Beautifully Broken

“Well, not everything, everything,” he says. “It’s not like I call him every night to gossip about what happened that day.”

I playfully kick him under the table. “So what exactly did you tell him?”

Gavin rubs the back of his neck and his cheeks flush. “He knows how we met, how old you are, and that we’re together, despite the fact that you’re in one of my classes. He also knows we’re keeping things quiet until after your graduation.”

“Wow.” I take a moment to think before asking my next question. “What happened to not telling anybody?”

He gives me a sheepish look. “I may or may not have been heavily intoxicated when I spilled my guts. It was when I came home for Thanksgiving. I wasn’t exactly thinking at the time.”

I laugh as I picture Gavin as a blabbering drunk. “You’re different here. It’s…cute.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re so serious back home,” I explain. “Here, you’re more carefree—you smile and laugh a lot more. You seem…less stressed.”

He grabs my hand over the table. “I think you being here with me—out in the open—has a lot to do with it. I feel like myself for the first time in a long time.”

“Well, whatever it is, I like it.”

“I like it too.” He brings my hand to his lips and places a soft kiss on my palm.

“So, your parents don’t know any of the sordid details?”

“No, they don’t know all the details. Notice how I left sordid out of the sentence?”

I roll my eyes. “Yes, Mr. Cooper.”

“Is it totally wrong that I get turned on whenever you say that?”

I get up and walk to the other side of table and take a seat on his lap. I loop my arms around his neck and lean in to nip his earlobe. “As long as it’s okay that I get uncomfortably wet every time I’m sitting in your class watching you command the room. You know all those bathroom passes I’ve asked for over the months? I was really sitting in a stall, touching myself, wishing it were you.”

I feel his growing erection beneath me. He groans as I wiggle against it. “Kat, I think you need to get back to your side of the table before we get arrested for public indecency.”

I laugh. “You’re such a—”

“Gavin?” a female voice calls behind me.

Gavin’s posture instantly goes rigid so I know he recognizes this woman and isn’t happy to se

e her. He lifts me off his lap and I quietly take my seat, looking up at the beautiful blonde standing next to our table.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she replies indignantly. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

“You lost the right to that knowledge a while ago.” His tone is angry. What is going on right now?

The blonde eyes me curiously as I sit there silently doing the same. I’d place her around Gavin’s age, maybe a few years older. She’s wearing a navy shift dress with pearls around her neck and red-soled stilettos on her feet.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Gavin?” she asks.

Gavin sighs. “This is my girlfriend, Kat. Kat, this is my ex-wife, Hailey.”

Oh, shit. What is one supposed to do in this situation? Her arm is outstretched so I awkwardly shake her hand. “Nice to meet you,” I murmur.

Her eyes shift back to Gavin. “So…how long have you two been seeing each other?”

“Since last fall,” he answers. “Why does it matter?”