Beyond What is Given(24)

She nodded, her eyes searching me like she knew I hadn’t told her the whole truth. How could I? I hadn’t told anyone. “So we’ll fetch your transcript from CU and get you enrolled, sound okay?”

I sucked in my breath. “Is there any chance we can do this without my transcript?”

She took her glasses down and folded her hands on the desk. “What would your transcripts tell me, Samantha?”

Nausea turned my stomach over, but I breathed through it. “It would come with a disciplinary report.”

“And what would that say?” Her features stayed relaxed and open, calming me.

“It would say that I struck my ethics professor.” In the face. In broad daylight. In the middle of the quad with at least thirty witnesses if not more. And it felt great.

Her eyes widened, but that was her only reaction. “And why would you have done that?”

My chest tightened, my secret simultaneously clawing up my throat to be free and clinging to the mess it had made in my soul. I closed my eyes and centered myself.

“Samantha?”

“Because I found out that I wasn’t the only girl he was sleeping with.” There. It was out. The crushing weight lifted off my heart, and I took a deep, clear breath, then another. I felt lighter than I had since December, and cleaner, despite the dirt I’d laid bare to a perfect stranger. As my eyes opened, I found her staring back at me, the same kind concern shining out of her eyes as had been there before I told her. “Of course none of that is in the report. Just that I hit him.”

“I see.” She thumbed through the pages of my application again, and I awaited her verdict. At least this time my cards were on the table. There was no giant ax waiting to land in my back while I wasn’t looking. I might be facing the guillotine, but I was looking at it head-on. “You used to tutor math?”

I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

“The high school is looking for tutors, if you’d like some volunteer work under your belt…” She’s rejecting me, telling me I haven’t paid for my sin yet. I’m screwed. “…while you take your classes here. We start next week, so be sure to grab a course catalog at the front desk. I’ll get you put in the system, and you can enroll online.”

My mouth dropped open. “You…you’re going to let me in?”

She nodded. “Everyone makes mistakes, Ms. Fitzgerald. Not everyone has the integrity to admit them as you did. Just pay Charlotte your application fee on your way out, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

I took in sweet, gulping breaths and laughed. “Thank you! Thank you so much!” I couldn’t contain my smile, or the tears that pricked in my eyes. Relief. Light, floating relief was all I could feel.

She smiled. “This is why I’m here.”

I batted away the silly tears and stood to shake her hand. “I swear I won’t make you regret it.” Grayson had been right. Accountability tasted bitter, but I was putting one foot in front of the other, gaining distance from the person I didn’t want to be. I was almost out of her office when she called me back.

“Samantha?”

I pivoted. Don’t take it back. Please, don’t take it back. “Yes?”

“Would you do it again?” she asked, her head cocked to the side but her eyes soft.

“Sleep with him?” I pictured Harrison, his smile, his hands, the way he’d made me feel like I was special, something worth risking his job over, and then the fallout. “No. Never.”

She nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. One mistake doesn’t define your life.”

She was right. He’d taken everything from me, and I’d stood there and let him, then run away when it had all fallen to pieces in front of me. Nothing had happened to him. He was still teaching, his record unblemished.

My handprint had vanished from his face as if it had never happened, but my academic career had been executed.

“But I’d sure hit him again. Only harder.”

I swear I saw her smile as I left.





Chapter Nine


Grayson


I parked my truck in the farthest spot from the door, hoping to avoid some * opening a door into it. I’d been back at Fort Rucker for all of forty-five minutes, long enough to drop my bag at the house and empty the contents into the washing machine.

But now I was here because after four days of being surrounded by family, friends…and Grace, I still couldn’t get Sam out of my head. It shouldn’t have happened. My life here at Rucker never followed me home, the same as my world there stayed separate. It was the only way I could survive, locking the shit away so I could focus on my future. But she followed me there and didn’t even know it.

The gym was fairly empty for a Tuesday night, only the regulars at the free weights and a couple local girls at the stair climber. Speaking of which…

“Hey, Grayson,” Marjorie drawled as she swayed past me, her eyes running up my torso, a bottle of water in her hand as she headed for Carter, who was lifting in the corner. He was courting trouble there.

I nodded to her and immediately searched the gym until Sam sailed through the office door, a clipboard in hand. Her shirt molded to her frame, and her shorts were definitely made by someone who was out to torture me. I wanted to peel them down. With my teeth. Then I’d lick back up her thighs—