This Girl (Slammed #3)(22)
He snaps his focus back to me. “Mr. Cooper! Jeez! What’s with the temp? Like I said, I was just . . .”
“Like I said, get out! You will not disrespect women in my classroom!”
He snatches his books off his desk. “Fine. I’ll go disrespect them in the hallway!”
After the door shuts behind him, I cringe at my own behavior. I’ve never lost my temper in a classroom before. I look back at the students and everyone is watching Lake, waiting on some sort of reaction from her. Everyone except Gavin. His eyes are burrowing a hole right through me. I give him a slight nod, letting him know that I acknowledge the fact that we obviously have a lot to discuss. For right now, though, it’s back to the task at hand.
“Class, we have a new student. This is Layken Cohen,” I say, quickly wanting to brush what just happened under the rug. “Review is over. Put up your notes.”
“You’re not going to have her introduce herself?” Eddie asks.
“We’ll get to that another time,” I say, holding up the papers. “Tests.”
I begin passing out the tests. When I reach Gavin’s desk, he looks up at me inquisitively. “Lunch,” I whisper, letting him know I’ll explain everything then. He nods and takes his test, finally breaking eye contact.
When I pass out all but one of the tests, I reluctantly walk closer to her desk. “Lake,” I say. I quickly clear my throat and correct myself. “Layken, if you have something else to work on, feel free. The class is completing a chapter test.”
She straightens up in her desk and looks down at her hands. “I’d rather just take the test,” she says quietly. I place the paper on her desk, then make my way back to my seat.
I spend the rest of the hour grading papers from the first two classes. I occasionally catch myself peeking in her direction, trying hard not to stare. She just keeps erasing and rewriting answers over and over. I don’t know why she chose to take the test; she hasn’t been here for any of the lectures. I break my gaze from her paper and look up. Gavin is glaring at me again, so I dart my eyes down at my watch right when the dismissal bell rings. Everyone quickly files to the front of the room and places their papers on my desk.
“Hey, did you get your lunch switched?” Eddie asks Lake.
I watch as Eddie and Lake converse about her schedule and I’m secretly relieved that Lake has already found a friend. I’m not so sure I like that it’s Eddie, though. I don’t have a problem with Eddie. It’s just that Gavin knows way too much now and I’m not sure if he would tell Eddie or not. I hope not. I glance back down to my desk as soon as Eddie begins to walk away from Lake. Rather than exiting the classroom, she heads straight to my desk. I look up at her and she removes something from her purse. She shakes a few mints into her hand and lays them on my desk.
“Altoids,” she says. “I’m just making assumptions here, but I’ve heard Altoids work wonders on hangovers.” She pushes the mints toward me and walks away.
I stare at the mints, unnerved that she assumed I have a hangover. I must not be as good at hiding my emotions as I thought I was. I’m disappointed in myself. Disappointed I lost my temper, disappointed I didn’t use my head when it came to the whole situation with Lake, disappointed that I now have this huge dilemma facing me. I’m still staring at the mints when Lake walks to the desk and places her paper on top of the pile.
“Is my mood that obvious?” I say rhetorically. She takes two of the mints and walks out of the room without saying a word. I sigh and lean back in the chair, kicking my feet up on the desk. This is by far the second-worst day of my life.
“I can’t wait that long, man.” Gavin walks back into the room and closes the door behind him. He throws his backpack on the desk in front of me, then scoots it closer and climbs into it. “What the hell, Will? What were you thinking?”
I shake my head and shrug my shoulders. I’m not ready to talk about this right now, but I do owe him an explanation. I bring my feet down from the desk and rest my head in my hands, rubbing my temples with my fingers. “We didn’t know.”
Gavin laughs incredulously. “Didn’t know? How the hell could you not know?”
I close my eyes and sigh. He’s right. How did we not know? “I don’t know. It just . . . it never came up,” I say. “I was out of town all weekend. We haven’t spoken since our date Thursday. It just . . . somehow it never came up.” I shake my head, sorting through my thoughts as they’re flowing from my lips. I’m a jumbled mess.
“So you just found out she’s a student? Like, just now?”
I nod.
“You didn’t have sex with her, did you?”
His question takes a moment to register. He takes my silence as an admission of guilt and he leans forward and whispers, “You had sex with her, didn’t you? You’re gonna get fired, man.”
“No, I didn’t have sex with her!” I snap.
He continues to glare at me, attempting to analyze my demeanor. “Then why are you so upset? If you didn’t have sex with her, you can’t really get in trouble. I doubt she’ll report it if all you did was kiss her. Is that what you’re worried about? That she’ll report you?”
I shake my head, because that’s not at all what I’m worried about. I could see in Lake’s demeanor that the thought of reporting me never even crossed her mind. She was upset, but not with me.