Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Peyton

With the last of my students scurrying off toward their parents at pick-up time, I return to the school building with a smile on my face. There is nothing more satisfying than teaching children, watching their little faces brighten during the surprise twist in a story. Or when they take the morals about kindness they learn throughout the day and employ them with each other. Sharing, giving, caring.

I open the door and move down the waxed hallway of the private school, passing framed portraits of the last five school board presidents. Artwork isn’t posted in the halls of the prestigious institution, but I more than make up for that rule in my classroom, which is an explosion of color and happiness.

Before I can reach my door, however, where I plan to collect my things and take the bus back to the apartment I now share with Granger, a fellow teacher steps into my path.

“Hey there, Peyton,” he says warmly, sticking his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants. “Thank God it’s Friday, right?”

A frisson of alarm passes through me, my pulse beginning to pound. I try not to let the fear show on my face. How long after Tony’s actions am I going to feel this apprehension every time a man comes close to me?

After a week of living with Granger, I’m beginning to relax around him (the lock he installed on my door doesn’t hurt). After he went to the trailer park and collected my things, I officially moved in and we commenced a comfortable routine. Granger cooks breakfast and drives me to the school, before heading to his job at the garage repairing cars. When I arrive home, I prepare dinner, since he doesn’t get back until later. We watch television together, do the dishes side by side, laugh at each other’s workplace stories. It’s so…easy.

And he doesn’t try to touch me. Ever. Not so much as a graze.

Sometimes I feel electricity on the back of my neck when we’re both in the apartment. When I turn around, though, he’s busy working on an engine part or chopping vegetables in the kitchen. I have to confess, when he asked me to move into the guest room, I worried it would end up being a bad idea. Granger is mysterious—we’ve never spoken about his past and I haven’t brought it up, wanting to keep our relationship light and friendly. I grow more curious about him by the day, however, this man who has become my friend. My comfort.

The one who makes me feel safe.

I don’t feel safe right now with my fellow teacher standing so close to me. My brain tells me he is just being normal and I’m the one who is messed up, so I paste a smile onto my face. What did he say again?

Oh, right. Thank God it’s Friday.

“Yes,” I say, slowly edging back toward my classroom door. “I love the kids, but it’s nice to relax and regroup.”

“Absolutely,” he agrees affably, shifting in his loafers. “Speaking of relaxing, I was wondering if you wanted to get dinner over the weekend.” A flush darkens his cheekbones. “You’ve only been working here a short time and we haven’t really had the chance to get to know each other.”

My legs are stiff. Frozen.

I’m being silly, aren’t I? Nothing actually happened with my stepbrother the night I ran away. It’s more what could have happened that keeps me awake at night. That and having my safe space compromised. Being caught off guard when I thought I was secure. “Um…” I don’t know what to say, so I stall. “I’m sorry, I’m so bad with names. Can you remind me…”

“Wow, I really jumped the gun asking you out, didn’t I?” He laughs, shakes his head. “I’m Paul. I teach algebra to the older students.”

“Right. Paul.” I vaguely remember being introduced to him on the first day of school, but being a new teacher, I met everyone at the same time, so a lot of the faces blended together. “Thank you for asking. I’m just not really…dating at the moment.”

Why can’t I get Granger’s face out of my mind?

I can almost feel him frowning. Which is ridiculous. We’ve decided to be friends and that’s exactly what we are.

“Oh,” Paul says, still smiling. “That’s fine. I totally understand.” He hesitates. “I hope you don’t mind if I try again in a few months. Just in case you decide to start seeing people. I don’t want to miss my opportunity.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d rather he didn’t ask again, but I don’t want to get a reputation among the staff for being impolite, so I nod. “Sure.”

An hour later, I’m putting away some groceries in the kitchen when Granger gets home from work. His hooded gaze locks in on me as soon as his boots cross the threshold and my muscles tense involuntarily. But not the way they did when Paul approached me in the school hallway. It’s more of a zapping jolt of awareness. And really, I’d have to be dead not to be aware of my new best friend.

He’s a presence.

When he enters the room, the temperature seems to rise.

He kicks off his boots, toeing them neatly into place beside my black ballet flats, staring at the line of shoes for a few seconds, before slowly advancing toward the kitchen. I’ve noticed Granger has this habit of plowing fingers through his hair and holding on to it at the crown of his head, leaving his arm raised. Bent and flexed. Why is that slick bulge of muscle so distracting? In combination with his intense focus on me, I’m caught between feeling treasured…and like a bunny rabbit caught in a trap with the hunter approaching.

“How was your day at the garage?” I ask, picking up a knife and slicing a red pepper down the middle.

“Fine.” Finally he drops that hand away from his hair, gesturing to his clothes. “Messy.”

“I can relate.” With him standing so close, I really have to concentrate on cutting the pepper, moving my fingers out of the way of the blade. “Although the messes I clean up are finger paint accidents instead of grease.”

His mouth ticks up at the corner. “Do kids still put glue on their hands and peel it off?”

“Yes,” I whine. “They especially love to pretend their skin is melting off to terrify me. I don’t get the fascination.”

He props a hip against the counter. “No, I bet you were a teacher’s pet, bringing in a shiny apple on the first day of school and raising your hand for every question.”

I lift my chin and give him a prim look. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, honey,” he drawls. “There isn’t.”

I don’t quite disguise the odd shiver that wriggles up my spine when he calls me by the endearment. “Am I to assume you were the kid who spent lessons carving his initials into the top of the desk?”

His slow rasp of laughter warms me. “Guilty as charged.” He pauses, watching me thoughtfully. “Maybe I should have paid better attention. I wouldn’t have ended up with the wrong crowd.”

My interest can’t help but be piqued. No matter how much I tell myself I want to keep our relationship casual, I can’t deny my eagerness to know more about Granger. “Did you? End up with the wrong crowd?”

Tilting his head down, he tucks his tongue into the corner of his lips. “Honestly?” I can barely breathe when his eyes zero in on me like this. “I was the wrong crowd, Peyton.”

“Oh.” The knife is forgotten in my hand. “Where did that…get you?”

“In bad places. Working for worse people.” His jaw flexes and he takes a step closer to me, coming up short when I draw in a gasp. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” I duck my head. “It’s crazy to still be on edge like this a whole week later.”

He jabs the counter with his index finger. “No, it isn’t. Don’t doubt your instincts. Here I am telling you I worked for bad people. That’s a pretty good reason to back away.”

My hand moves on its own, dropping the knife to reach out and curl in his T-shirt. “I’m not backing away. It’s just…you usually don’t come so close and I wasn’t expecting it.” I look him in the eye. “I’m not scared of you, Granger. No matter what you tell me about your past.”

“Yeah?” It seems to cost him an effort to inhale and exhale steadily, his eyes fixated on the place where I clutch his shirt. “What if I told you I’m a convict? That the night I met you, I was coming back from the final meeting with my parole officer?”

I wait for the surprise to hit, but it never comes. Perhaps I already sensed Granger’s past included doing time. There’s a rawness to him, a restlessness that reminds me of an animal pacing a cage. Or a cell. “I’d say…it sounds like you did your time.” I wet my suddenly dry lips. “There are bad people out there with no prison records at all. Like Tony. Now I know there are good people with records. You wouldn’t have helped me otherwise. You wouldn’t have brought me in, made me safe.”

Ever so slightly, he leans into my touch, pressing his hard stomach to my fist. Up and down it heaves. “Maybe I’m only good with you.”

What happens in that moment to my body is something I’ve never experienced before. There’s a wet trickle down the center of my womanhood and the whole of my flesh begins to pulse like a heart. Thick, heavy, slow.

No idea what it means—and needing to process it—I drop my hand from his shirt and force my attention back to the task of cutting peppers.

With a breath that doesn’t sound entirely natural, Granger pushes off the counter, walks around behind me and opens the fridge. The drag of glass tells me he’s having a bottle of beer, like he usually does after work. “So…” His voice is low. “The kids gave you a run for your money today, huh?”

“As always,” I manage, going still. “Actually, today was weird…”

I trail off, realizing I’m about to confide in him about Paul asking me out. Somehow, though, relaying that information to Granger is totally inappropriate, even though we’re friends. Something stops me.

But he picks up on my hesitation, coming up beside me to study my face, tipping the bottle of beer to his lips. “Why was it weird?”

I’ve never been a good liar. I flit around to nine different potential fibs, before giving up. It’s useless. He’ll know I’m full of baloney. “One of the other teachers asked me to have dinner with him—”

The bottle of beer shatters in his hand.

I yelp, dropping the knife and staggering back from the counter.

“Granger. What—” I sputter. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” he says dully, his eyes kind of unfocused. “Don’t come over here. You’ll step on the glass.”

His odd tone of voice throws me off for a few beats, but I shake myself and get moving, crossing to the front door and slipping my shoes back on before returning to Granger who is still standing eerily still. I pick up one of the kitchen towels and crunch toward him in the shards of beer bottle, making sure there is no glass in his cut before wrapping the towel around his hand. “Granger.” Why does the sight of him in pain make me want to sob? “You need stitches.”

“No.” Visibly, he pulls himself back together. “No, I’ve needed stitches dozens of times in my life. This is just a scratch.” His eyes bore into me and I start to shake. Not out of fear. Out of…being drawn so deeply into a moment with another person that it feels like the world is no longer turning. “What did you say to this co-worker when he asked you to dinner?”

In all of the commotion, I forgot what we’d been talking about prior to the bottle shattering. Surely he isn’t upset over Paul asking me out? “I said no, of course. I’m not ready for that.” Anxiously, I watch the kitchen towel turn red. “Anyway, I’m not…”

“Attracted to him?”

“No. I’m not.”

All over my body, even in my most private places, my skin feels warm just from having this conversation. Growing up, I didn’t fit in very well with the other girls in the trailer park. The girls who lived on the nice side of town called me names at school, like trashy. The girls from my side of town thought I was snooty. Having fallen somewhere in the middle of those two groups, I never had another female around to confide in. Talking about attraction for the first time, especially with someone as magnetic and good-looking as Granger, makes me feel even more vulnerable than usual.

Still, he never makes me feel awkward or judged or like I’m overreacting. Maybe fate made me wait this long for a friend because I was going to receive the best one of all. “What…” I lick my lips. “What does it feel like, when you’re attracted to someone?”

All he does is stare at me. Hard. For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer. “For a girl? It depends how attracted you are.” His voice is like gravel. “Sometimes you can be objective about a person. You might think they have a pleasant face or a fit body. But you don’t get, uh…” He stops for a long breath, his gaze traveling down the front of my T-shirt and pajama shorts, resting on the seam. “That wet clench between your legs that can’t be ignored. When that happens, it’s a different kind of attraction.”

Before I can stop them, my thighs shoot together and I cross my ankles, squeezing. Not…not because I’m experiencing the very thing Granger is describing. Right? No. No, it’s just because this whole conversation is indecent.

That doesn’t stop me from wanting to learn more.

“A different kind of attraction,” I repeat slowly.

“Mmm.”

“If you can’t ignore it, what…what do you do?”

Granger takes a step closer and my tummy turns ticklish on the inside, the sensation reaching up to my breasts and making them fuller, more sensitive. “If you can’t ignore the attraction—and it’s the same for him—then you fuck, honey. If the man knows what he’s doing, you’ll get a nice reward for being so wet and sexy.”

I can no longer control my breathing. I can’t believe he’s talking to me like this. His voice is wrapping me in some kind of spell, a bead of sweat rolling down my spine. “And th-the reward is…”

“An orgasm, Peyton. For both of us.” A long pause drags out and I notice perspiration has formed on his upper lip. “I meant, for you and this man you’re attracted to, of course.”

Swallowing hard, I nod vigorously, wondering if I’m coming down with the flu. I’m having hot flashes and my muscles are tense, jumpy. What is wrong with me? “Anyway,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I don’t even feel the objective kind of attraction for Paul, so it’s a non-issue.”

“Hmm.” Am I imagining things or does Granger seem extremely wound up? Like coiled metal primed to spring. “Will you save me a plate? I’m going downstairs to work out.”

“Oh.” I frown as he pivots on a heel and stalks to the door. “Didn’t you work out this morning?”

“Yeah.”

The door closes on that single growled word and I’m left wondering what the heck just happened. I’m not sure, but something tells me it was significant.