Walking in the Shadows (30 page)

“Ha, he ha
s no idea how to text,” Tad responded
touching
the screen to view the message
.
“It’s from Paul, the chem
istry
teacher.”

“What does it say?”

He handed the phone to me.

TEXT FROM PAUL

Jennings is done. She had her mee
ting on Saturday with the board. T
hey said she can finish up the year if she keeps her mouth shut. Hooray, no more crazy lady.

“So other teacher
s think she’
s nuts
too
?”
I asked as I finished reading.

“Oh, yeah. The only
ones that like her are the single
ones and
some married ones
who are lacking brain cells
.
At least I won’t have to deal with her next year
,
”
Tad said
as he tapped
his response on the screen.

“This is true. I hope she doesn’t take it out on Mike, he’
s in my World Civ class
.
”

“I doubt she would
,
and
if she did she’
d get kicked to the curb fast. The administration has a zero tolerance p
olicy for that kind of behavior,
”
Tad assured me with a squeeze of my hip.

“What kind of behavior?”
Kirsten
interrupted
,
raising an eyebrow.

“You know that teacher I don’t like?”
I began to explain.

“The one that hits on Tad?”

“Yeah
, that one,
”
I answered.

“Good
, jealousy doesn’t fit you well,
”
Kirsten
observed
with a wink.

“Your family
gets you too
,
” Tad tease
d
.

“You all suck,
” I said
,
a smile spreading across my face. It was true that
Kirsten
and Bill were not my parents and
they c
ould never replace them nor try to, but I was thankful to still have them. Without them and Tad I had no idea where I would be. In a world where I felt lost, they all grounded me
,
and I felt no matter what they would hold me here just as my parents
had
wanted them too.
I was beginning to see I wasn’t alone at all.

“You
’
re not going to believe this—Knightley just got hot on the badass scale.” Jaz attacked me the second she saw me standing at my locker on Monday morning.

I shook off her clinging hands. “Huh?”

She jumped up and down before answering
,
“Knightley got a
tattoo!
”

“He did
what
?” I yelped, far too enthusiastically.

Jaz raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I know, right?
So
hot!”

“Do you have proof?”

“God, I wish.” Jaz giggled.

When we went into his class he was smirking at me. He had definitely done something that he knew would get to me. He started class immediately, but when he lifted his arm to write on the whiteboard his white button-up stretched over the muscle of his inner, upper arm and there it was—black scroll still obscured by his shirt. I couldn’t see what it said and that drove me nuts. Jaz practically jumped out of her seat as she turned and looked at me with wide eyes.

“See?” she mouthed and her face was as red as I imagined mine was.

The feelings were mixed, it was sexy, yet annoying—why hadn’t he told me, and what the hell did it say? When the class ended I had intended on accosting him about it, but Jaz was already dragging me out the door. I looked over my shoulder at him, exasperated, and he didn’t contain his smile this time.

“Seriously? It’s right on one of his gorgeous, shirt busting muscles??? Why, oh, why couldn’t he be a teacher somewhere else—then one of us could call dibs.

I choked. “Dibs?”

Jaz obviously wasn’t expecting my reaction and burst out laughing. “If only, right?”

I nodded my head and brought out my cell phone. I text him:

You have some explaining to do.

“Who are you texting?” Jaz asked, peaking over, but I had already shut my phone.

She shrugged and started talking about how tattoos were sexy in small quantities, especially on scholarly types. I wasn’t really paying attention; I was looking over her shoulder into Tad’s class where he was looking at his iPhone. He looked up at me and winked. I had to hold back from stomping in there and pinning him down with a kiss. He was so frustrating!

~~~

When I got home that day I flopped down on the coach and attempted to do my homework, but there was just no way I could do it after the day I had had. I couldn’t believe that Tad would get a tattoo without telling me and what bugged me more was that I had no clue what the thing said. He had always talked about getting a tattoo, but he wanted it to be something meaningful, and he didn’t have anything he could think of. I sat pondering it and looking at my phone, waiting for it to ring for at least an hour before I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up to the door bell ringing, the apartment was pitch black
,
and my phone showed it was already eight.

“Coming,” I yelled as I shook my hair free from the elastic band that it was barely clinging to.

“Hey, there,” Tad said, leaning against the door frame. He was still in that tight button up, but it was no longer tucked into his pants and he was missing his tie.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed as I pulled him inside.

He smirked at me. “You said I had some explaining to do. I figured I would do it now.”

“This is risky,” I whispered, and he laughed.

“No one can hear us in here, and what in life is risky that isn’t completely worth it?” he teased.

“When did you get it?” I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know.

“About a week ago,” he replied with a shrug as he we went to sit on the couch.

“How come no one knew it was there until now?” I asked, looking over at him as he stretched his arm across the couch and pulled me into his lap.

“Well, you have to keep it under gauze for a bit…so then no one could see it, and I wore dark shirts because I wasn’t sure how you would react. I don’t want you to be mad at me,” he explained, and his blue eyes practically melted me with their worry of my disapproval.

I sighed. “You said you didn’t have anything important enough to tattoo on yourself?”

He cocked his head and brushed a hair out of my eye. “Well, now I do,” he whispered.

My breath caught in my throat. I knew he wasn’t stupid enough to get my name tattooed on him, so what could it be?

“Show me?” I asked, and my voice was barely audible. I moved so that he could stand.

He took a deep breath as he began to unbutton his shirt, and with each inch of skin that was revealed I felt my insides twisting. Anxiety and lust made an intoxicating mix. When he had finished unbuttoning the shirt he lifted the tattooed arm out and I stood. His eyes searched mine as they traveled up his bare abdominal and up to his arm. He held it out to me, and I let my hands trace the words.

I am threatened by the resolve that you are my soul. You are my being, you are every breath I take, y
ou are my home,
you
are my sweet sin
.

My whole body was on fire with an overwhelming tingling sensation, and I had to swallow against the tears. It was the answer to my poem. I closed my eyes and let the tears fall down my cheeks.

“Please,” he whispered, wiping away my tears as he cupped my face in his hands. “Don’t cry.”

I opened my eyes and leaned down to kiss the tattoo. As my breath washed over his skin he let out a sigh.

“I love you so much,” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around my waist.

I kissed his neck and my fingers drifted over the skin of his shoulder, sliding his shirt completely off. When my lips reached his ears I whispered, “The sweetest sin.”

His lips found mine, hungrier than I had ever felt them; he pulled me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Somehow with our eyes closed we still found our way onto my bed, and I pulled his body weight over me. All the risk was forgotten. None of it mattered. When the doorbell rang we ignored it.

“Vera! I know you’re in there—your car is here!” Jaz yelled at the door, and Tad jumped off of me in an instant.

“Shit!” he exclaimed in a harsh whisper.

“Closet! Get in the closet!” I yelped, my brain working too quickly for me to comprehend what was going on.

“Coming!” I yelled. “I was in the bathroom!”

I looked over my shoulder as Tad closed the closet door, and his eyes met mine filled with fear. This was bad. Very bad.

“Well, hurry up, it’s cold out here!” she yelled as I reached the door.

“Hello,” I greeted with a smile. “What are you doing here?”

Jaz nudged her way in past me and headed for the couch.  I rushed in front of her as I saw Tad’s shirt lying on the floor.

“Silly me, leaving dirty laundry everywhere,” I explained as I rolled it into a ball so that it wasn’t identifiable as a man’s shirt.

“Eh, I have no problem with that. I mean seriously, look how clean this place is
.
” Jaz plopped on the couch with her backpack.

“So, uh…not to be rude—but, how did you know I live here?”

“Driver’s License, oh, course. You showed it to me when I got mine, remember?” she explained, kicking her feet up on the coffee table.

“Right…so, what’s up?”

“Well, if you aren’t opposed, I was thinking tonight was a perfect girl’s night. I got the gossip on Knightley’s tattoo…”she winked at me.

“And?”

“Well, I don’t know what it says, but it’s something about his girlfriend,” she gushed, her face red. “He’s so sweet!”

She had no idea how sweet, and right now he was hiding in my closet, and my heart was beating out of my chest. He might have to sleep in there at this point.

Jaz sat up and looked around before her eyes landed on the open bathroom door. “I need to use the ladies’ room?”

I let out
the
breath
I was holding
. “Oh, yeah, totally, help yourself.”

She shook her head at me and went in.

I rushed into the bedroom. “Go!” I ordered as I swung the door open to the closet.

Tad rushed past me and opened the front door.

“Jaz,” I yelled. “I have to go get something from my car.
”

“Okay,” she replied, and I rushed out the door with Tad.

We ran down the stairs hand in hand
,
and when we reached the bottom I pushed him under the overhang into the darkness. We both burst out in relieved laughter.

“Holy crap, that was close,” I whispered through giggles as I handed him his shirt.

He slid his arms back into it and started buttoning it up. “Thank God, she needed to use the bathroom.”

I nodded my head and everything went silent as our eyes met. “I wish she hadn’t come,” I whispered, reaching my hand out and sticking it under his shirt, over his heart.

He closed his eyes and put his hand over mine before using his other hand to pull my waist to his
own. He opened them and smiled
sad
ly
. “It’s probably good that she did.”

I sighed as I pressed my forehead to his. “Yeah, I know.”

He kissed me again, and the heat took over again.

“Yeah, I’d say it was,” I whispered as I pulled away from him.

He brushed a hair out of my eyes. “You’re not ever going to be alone again—you know that, right?”

I let my hand drop to his tattoo. “I know.”

He kissed me one more time before slipping out from under the stairs and running to his car.

“I was thinking about going to the mall tonight
,
y
ou want to go?”
Jaz
suggested
as I closed my locker to look at her.

“I have work unt
il eight tonight, sorry,
” I replied
as Brad walked up
and wrapped his arms around Jaz’s waist with a sigh.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I took in the pallor of his face.

“Mike’s
m
om just called me. She said that she hasn’t seen Mike since yesterday morning. He said he was going to be meeting someone and that he would be home around five. She fig
ured he was with me,
”
Brad
explained, stepping back and
sticking
his hands in his pockets
as he
rocked nervously back on his heels.