He sighed as he sat on the edge of the mattress and smoothed my hair back from my head. “It means that my plans to fuck you twenty-four-fuckin’-seven for the next two weeks of school break are going to be a little different than I thought. It’ll have to be twenty-two-fuckin’-seven so I can spend some time helpin’ with this mess.”
“Will you be in danger?” I asked.
The adrenaline rush, the alcohol and the amazing orgasms I’d had earlier were combining under the gentle stroke of King’s hand in my hair, to make me sleepy.
Too sleepy to pay attention to the way his lips thinned as he lied to me.
“No, babe. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
It was a little strange to be back at school after the two-week sexcation I’d indulged in with my favorite student. We were a real couple in all the ways that truly mattered so the secrecy and wrongness of our relationship seemed trivial and, at this point, annoying. King was an adult and more than capable of making his own decisions. Anyone could see that just by looking at him. So, would it be so wrong for him to take a teacher eight years his senior for his lover?
Well, when I thought about it like that, the optics weren’t exactly good.
Still, I didn’t like passing him in the halls without touching him, teaching him with two desks and three meters of space between us instead of over the dinner table or in bed before the sun came up, when our naked skin was cooling but our brains were buzzing with sex-induced adrenaline.
If King’s flashing eyes were any indication, he didn’t like it anymore than I did. He was nearly done though. It was the end of April and technically, because he was an International Baccalaureate student, he would be done in mid-May after his two-week period of rigorous exams. He told me he was taking me away immediately even though I would still have my two junior classes to teach. I’d booked a sub because it was either that or face King abducting me and leaving my classes in the lurch. Besides, I’d caught him doing research on his computer for Graceland and there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to go there.
We just had to get through the next two months and we could be together for real. I didn’t let myself think too much about what that actually meant given that most everyone in Entrance thought I was dating Zeus and that his son was only my student. How they would react when they found out I was actually dating King, I couldn’t know, and frankly, I was beginning not to care. The biker mentality was, apparently, contagious.
I was thinking about all of this while my fourth period junior history class took a pop quiz when a commotion erupted out in the hall. Immediately, I flashed back to two weeks ago when I’d found Benny writhing on the floor. It still haunted me in my idle moments and I imagined that it would for a long time to come.
Louise burst through the door, her huge blue eyes wide with exhilaration. “There’s a fight!”
Immediately, the class erupted into chaos as everyone jumped out of their seats, bottlenecking the door as they raced into the hall.
I followed them.
Carson Gentry was on the floor with another football player, Tom Anton, on top of him beating away at his face with two huge fists.
“Fuckin’ faggot,” he was snarling.
Rage exploded within me but before I could start forward through the crowd, King was there behind Tom, pulling him off Carson as easily as someone might remove lint from their jacket. Then he was on him, lifting Tom against the lockers with a hand at his throat.
“What the fuck?” he garbled, trying to kick out at King.
King leaned his body out of reach and squeezed tighter so Tom’s voice was cut off to a wheeze. “What the fuck? That’s what I’m askin’ you, motherfucker. You got a problem with a man likin’ another man, you keep it in your bigoted head and keep your ignorant mouth shut. You can’t do that, this day and fuckin’ age, you’ll find it shut for you.”
I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. It didn’t seem possible that King was defending the same guy who, just months ago, he’d had tossed up against a wall in much the same fashion he had Tom strung up now.
“You don’t think he has it rough enough at home? That he hasn’t fuckin’ suffered for it after what happened to Benny? You’re fuckin’ filth, man.” King growled.
“Okay, break it up,” Warren ordered as he made his way into the fray, Harry Reynard of all people, behind him.
“Let the kid down, King, before we have to suspend you for being a hero and completely ruin the moment,” Harry ordered in his soft British voice.