Blind Side (14 page)

I
multi-task
around the kitchen, tripping over myself as I rush to rip open the stove. I almost reach for the hot baking dish, but remember at the last moment I need an oven mitt.

My eyes scan the kitchen, searching for a mitt but it’s been so long since I’ve used the oven, I’ve no idea where to find one. I pull open a drawer and grab a kitchen towel to use instead.

I retrieve baked spaghetti from the oven and rush it into the dining room to the right of the kitchen. I place it on the long dining table beside a fresh plate of breadsticks. I reach into my pocket and grab a lighter to light two candles in the center of the table, and when I’m all done, I stand back and admire my work.

There’s just one thing missing. Wine. Lots of fucking wine. I maneuver into the kitchen and drop to a squatting position to pick out a bottle in the wine fridge. I reach for one Moscato and one Riesling. Food pairings be damned, he likes his red wine and I love my white.

I carry them into the dining room, grabbing two glasses on my way, and pour each half-full before storing the leftovers in the refrigerator. Coach—Brock, I mean—has a drinking problem, but he’s nowhere near as bad as he used to be. After his father died in the fire that burned his childhood farmhouse to the ground, he went on a bender, and that was before he broke his back.

I flip off the lights to the foyer, living room, and kitchen and stand in the candle-lit darkness waiting for Brock to come home from Old Town. My heart skips a beat when he pulls into the long driveway, headlights streaming through tall windows. When the engine is cut, I take a long sharp inhale, and pray this night won’t devolve into the same old fights as every other night.

The door is pushed open, and he calls out to me with an earnest tone, “Stassi, are you home?”

“In here,” I call back and wait for him to approach.

His shadow enters the room before he does, and it’s his shadow that I surprise first, throwing my hands in the air and exclaiming, “Happy Birthday, Brock!”

“You did this?” His eyes shift around the room with apprehension, like I’ve just set some kind of trap for him. “For me?’

“You’re one game away from making State.” I shrug. “I thought you deserved it.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He hangs his jacket on the chair the furthest from our assigned seating. “Thank you,” he says sincerely, and I’m reminded that he’s the one who’s been pushing for us to stay married.

“You don’t need to say anything.” I slide into my seat and he follows suit, taking his seat across from me.

He picks up his fork in one hand and scoops the baked spaghetti into his mouth as I watch him. He catches me watching him and places the fork on the table. “I’m sorry. Did you want to pray?”

“No,” I chuckle. “We don’t pray in this house.”

“Maybe we should?” He laughs again and reaches for the glass of wine. There’s a weight that’s been lifted from his body. Mine too. “This is really good, Stassi.”

“Thank you.” I smile and take a small bite. “How was the charity event?”

“Uneventful.” He nods and finishes chewing. “The boys spent a few hours raising funds over the phone.”

“Interesting. How did that go?”

He’s laughing before he can even answer my question, throwing his hand against his chest for support. “It was terrible.”

“That bad?” I arch my brow.

“Yeah. I think they actually lost money.” He raises the glass to his lips, but his eyes shift upward at me. He resigns the glass back onto the table without so much as taking a sip.

“It’s okay,” I assure him. “It’s okay to drink.”

“I don’t want to ruin the mood—“

“Then don’t.”

“I have to ask.” His face is painted with contemplation as he searches for the right words. “Why are you being so nice?”

“I woke up today with a different perspective.”

“Care to share?”

I gesture toward the food, the wine, and the candles. “This about covers it.”

His eyes sink to the table, and then settle on mine. “I’ve missed this.”

“Me too.” I force a smile, but I agree fully with his assessment. This is the Brock I’ve missed in the past year since our lives went up in flames. “How did we get so broken?”

“The hell if I know,” he says softly, but we both know exactly what happened, but maybe it doesn’t have to matter anymore. “Is there hope for us?”

“I want to believe there is,” I say with a certain weight to my voice, but wanting isn’t the same thing as having. We’re good tonight, and then fighting tomorrow. There are too many cracks in our relationship to ever repair them all, but maybe we only need to patch them. “One day at a time?”

“One day at a time.” He wipes red sauce from his mouth with a napkin and rises to his feet.

I look up at him with a frown. “Where are you going?”

He reaches his hand for mine, and without thinking, I take him up on his suggestion as he pulls me to my feet. “You want to take this upstairs?”

“I—“
This can’t happen
. “Why not?”

* * *

H
e pulls
me into the bedroom and shuts the door behind us, as if someone could come in and catch us in the act. After being fucked on a carousel, there’s not much that scares me in that regard anymore.

But this right here? It terrifies me. He twists on his foot so that we’re face to face, and he looks at me the way someone looks at someone else when they want to kiss said person.

I should protest. I should put a quick stop to this. But I don’t. I can’t. He shifts forward, grabbing me by both cheeks as he lands a kiss on my lips. My entire body shudders from his touch, and my senses kick into overdrive. It’s been forever since I’ve seen him this way; primal and full of life.

He tastes different, but it’s been six months since he’s kissed me. In the timespan between that kiss and this kiss, I’ve learned to acquaint his scent with that of alcohol.

He mouths a trail down my neck and, and his hand crawls fast under my shirt. I raise my arms to help him dispose of my top. He lifts me by the curves of my ass and lies me down on the bed, where he moves fast to crawl atop me.

In one quick motion, he pulls my jeans and panties from my body, and a warm hand is pressed against my cunt, preparing me. He takes no time shifting into overdrive as he pushes his jeans down enough to free himself and positions his throbbing cock against my opening.

His mouth hangs open as he rocks into me, slow and gentle and not the way I thought this would be if we ever got around to it again. He’s smaller than Kemper, not by much, but it feels like I’m being ripped apart from the inside.

“Brock,” I cry out and tangle my hands into the thin fabric of his blue shirt. My legs kick up in the air and I lower them against his back, holding onto him as he picks up his pace

I stare at the ceiling, trying to escape my body as my mind races into overdrive, but it’s my heart that’s screaming the loudest. Any clarity I’ve had at all over the past few weeks is wiped away in an instant, and as he surfs to a shattering orgasm above me, I close my eyes until I feel the weight of his body crushing down on top of me.

His head lies parked beside my head, his face buried in the pillow as he fights to breathe. That’s the quickest I’ve ever known him to come, and I know without a doubt he hasn’t stepped out on me in the longest time.

I remember the way I used to love him, and compare that with the way I still love him. Up until this morning, the love I had for him felt conditional as if it wasn’t real. My heart broke every time we used to fight, but I eventually became numb to it all. Now, my heart beats from under my chest and I know, without a doubt, I still love him. And that hurts. It fucking hurts.

As he comes down from a rousing high, I’m left spinning under his body, and all I need is to simply run. Just fucking run somewhere where I can breathe, and make sense of this tragedy I’ve found myself involved in.

Life is a football game, and I’m wracking my mind trying to figure out my next play, but in this game of life, there’s no such sure thing as a touchdown. White chalk is nothing but a blur beneath my feet as I rush closer and closer to the end zone, but in my blind side, I could never see the avalanche coming.

I
shuffle
a stack of blank exams into my arm and begin the arduous process of passing them out to each student. I don’t make eye contact with Kemper as I drop a paper pamphlet onto his desk, but I notice the way his gaze lingers on me once I’ve passed him.

When all the exams have been administered, I take a seat in my desk and switch on my computer, prepared to whittle away my time on menial tasks if for no other reason than to occupy my mind with anything other than the thought of the two men playing tug of war with my heart.

I couldn’t get so lucky.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Hamilton,” Kemper interrupts me from above. “I have a question about this exam.”

“Yes?” I purse my lips, trying to play it off as if he’s just one of my students. “What is it, Kemper?”

He leans in close—too close—and I place my hand between us, gesturing for him to take a step back. “Do I really need to take this exam?” He winks at me and grins wickedly. “Aren’t you just going to give me an
A
anyway?”

In my vivid imagination, I lunge across the desk and choke him. “No,” I clear my throat. “I’m afraid I can’t give you an extension.”

“Fine,” he pouts and straightens himself out. “Is something wrong?” he questions with a hooked eye.

I lean across the desk, resting on my elbows. “The only thing that’s wrong is you coming up to my desk like this.”

His shit-eating grin widens. “When do I get to see you again?’”

“Could you not?” I seethe through gritted teeth. “Please go sit back down.”

“Answer my question and I will.”

“I’ll stop by your place after football practice.”

“See?” He gestures with his hands thrown out to the side, and whispers, “That’s all I needed to know.”

I aim my eyes at his empty seat. “Go sit down, Kemper.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton,” he announces loudly as he spins on his foot and parks himself in his desk.

I turn my attention back to the monitor and open my staff email. The first three unread messages are from Ashley, each sent five minutes apart with the same urgent subject,
We Need To Talk.
The body of each email is blank.

I slump in my chair and groan to myself.

“I need to see you in my office.” Ashley points a finger squarely at me from the doorway, as if she appeared right out of my inbox. “Now.”

I swallow a nervous lump and shake her an affirmative nod. I cock my head to Kemper as I rise to my feet and see his eyes shift toward the door. I shrug at him in a controlled manner, but it doesn’t seem to ease his racing mind.

His eyes follow me out the door.

* * *

I
peer
through the frosted glass of the assistant principal’s door. It’s difficult to make out what’s happening on the other side of the door, but I can see faintly Ashley’s silhouette pacing back and forth across the short span of the room.

I prepare myself for whatever’s waiting on the other side of the door and push it open. She snaps her attention to me, glaring at me with remarkable disdain.

“Close the door,” she commands and I do so with no hesitation. “You’re a stupid girl,” she scolds me and points to the chair.

“Excuse me?”

“After what happened with Nathan, I thought you’d know better.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask quietly, but I really want to scream. She knows goddamn well the role I played that night Nathan wrecked his car, and she knows I do not deserve the scorn.

“Sit down, Stassi,” her voice burns with rage, but I’m not one of her students.

“I’m good with standing.” I cross my arms in defiance. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s caused you to lose your damn mind?’

“I’m talking about your choices.” She zeroes her eyes in on me. “You’re self-destructing and maybe that’s on purpose.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” I say dryly, my lips trembling and my heart revving, preparing to jump the track.

“I’m talking about this.” She lifts a stack of photographs and pushes them across the desk. I don’t bother picking them up, or cycling through them. I see the first photo adorning the stack perfectly clear—Kemper and I walking out of the Sunset Motel. “You’re going to resign.”

“No.” I shake my head. My mind is reeling—drifting around sharp curves of suspicion as I try and figure out who could have taken the photos. I settle on the answer that it doesn’t matter. The damage is done, but what I wouldn’t give to strangle my accuser. “I’m not resigning.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

“Please don’t do this to me,” I plead, on the verge of tears, but I hold them in, too terrified if I break, I won’t be able to pick the pieces back up again.

She bows her head, her resolve wavering. “I don’t have a choice.”

It takes a beat to work up the courage, but I come out swinging with a steadfast resolve. “I’ll end it tonight.”

“It’s true then?” She levels her eyes with me. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

I lap my tongue across my bottom lip. “Is it that bad?”

She slams her fist onto the table, and I flinch backward. “The fact you even have to ask that—“

“You were supportive when I told you I was having an affair.” I’m throwing everything out there, hoping something will stick so she can understand where I’m coming from.

“That’s so very beyond different.”

“Is it?” I shake my head. “Tell me, because I don’t know if it is.” I bring my fingers together to pinch at the bridge of my nose. “He’s eighteen.”

“He’s a student. It is a violation of authority and trust.” It’s almost like she’s reading from a teleprompter, never missing the opportunity to make me feel like an even bigger piece of shit with each passing admonition. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through, but this has to end.”

“I’ll end it tonight.”

“Good.” She circles the desk and places her hand on my shoulder. “If you don’t, then don’t even think about walking back into this school.”

I can’t even look her in the eyes. I’m too hurt, though I know she’s not out of line. “You’re supposed to be my friend,” I plead with her, but it’s more of a cry, mourning for the loss of one more person in my life.

“You are one of the most important people in my life,” she assures me and massages my shoulder. “I hate seeing you going through this, and I wish there was a way I could help you.”

“Where were you when my marriage was falling apart?”

“I had no idea,” she spits and shakes her head violently as she pulls away from me. “So don’t you dare try to pin this on me, as if I’m some Judas to you.”

She’s angry, and she has every right to be, but I’m trying to stay afloat and I do that by lashing out. “I’m sorry.” I drag my palm across my mouth and sniffle. “I need to finish the exams.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Not while he’s in there. You need to go home, and I’ll take care of the tests.”

I nod and contemplate another scenario in my head, a way this can end any other way than it has to end. I close my eyes and beg to be awoken from this bad dream. From the very beginning, I knew that first night with Kemper would come back and bite me in the ass, but back then I was immune to how ugly it could get. I was living in denial. That’s no longer an option.

I force a smile as I step to the door and lock eyes with her for a split moment, in that short fragment of time, I see the hurt in her eyes. I rip the door open and exit in a hurry, bowing my head in shame as I storm through the office and into the hallway.

I’m left with no options, with no possible route of escape. Right now, there are only four people in this world who know of the affair; myself, Kemper, Ashley, and some nosey piece of shit with a camera.