Keeping Score

Fury filled me. I’d be damned if I was going to stand here and let him continue to touch her after she has already told him to stop. I lost all composure. I seized him and turned him to face me. I reared back to punch him. Before I could throw the first punch, Joe gripped my arm, holding me back just as the biker’s fist sailed toward my face. The impact pushed Joe and me backward.

I saw red. I was numb. I felt the cold sweat break out across my skin. It was like the nightmare all over again.

There was only way this would end.

Everything around me faded as the fuel of injustice powered through me. All I could focus on was Steve and his filthy hands all over Julie. Her telling him over and over to stop. I hit him once that I know of and then probably again, but I couldn’t remember.

“Dude. Stop. The cops have been called,” Joe pleaded.

At that moment the blackness swallowed me whole.

Six

Julie

My stomach rumbled for the tenth time in the last five minutes. This time loud enough to be heard across the room. I had forgotten breakfast as I rushed out the door this morning. And I hadn’t thought about bringing lunch. Again.

I needed to start taking better care of myself, but there were only so many hours in a day and it seemed that out of the twenty-four most people were able to function with, I had thirty-five hours of work to complete. These didn’t include showering or eating.

I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to reach up on my toes to get a stretch down the back of my legs. I should be used to being on my feet all day, but once I added night shifts at the bar, my body revolted. It was too much. All of it.

There was another reason I couldn’t eat. It could be summed up in two words: Kane Hawkins.

I sighed louder than I meant to, but I glanced out the windows that lined the wall on the left of the classroom. All the children were on the playground, and I had a break from recess duty. I had a minute to let my stomach roll with the memory of what happened last night. It wavered between nausea, excitement, and dread. Not a

fun roller coaster.

I turned from the window. That job was supposed to be easy money. Guaranteed to add enough cash in my pocket to pay my bills so I didn’t have to leave the education center. I sat on the corner of my desk reliving everything. I took a job doing something humiliating so I could keep one that meant more to me than anything else. It was some kind of twisted poetic irony.

Nothing else that happened once I tied on that waitress apron made any sense. It was like I had become a different woman last night. A woman I barely recognized. I wished I could have blamed it on alcohol or a miserable breakup, but it wasn’t either of those. I almost had sex in the back of the bar. I had let a man I’d never met touch me. Kiss me. Lick me. Suck me like a piece of candy.

And I liked it. No, I loved it.

And for what? To get pawed at by a drunken biker? And then to have Hawk defend my honor and end up being hauled off to jail? None of it made sense. Why did I give in to those impulses? Why did I let how exquisite it felt when he was kissing me matter more than my sanity?

I groaned.

I felt guilty. Guilty about everything. The almost sex. Missing part of my shift. The fight. Hawk’s arrest. Dragging my ass to work exhausted this morning. There wasn’t a corner I could turn where I didn’t feel guilt.

It was as if something had possessed me last night. Something sexy. Something forbidden. And it was almost Hawk. I had almost let him take total control over me. The crazy thing was I wanted him to do it. I wanted him to rock my world. Steal the worry from my brain. For just a little while make me forget I was a waitress. I was a teacher. For the moments I was in his arms I could be a wild sex kitty. A powerful woman who lured the sexiest man in the city to my body.

“Miss Bristow?”

I jumped at the sound of the small voice behind me.

“Hey, Hunter.”

I thought I was alone. I had let my thoughts drift to places I never should have let them go at the center. Teaching here was my true calling. These kids needed me. And they needed me to get my shit together.

I could relate to them. I thought maybe more than some of the other teachers. There was a part of me that was like them. I had lost my mom at a young age. I knew what it was like to feel that kind of pain. To feel like I had been abandoned. I knew it too well. If these kids were lucky they had one parent. But looking at Hunter, I knew he wasn’t one of those.

“Is it ok if I stay inside?” he asked.

“Don’t you want to play with everyone else?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I just want to read.”

He scuffed his feet along the linoleum floor. It wasn’t the worst request he could make.