepier blocks of Fort Greene, mostly silent, my boss a steady, solid presence beside me. I note the way he walks, confident and striking, always ensuring that I’m on the inside of the sidewalk, away from the street. I wonder if he knows he’s doing this.

I finally stop in front of a majestic four-story brick townhouse, which, now that I’m seeing it in person and not on Instagram, is frankly one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. A sign on a post outside indicates the open house. A well-dressed, well-groomed couple walks out the front door, the woman carrying a Birkin bag.

I turn and eye Mr. Flores with a dare on my face, testing him. Say it .

He meets my eyes, unflinching. “You can afford a down payment on what has to be a ten million dollar home.” He says it as a statement, not a question.

“Fourteen million, actually,” I say.

He hums, giving me nothing, but I sense he is doing some quick math .

I do it for him. “Twenty percent down is almost three million,” I offer.

He blinks. “Making the monthly mortgage payments and fees approximately the amount you make in one year as a public school teacher.”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

We study one another for a moment.

I break first, exploding into giggles, but he’s not far behind me. His eyes crinkle at corners, his soft smile revealing that dimple I’ve only noticed once before.

“I really am saving up for a down payment,” I manage. “Just not here, though. Probably over ten miles from here. Far, far away.”

“That’s great.”

I nod, unreasonably giddy with this man’s more positive attention. “But want to go in and pretend to be a bajillionaire with me?”

He looks down at himself, at his worn flannel. The jeans he’s wearing have a permanent imprint of his wallet on the left pocket. It matches the hole in the right leg of my leggings. “Absolutely,” he tells me.

I am grinning like a lunatic now. I loop my arm through his and drag him up the stairs of the stoop. “All right, dah-ling,” I say, in a poor imitation of a posh English accent. “I don’t suppose this will meet our standards, but perhaps we take a peek,” I say.

“Only the best for you, my dear,” he tells me.

He opens the front door, gesturing me in. I hope for a second that he puts a hand on my back, but he doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter, because this place is fucking insane. My mouth hangs open at the luxury. The marble floors gleam under an enormous chandelier. There’s a spiral staircase that looks like it’s floating. The entire thing has been gutted to be shiny and new and expensive. Everything is blinding white and glass.

“Don’t forget that rich people don’t gawk,” Mr. Flores whispers from my side. “They observe. Like they’re bored.”

Surprised, I look over at him. There is a new brightness in his eyes, a gleam of mischief flickering through them. Oh, hell yeah . He smirks at me. I fix my face, attempting to look generally affronted.

A sleek, blonde, and well-heeled realtor with a clipboard approaches, radiating suspicion and commission-driven charm. “Good afternoon. I’m Stephanie. Are you two familiar with the property?”

I sense something happening beside me. A gathering of energy, like the electricity in the air before a storm. Mr. Flores’s spine gets a little straighter, chest impossibly broader. He looks directly into Stephanie’s eyes, oozing charm from every pore. “Oh, quite. We’ve been evaluating properties in this range. Our summer home in the Hamptons has become so tiresome,” he croons, in a flawless posh British accent, to my absolute horror and delight.

There is a shocked silence. Both Stephanie and I are now staring at Mr. Flores, collectively drooling and melting, because there is no way a man like this could be real. I’m surprised one of us doesn’t faint from swooning so hard. I think I see Stephanie’s nipples harden through her blouse. Mine could cut glass.

Oliver looks at me, and I can sense he is close to breaking. I shake myself out of this sudden horniness, unwilling to let him steal my show. I clear my throat. “Yes, the Hamptons. Dreadful commute,” I add hastily, in a decidedly way worse accent. “We’ve been dying to get closer to... the MoMA.”

No one is convinced. Stephanie arches an eyebrow for a split second, but then professionalism takes over. “Well, you’re certainly in the right city for that,” she trills. “Let me show you around.”

I whirl towards my boss once her back is turned. He raises an eyebrow, daring me, like I did. “Only eight whole miles through bumper to bumper traffic to the MoMa, dear,” he says, a laugh in his voice.

I sniff and follow Stephanie’s clacking down the hallway and into the massive kitchen that might be bigger than my entire apartment, where she’s saying something about the imported marble of the countertops.

Mr. Flores comes up behind me, a solid presence at my back, and runs his hand over the top of the counter, tracing the pattern lightly with his fingers. Stephanie and I track his every movement. I’ve never wanted to be a piece of rock so badly in life. “What do you think, dear? Of course, we’d rip it all out. Italian marble is so... overdone.”

I nod, like duh . I feign disdain. “Agreed. We’d probably commission... a bespoke artisan to handcraft countertops out of… reclaimed Icelandic volcanic rock. It’s very exclusive.”

“Fascinating choice,” Stephanie trills towards my boss, blinking her very long and beautiful eyelashes at him. Hey .

I am suddenly overcome with a sharp wave of possessiveness over my fake rich English husband. Fuck you, Stephanie. This is my fake husband.

I wind an arm around his waist, all but baring my teeth to Stephanie, but this is a terrible call. I am appalled yet again, to note that his abdomen is rock fucking hard. His arm is awkwardly trapped between us, and he shifts it up and out of the way. I expect it to land on my shoulder, the only natural place.

It does, and I feel its weight almost immediately, but then he takes it an unexpected step further.

He wraps his hand around my throat. Lightly collaring it.

I swallow against his fingers.

The rough pad of his thumb lightly traces my Adam’s apple.

I think I have all but soaked through my panties.

I glance up at my boss, who is now looking at me intensely—something sharp, almost predatory in his gaze.

Stephanie, who I completely forgot was here, is saying something about moving to the terrace.

“What do you think, dear?” he murmurs to my mouth. “Have you had enough?”

NOT ENOUGH , I want to scream, take me right here on this piece of rock that costs more than my down payment; let’s give this Stephanie bitch a show.

And then I remember that this is my boss, and he nearly fired me and I’m just a teacher trying to keep her job and not a member of a posh Manhattan sex club. So I take a step back, breaking the moment. He tucks his arm back at his side, clenching his hand into a fist.

“I think so,” I breathe.

“Perhaps you’d like to see the wine cellar? It’s two thousand square feet. Perfect for an extensive collection,” Stephanie says.

“Oh, that’s a deal-breaker,” he tells her seriously, back to his stuffy Englishman persona. “We need at least three thousand. Our sommelier insists.”

He takes my hand and tugs me back towards the front door.

“Thank you for your time, Stephanie,” he throws back.

Once we’re outside, I wrench my hand from his, inexplicably outraged. “How the hell were you so good at that?”

He huffs a laugh. “I have two sisters. There was a lot of castle-related pretend play growing up.”

I start to spiral, thinking of how just an hour or so ago I had been apologizing and all but begging him to let me keep my job. I blow out a breath once we are a few blocks away. “ That was…” I attempt to put words to what just happened. “You’re… we’re still good, right?”

He stops in his tracks. His face, warm a second ago, becomes a cold mask. A fortress. He clears his throat. It’s like I’m looking at a totally different man. This one is my boss. This one is a professional. This one just remembered that. He nods once, curt. “I live that way,” he says, pointing down a side street. “We’re good. I’ll see you this week.” And with that, he turns on his heel and walks away.