Playing Chase (Against The Wall) (2 page)

The sound of shuffling feet and the door creaking open startles me from my pity party. My department chairperson stumbles in, looking like he just hopped off a wave. I wonder where he spent his summer surfing and sleeping on the sand. Every year, it’s someplace new. Somewhere even more exotic than the previous year.

“Hey, Charlie,” I say, rising from my chair and taking a few steps toward him. I hold out my hand to him and he takes it.

“Hey, bud
, nice to see you. Nice to be home.”

“Don’t lie.”

We both chuckle a bit, knowing full well either of us would trade our classroom for the beach on most days. Although, it is the beginning of the year, so there’s not much to complain about. Yet. 

He leans against a student desk and scratches his shaggy blond hair. “I’m here on official business.”

Great. He’s already heard about my new dating strategy. I lower myself slowly into my seat, trying to avert direct eye contact. “I can explain.”

“Hey, hey.” He waves his hands in the air. “Don’t go confessing to something. I’m not here to blame you for anything.”

Shaking my head, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Not this time?”

He smiles. “No. But I did come to ask you for a favor.”

“Anything. You got it.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

The silly grin spread across his face has me worried.

Oh shit.

Maybe I spoke too soon. “Within reason.” I quickly revise my response.

“Too late. You already said anything.”

I hunch forward, resting my elbows on my desk. “Fine. What is it?”

“The principal called me in this morning. Apparently, we have a student teacher…
.”

“No. No. No.” I cut him off. I hated doing my student teaching and there is no way in hell I’m going to take on supervising a newbie. I like having control over my classroom. I don’t need some foreigner coming in and trying to take over. “Find someone else.”

Charlie stands, pointing his finger at me. “Look. Everyone else has had a turn. You’re the only one who hasn’t had a student teacher, so you’re up.”

“I’m sure someone else will take them. How about Erikson? He loves that shit.”

“Chase. Stop being a pain in my ass. Suck it up. You’re doing it.” He juts his finger in my direction again for emphasis.

“Fuck
,” I grunt, burying my face in my hands. “When does this shit start?”

“Officially, she’ll start the second week of school,” he says, his tone more relaxed.

“She?” I lift my head.

“Yes. She.” He glances down at the freshly waxed tile. “And don’t get any ideas. Keep it in your pants.”

A knock at the door has both of us whipping our heads in its direction.

Slowly, the door swings open and a young woman peeks in.

“Good morning, Mr. Morris. I hope I’m not interrupting.” Her voice is soft and sweet, just like the dark curls of her hair waving down her shoulders and back. She’s cute. Very cute, in fact. Even if she is dressed like she’s going to a funeral, with her dark slacks and grandma cardigan.

He waves her in. “Don’t be silly. Come on in. And I told you to call me Charlie.” He holds out his hand in greeting and shakes hers gently.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. …er, Charlie.”

“Well, I was just telling Chase all about you.” He turns to me. “She’s here to observe your planning and beginning of the year routine. Chase, this is your new student teacher, Tiffany Gutierrez.” He averts his attention away from me almost instantly. “Tiffany, this is Chase.”

Son of a bitch. This is really happening. I thought he said two weeks. Then it hits me. He did make it a point to hang on to the word “officially.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Marino.” She stands up straight as a wall and holds out her hand. She’s trying hard to be professional and confident, but her eyes gleam with a wild streak she’s attempting to hide. 

I take her hand in mine, gliding my fingers over hers. Her grip is strong and rigid, nothing like the softness of her skin. Damn, I’m not a drill sergeant. At ease, little lady. Charlie grunts at me and I shake loose of her grip. I raise my brow at him.
This was your idea. If you wanted someone who’s going to treat her like a delicate little flower, you picked the wrong person. I don’t do gentle.
Plus, she’s the one holding on to my hand with the grasp of a MMA fighter.

“Good to meet you too,” I say
, with a long sigh.

Charlie claps his hands together. “Well, I best be going. I’ll give you two some time to plan your semester and get to know each other. Have fun, kids
.”

And with that, he shuffles his
board short, flip-flop wearing ass out of my room as I groan.

Tiffany hoists a rather large black leather tote on a desk. Then, pulls her long hair into a bun and fastens it in place with a pencil. She grabs a pen and legal pad from her tote and drops it on another desk. Finally, she straightens her bulky cardigan over her full hips before taking a seat and reaching for the pen again.

She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t frown. She’s void of any emotion.

Have fun, my ass.

I try giving her my flirty smile to soften her a bit.

She doesn’t. Instead, she taps her pen on her notepad.

I have to hold back another groan. This woman is all business and no play.

What the hell was Charlie thinking?

“So, where should we begin?” she asks.

At the end, I want to say, because this…is not going to happen.

“Hey, did you bring dinner?”

No hello. Hi. How are you? How was your first day back at work? Nothing. Oh, wait, he did ask for dinner. Should I be grateful?

“Yeah. I grabbed some In-N-Out on the way home. I don’t feel like cooking. It was a long day.” Between dealing with the three wicked witches and my new shadow, I’m surprised I stayed at work as long as I did. By lunchtime, I was ready to hide in the bathroom like a teenage girl.

My dad doesn’t say anything. He just trots over to the kitchen counter and starts pillaging through the paper bags full of burgers and fries.

“
Oh, hey, Chase. How was work?
” I mimic my father’s deep husky voice. “Thanks for asking, Dad. Let’s just say it wasn’t my best first day of school. It definitely could’ve been better.”

I catch him rolling his eyes. “Give me a break, son. How hard can it be? Tell the kids to open the textbook and read it. That’s how it went in my day.”

“Things have changed.” The man knows shit about what I do. He has no idea the time and effort I put in to ensure my students learn, and have fun while doing it. You’ll never catch me telling them to just read the text and answer questions at the end of the chapter. That’s old school, and I can’t imagine teachers getting away with that nowadays. Not that I would even try. I welcome the challenge of creating lessons that will keep my students interested.

Hmm. Maybe I do have some wisdom to impart on the newbie teacher.

After placing my meal on a paper plate, I make my way to the family room and flip on the TV. As I dig into my
Animal Style
double cheeseburger, I can’t stop thinking about Tiffany. That woman must have filled three legal pads full of notes today. What the hell was she writing? She should have just recorded the shit. She was a note-taking fool. She should have kicked back, relaxed and enjoyed the show. Her face was head down writing most of the day, how could she possibly get to know the students with that kind of method?

Tomorrow, I’m going to take the damn notebook away from her and tell her to observe. She can’t get the feel of the classroom if she’s not part of it.

“This is good. It hit the spot.” My dad pats his stomach before getting to his feet. “I gotta go get ready. I have a date tonight. See you later. Don’t wait up.”

I didn’t plan on it. It’s a weeknight. I have to go to work tomorrow. Unlike some people.

“You’re welcome,” I mumble as he makes his way down the hall. He doesn’t hear me. Even if he did, he wouldn’t care. A used paper plate sits on my coffee table. Bastard can’t even throw his trash away.

I’m surprised my mom stayed married to him as long as she did. I’ve only been living with him for
a few weeks, and I’d break up with him too, if he wasn’t my dad.

The man has issues.

But then again, so do I.

Since I can’t fall asleep, I take my iPad from my nightstand and flip open the case to read a book. Hopefully, my eyes will start to close and I will be out within the hour. I’m always nervous the first few weeks of school and it costs me some much-needed rest. It takes me awhile to get to know the kids and fall into a routine that works. It’s always good to start with a plan—Tiffany and I worked through one—but you never know if it’s going to pan out once the students arrive. They’re all different, just like parents say that every child is different. In some ways, teachers are parents too. For some kids, we see them more than their own parents do.

I scroll through a gallery of book covers trying to decide on one. I finished the latest Michael Crichton last night. It was intense. I need something lighter. Maybe I’ll start a romance. Yes, I’ve been known to plow through some chick books every now and then. They’re surprisingly good, even though they are ridiculously unrealistic. Or maybe I’m just an inferior man, because I promise you I have never gone fifteen to twenty times in one night. I’m fairly certain my dick would fall off if I even tried. Maybe when I was a young boy and first learned how to jack off
, could I have gone round after round.

I have to chuckle at that one.

I really did think I broke my shit back then. I rubbed one out, one after another, until nothing would come out anymore. I remember being so disappointed because I thought the well had run dry, and I’d never be able to masturbate again. Thankfully, I was just a little over dramatic as a kid and my junk works just fine.

By the time I can decide on a book, my eyelids are finally getting heavy. I’m about to ditch my iPad when a new email notification alerts.

From: Melissa Gelson

To: Chase Marino

CC: Summer McGallian; Shelly Fuller

Subject: A day of firsts

Hey dickface,

Ready for your first date?

Sycamore Park. Two weeks from Saturday. 11am. Get there.

Unless you’re scared…

I don’t know how Shel and Summer are friends with Melissa. They’re actually nice people. Mel is another story. The woman gets on my nerves with her constant shit talking and pissy attitude. She hates me and doesn’t waste a moment to let me know it either. She looks at me like I’m a piece of shit and not worthy of breathing
the same air she breathes.

Scared of the date? No.

Scared of Mel? Hell yeah.

I hit
reply all
to send them three words
:
I’ll be there
.

The next morning, I shuffle into my class with a large cup of black dark roast coffee and drooping eyes. I stood in the shower for close to an hour trying to wake my ass up with chilly water, but it didn’t work. Between the email from Mel, my ungrateful live-in, and my new sidekick, I couldn’t stop thinking and get into a deep sleep.

Speaking of my sidekick, Tiffany beat me in. She has already set up camp in the back of the room at an empty desk I usually use for my student aides.

She looks up, peering at me over her glasses.

“Good morning,” I say, trying not to groan.

“Good morning.” She continues to make adjustments to her workstation, setting out extra note pads, a few highlighters, and a stack of sticky notes.

Shaking my head at her intensity, I head toward my desk and settle in. Like always, I fire up my computer before I drop my bag on the floor and put my lunch in my mini fridge. I sift through a bunch of emails about various procedures and meeting schedules. By the time I’m done setting up my interactive whiteboard and my handouts for the day, the first bell rings.

I hear Tiffany take a deep breath and sit up straight looking like someone shoved a stick up her ass. This woman is wound tighter than anyone I know. I thought I saw a glimpse of fun in her eyes when we first met. I guess I was wrong.

First period goes off without a hitch, but by the middle of second period, I’ve had enough of Tiffany’s constant scrawling of notes
, across page after page on her endless supply of paper.

As I make my rounds up and down each row of student desks, checking up on each student and making sure they are on task, I swipe my student teacher’s notebook from her table
, and keep moving. I reach my own desk and toss it on top not even stopping to look at it. I don’t look over at Tiffany either. The hitch in her breath is enough to let me know I shocked the hell out of her. She’s probably confused as hell, but at least she might lift her head up and actually observe what’s going on in here.