The table to our right quieted curiously. I cringed. Apparently no amount of drunkenness could ease my shame of ever having accepted an allowance from Ben. It sounded like fun to Linh, but she didn’t know what it bought. In the beginning, neither did I. All I knew was that it helped for when Mom asked to “borrow” money. The requests started out as just as a few hundred dollars for someone’s birthday gift, but it didn’t take long for them to become monthly deposits into her bank account, the numbers ranging from five hundred to five thousand dollars at a time. And after every deposit, I received an immediate text from her — not a thank you, but a reminder to keep these transactions a complete and utter secret, even from my father.
“Um.” I stirred my drink. “Don’t you guys want to talk about something else? Penis size, maybe?” I laughed nervously. That would distract them. But the moment the suggestion left my mouth, I regretted it. Half because the only thing Adriana loves more than talking dirty is doing it in public, just to see how red my face will get. It’s a reminder of “what a Stepford wife” I’ve become since Ben. Before dating him, she and I had been inseparable, the ones who poured the staff shots and rallied everyone to go out after weekend closing shifts, which always ended past 2AM.
That was only half of my worry though. The other half was over the table to our left, which was being seated with a party of two men. From just the corner of my eye, I was sure that I recognized one – someone whom I probably shouldn’t be discussing this topic in front of. He seemed to be glancing at me too, but before I could look over and confirm, a server stepped between our tables to make our tableside guacamole. That didn’t stop Adriana from talking.
“Didn’t you say he would only do it reverse cowgirl?”
“Ade!” Judging from the “whoa” I picked up on my left, the guys next to us had heard. Oh God, he’s hearing all of this.
“What?” Adriana played innocent, twirling a platinum lock around her finger. “If Ben had anything right, that was it. Your ass to waist ratio was made for reverse cowgirl.” Her hazel eyes gleamed, absolutely delighting in my mortification. She plucked the strawberry off the side of her glass and licked the alcohol off its tip. “I’d do the same with you if I had a penis.”
“Ade! There are kids here.”
“No, there aren’t.”
It was worth a shot. “Well, can you pretend there are?” I asked, my fingers cold against my now burning cheeks. I quickly dropped them though when I remembered that visible embarrassment only ever fueled Adriana to up her ante. “Anyway, are we all okay with cilantro?” I asked brightly, trying to change the subject to our guacamole.
“I got a preview of you in reverse cowgirl before! Remember? At Linh’s lingerie party?”
No dice. The question prompted a hushed mutter from the next table. “This guy needs to move so I can see already,” a gruff voice said — probably his friend.
“The Halloween party, yes, I remember, but can we all look at the guacamole, please?” I asked hastily, desperate to shut Adriana up, especially if it really was the person I thought it was sitting next to me. He was from home and he wasn’t supposed to know that this side of me ever existed. At home, I was a poised, elegant and well-behaved girl from a poised, elegant and well-behaved family.
Em’s eyes widened as she recalled the party. “Oh my God, that party. How do you two remember any of it, honestly?”
“How could I forget? That was the night I discovered Nina’s secret talent.”
“What? Double fisting like a champ?” Em asked.
“No. Giving lapdances,” Adriana answered, nibbling her strawberry. “She’s almost as good a dancer as she is a kisser,” she added, winking at me. Once again, I felt my hands cover my face.
“Damn,” came the reaction from the guys to my left. Linh cooed.
“I remember that night.” She prodded me with a giggle. “Be nice to Ade. She had to be like your boyfriend that night because of all those guys harassing you. It was that costume you were wearing, with the little plaid skirt and the garters…”
No, no, no. Of all details right now.
“What were you again?”
Please don’t say it.
Adriana smirked. “A naughty schoolgirl.”
God.
And right on cue, the server sprinkled some cilantro and moved out of the way to confirm whom I’d seen. Him. The impossibly gorgeous man I had crushed on since the age of fourteen, who had just spent the past three minutes listening to the filthy details of my sex life.
“Hi,” he said quickly, interrupting the words he saw forming on my lips – Mr. Cole. It was still instinct. After all, he had been my high school English teacher. Though judging from the flicker in his eye, he didn’t want that fact revealed tonight. Despite a suddenly pounding heartbeat, my drunk lips twisted into a knowing smile.
“Hi,” I said slowly. Got it… we’ll just pretend we don’t know each other. I didn’t mind keeping the secret with him, Adriana being my top motivating factor. She and Linh were already flirting with Mr. Cole’s friend and describing the lingerie party to him, throwing in the detail of how I’d brought my actual assignment pad from high school to complete the outfit. Mr. Cole and I stared at each other in silence, trying to speak but too busy listening to Adriana despite trying desperately not to. Especially as she moved onto the topic of the guys who kept knocking that assignment pad from my hands, trying to get me to bend over in my skirt.
“Um.” Mr. Cole winced at himself as a sexy, almost dirty little grin curved the ends of his lips. He tried to bite it away, shaking his head as if attempting to clear his thoughts. Holy shit. Was he…? The idea of Mr. Cole imagining me in any sort of raunchy way made me want to writhe with both horror and excitement. Did that count as finally making him do something scandalous? If it didn’t, then the fact that I was seeing him out and decently drunk had to count for something. My God, Woodhill should give me a medal.
He was that teacher at the high school – the one everyone was completely fixated with, whom my cousin Kelsey called “inappropriately hot, even for the token hot teacher.” Because he wasn’t just charming and funny in class with nice eyes and a perfect jawline – he was also six foot three with the muscled build of an Olympic athlete and the most torturously strict sense of professionalism, despite the legions of lusty girls who made it their mission to get anything remotely personal or scandalous out of him. Every period, students hunted for rumor material as he dodged it at every turn, never once answering the questions about his relationship status or weekend plans. He famously loved his job. Teaching was a legacy in his family and he was serious enough about it that he guarded the details of his personal life as if they were CIA intel.
Which was why this moment felt surreal.
“I… sorry about my friends,” I murmured with a short laugh. “They get pretty loud with or without drinks.”