She was our queen.
Sian snorted. “Heather doesn’t want this position.”
“You had to go and pick her.”
She chuckled, and it was a good sound. “I doubt for a single second everyone wants to be here. You’re not that great, William.”
I smiled and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You haven’t given me a chance to prove how good I can be.”
I wanted to do more than kiss her, but for now, I had to settle with that. We entered the school and went straight toward homeroom. We were running late, and Heather waited for her in their usual seat.
We had all agreed not to make waves between Sian and Heather. She would need her friend throughout this.
After I took a seat, Mr. Connors stumbled into the classroom after the bell, looking somewhat disheveled.
“You think he’s been up all night fucking?” I asked, leaning toward Mateo.
“Don’t breathe on me.”
I may have enjoyed a heavily garlic-style burrito this morning. I was a growing man. I needed all my protein.
“Have we checked him out?”
“Damn it, William, take a breath mint.”
“You’re being mean.”
“And you fucking stink. This has got to be some kind of sin.” He shuffled his hair away, and I glared at him. Sian didn’t complain.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Robinson?”
“Yeah, garlic face here is not a vampire,” Mateo said.
I stuck my fingers up at Mateo as the class chuckled.
“This brings us to another topic of friendship,” Mr. Connors said.
We all groaned. I didn’t know about everyone else, but I for sure was getting sick and tired of all the lovey-dovey bullshit. Relationships were what we made them.
“Can’t we just all agree that raping chicks is bad and move on? I don’t need to have a lecture about the good and bad shit that goes on in the world. I’m a good guy. No chick needs to be drugged for me to get with them. Isn’t that right, ladies?”
A couple of wadded-up pieces of paper were thrown in my general direction.
“We’re having to go through these difficulties, Mr. Martin. If you continue to have your disagreement, take it up with the principal.”
I smiled at Mr. Connors’s smartass answer. If he thought he’d embarrass me, he was very much mistaken. I’d learned long ago to not let trivial things affect me like how people viewed me. It didn’t bother me if chicks wanted to fuck me or hate me. Nor did I care if guys were looking for ways to kill me. None of it mattered. I was immune to their thoughts and feelings.
“So how about we talk about a student-teacher relationship,” I said. We’d been discussing so many different relationships that this one had been curiously overlooked.
“That isn’t something we need to talk about,” he said.
“No? How come?” I asked.
“I’ve already set out the process of us having these discussions.”
“But the good thing about being a teacher is the process of adapting.” I chuckled. “Come on, teach, aren’t you curious what the good books say about our kind of relationship? Unless of course this makes you uncomfortable. Then I can understand your hesitancy. I’d be hesitant as well if you were already fucking a student.” In just a few short words, I’d commanded the attention of the entire class.
Now, Mr. Connors had two ways of dealing with this. Scolding me and then have everyone curious as to why he won’t delve into this particular topic, or show I had more power than him.
Silence filled the room.
With every second that passed, he wasted time.
“You make a very valid point, William. In time, we will come to view that topic.”
“Why wait?”
“We have to go through the facts of what I’ve been told to advise you all.” He turned to look at the class as if that was going to be the end of it.
“Don’t you think my topic is very relevant?”
“Do you want to risk having detention?” Mr. Connors asked.
There was an audible gasp.
Believe it or not, I liked this guy. He had this injured problem going on. Kind of funny and cool. I wasn’t going to be taken down though.
I stared at him, assessing my options. “You can give me a detention, and by all means, I’ll drag my ass out of bed every Saturday morning bright and early to deal with it, but you’ve got to give me a good reason why my topic isn’t the most relevant.”
He went to open his mouth and I couldn’t resist adding insult to injury. “The reason I believe my topic is the most relevant is the timing. I’d understand if these classes started at the end of the semester where we’re going to be going out to parties, getting screwed, all that fun stuff, but we’re dealing with this during term time. Our overall impressionable days are spent with teachers. Shouldn’t you be granting us the ability to understand what is right and wrong in those terms?”