Getting Schooled (Getting Some #1)(31)

The gears in my mind go spinning. With Alison’s advice and the token system my sister used with her kids when they were little, and Garrett’s words.

“The key to controlling your class, is figuring out what each kid wants . . . and giving it to them . . . letting them know . . . you have the power to take it away.”

“You know what I want?” I ask.

“We don’t care.” Bradley laughs, but no one else joins in.

“I want to put on a play. At the end of the year. With just the theater students.”

Julie Shriver hadn’t put on a play at Lakeside for years. Quickly, I flip through scripts in my head—something with a small cast, with catchy songs, something with an underdog . . . something they would like.

“Little Shop of Horrors. Do you guys know it?”

A few of them shake their heads. The others don’t respond.

“It’s about a plant from outer space. And a guy, a florist, who had been pushed around his whole life, finds it and takes care of it. Then . . . he chops up everyone who’s ever been mean to him and feeds them to his plant.”

They laugh.

“Dayum! Like Saw on Broadway,” Toby says.

“Gruesome.” David nods. “Is there blood?”

“There is.” I nod.

“No way am I getting up on a stage,” Simone scoffs. “I’d rather have my belly-button ring slowly ripped from my body. And my nose ring too.”

Bradley flinches and covers his nose.

“You wouldn’t have to,” I shoot back. “Not all of you will be actors. We’ll need . . . a director’s assistant—someone to keep things running smoothly. A stage crew to make and move the sets. Sound crew, light crew. We’d need makeup crew and costume design.”

“I’ll be in your play.” Bradley holds up his hand. “But only if I get to kiss a really hot chick.”

I’ve been on enough stages to know when my audience is captivated. Right now, this one is, so I keep it going.

“The second boy I ever kissed was in a play, a stage kiss. He shoved his tongue down my throat, even though he wasn’t supposed to, in front of an auditorium full of people.”

“That’s messed up,” Simone says.

“It was. After the performance, my boyfriend kicked the crap out of him.”

Layla’s voice is quiet, and lilting, but I hear her. “That was Coach Daniels, right? You guys used to go out when you were in high school?”

I chuckle a little. How do they know these things? No point in denying it now. “That’s right.”

Then I clap my hands. “So, how about this? You work with me and I’ll work with you. We start working on the play, and I’ll award a one-hundred-dollar gift card to the best theater student at the end of each semester.”

“Can you do that?” Michael asks.

I shrug. “We’ll call it a scholarship. I won’t ask Miss McCarthy if you won’t. If we don’t know we’re breaking the rules, we’re not really breaking them, are we?”

There’s more than one way to skin a cat . . . and there’s a bunch of ways to teach a class.

“Five hundred dollars,” David says from the back, daring me with his eyes.

I lift my chin and nod sharply.

“Done.”

My voice is brisk and authoritative, without even trying, as I walk back behind my desk.

“Michael, I’d like you to be my assistant. Auditions will start next week, and we’ll need to get crew sign-up sheets posted. Are you good with that?”

“Uh . . .” His eyes are round behind his glasses, like an owl who has no idea how he ended up on this particular branch. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Good. As for the rest of you, before auditions, there’s some basic acting techniques we need to go over.” I snap my fingers and point at the small elevated platform in the corner—the makeshift stage. “David, you first.”

He rolls his shoulders and flips his dirty-blond hair, then he rises and hops up on the stage. He lifts one leg, like a flamingo, holds his right arm over his head and his left arm straight out to the side.

I sit back in my seat and fold my arms.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m being the tree.” He grins smart-assedly. “Isn’t that what theater is all about? Feel the tree . . . be the tree . . .”

The kids laugh, and I join them.

“Theater is about taking something that’s been done a thousand times before—Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller—and making it feel like something new again. Making it your own. So forget the tree . . . be the leaves instead.”

You got this, Callie.

And I think I just might.





Chapter Eleven


Garrett





Slowly, firmly, I slide my tongue into Callie’s warm, waiting mouth. Her lips are rose-petal soft, and with every inhale I breathe in the sweet, delicious scent of her.

I forgot about kissing. Just kissing.

How good it can be—how hot—all by itself. The kind of hot that feels like my heart is going to punch out of my chest and my cock is going to bust through my zipper.

I forgot . . . but with every brush of her lips, Callie reminds me.