Discipline

He instantly grimaced. It was at the word “teacher.” Damn it, Nina. Once again, he pulled away from my body, his chest still heaving with ragged, heavy breathing. His hand ran across his mouth as he watched me pant against the wall.

He shook his head. And despite the need burning in his eyes, there it was – that stupid teacher voice again.

“We can’t do this, Nina,” he said before walking away.

CHAPTER 3

“You guys suck, you know that right?” Kelsey called over from table ten, where Em and I had sat her. It was far enough from the bar that she wouldn’t hear our conversation, but not far enough that she’d pout over being neglected.

She always drops by Todos Santos on Monday nights because they’re generally dead and she can chat with us as well as Harry, the hot Aussie who bartends alongside Em.

“Harry, go talk to her,” Em ordered as Kelsey let out a long whine at us, only half joking. We had spent much of the night being hush-hush, whispering over Daniel and what had transpired last night. If I didn’t want Kelsey to know about him before, I definitely didn’t want her to know now. Whatever it was, we’d officially done something that Woodhill would have a field day over. And having sensed a secret since yesterday, Kelsey was antsy and even more prone to blabbing. She’d probably already told her gossip-loving mother, my Aunt Erin, about me being tight-lipped over something.

As Harry complied and dragged himself over to her table, Em turned back to face me.

“I don’t mean to Adriana, but I’m gonna need you to go after that man. Put that crochet dress on again and visit him at school.”

I snorted. “That’s so wrong. I’m not visiting the high school just to do that.”

“Fine. Then when do seniors graduate?”

“What?”

“Your brother is a senior. When is graduation?”

Oh shit. I’d completely forgotten about Jake’s graduation. Maybe that was why he was calling. “Uh, what date is it today? And shut up,” I said as a slow grin spread Em’s face. She glanced down at her phone.

“June twenty-third. What date is graduation?” she asked, quickly shaking her head at my utter blankness. “Kelsey!” she called over the bar. “When’s your brother’s graduation?”

“Huh?” She took a moment to pull her attention off of Harry. “Oh. It’s on Friday. The twenty-eighth.”

Whoops.

“Four days,” Em clucked. “Wouldn’t your mom be calling nonstop lately to remind you about this?”

I cocked my head as I tried to remember. “I think she said something about it last week. But all she really talks about when she calls is Ben.”

“She still calls you every night?”

I nodded. “Last night, she spent twenty minutes obsessing over the idea of Ben modeling, because her hairstylist knows someone who knows someone at Ralph Lauren, and wouldn’t Ben be perfect modeling Ralph Lauren?”

“Gross. You need to tell her about the breakup so she stops bothering you about him.”

“I will. At some point.”

Em shook her head and clucked with disapproval. “Is she really that obsessed with him that you need to drag this out forever? You don’t even have to tell her everything – just tell her that he broke up with you. Then she’ll hate him with the rest of us.”

“It’s just…” I took in a deep breath, my chest clenching with tenseness over the topic. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Em, about my mother — or rather, my entire family’s situation back in Woodhill, and why I’d so idiotically stayed with Ben for all those years. “So, here’s one thing,” I started, staring at my hands. “My mom and my aunt have been planning for years to open a yoga studio-slash-spa in my town that they think will be some crazy hot social scene for the moms. They started mapping it out eight months ago and they just started telling their friends about it.”

“Sounds bougie. Why are you telling me this?”

“She’s under the impression that Ben will be an investor.”

“Why?”

“Because he said he would be, though I doubt that he meant it. He’s only ever invested in restaurants in the city. But yeah, that’s a big part of my mother’s obsession. She has too much pride to ask for money from her friends so Ben’s her dream investor. She’s convinced that she needs him and that the spa will earn loads and loads of money to… help us keep the house, I guess.”

Em’s head snapped up. “Help you keep the house?”