The water bubbled out of the bottle and into the glass as Michael situated their plates, bowls, and silverware on top of the island where Mary had been seated.
“I don’t have a dining room table so we’ll have to eat at the bar, if that’s ok. If not, we can eat in the living room like we did at your apartment.” Michael looked sheepish, the red at the height of his cheekbones standing out in contrast to his dark skin.
“This is perfect. I prefer to have a surface for my plate when eating dinner.”
His grin transformed his face from a late twenty-something man to a young, bashful man. “Me too,” he said, waiting until Mary had hopped up on her stool before he sat down in its twin to her left.
“Oh my God. I’d forgotten how delicious these are,” Mary murmured as the spicy combo of meat, cheese, beans, and tortilla hit her tongue and set off her taste buds like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
“How was practice?” Mary asked.
“It was fine.”
He coughed, clearing some non-existent junk in this throat. Took another sip of water. Then another.
“Actually, it wasn’t fine. It pretty much sucked.” Mary’s eyes widened slightly, but she remained silent.
“We didn’t have a game last week and our coach has some serious attitude regarding how screwed teams are after being off for a week, both during the regular season and during playoffs.”
“He took it out on you?”
“Not me specifically, but yeah, he busted our balls this week. He ran our asses off doing suicides and more fucking drills than I can ever remember.” Once the words departed his mouth, Michael was embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Mary seemed honestly confused.
“I shouldn’t have used that expression. Not with you.”
“Which one?” Mary asked, washing her last bite full of enchilada down with a long sip of ice water.
Michael let out a low chuckle.
“Well, ‘busting our balls’ isn’t exactly nice language.”
“Would it make you feel better if I dropped a couple of ‘motherfuckers’ during our dinner tonight?” The twinkle in Mary’s eyes lit her up from within.
“It might.”
“Okay. Give me a few minutes and I’ll try and work in a few,” she promised, shooting a sideways smile his way as he mimicked her action with his own water glass to wash down his remaining bites of salad.
“Are you still hungry? There’s plenty more,” he offered, gliding off the stool and around the island to pile some more enchiladas onto his own plate.
“Nope. I’m good,” she answered, feeling giddy and excited just by looking at him and watching him. His big hands were tan, fit, and self-assured as he secured the extra cheese with his fork that was oozing out of the enchilada onto his plate. He’d pushed the sleeves of his long t-shirt up to expose equally dark forearms that could function as balance beams for the United States Gymnastics team. Mary flushed remembering exactly where his hands had been the last time they were together. And she wanted them to make a return trip so she too could return to happy happy land. Being around Michael, in his home and listening to his voice as he opened up to her about his job stirred her emotions somewhere north of her stomach around the vicinity of her heart. Hearing him talk and the slightly awkward chuckles he occasionally let out, were sounds she could get used to. For a long, long time. And wanted to hear more of.
“No salad either?” Michael prompted, looking up before he returned to his stool.
“Nope. No more greens for me,” she responded, wondering if her giddy excitement had manifested itself in her face, hoping and praying he didn’t interpret any silly expressions on her face as Mary being some half-witted idiot who was turned on by Mexican food.
~ * ~ * ~
As Michael settled himself back on his stool, he thought of how nice this was. Nice and normal. Two single people, a man and a woman, enjoying a meal together in his condo. The Saturday night they’d previously spent together had served as a giant measuring stick that demonstrated how lonely and isolated his life was. Which was his own choosing. Mary’s warmth, her humor, her optimistic outlook on life were beacons to his soul. He yearned for warm, female contact and companionship. Hell, he didn’t even hang out with any buddies because he didn’t have any friends to speak of.
“Enough about me. How was your week?” Michael asked. He had to get out of his head.
“My week was good. My kids are somewhat on track and for once, I didn’t have to discipline anyone.”
“You actually discipline the kids?”
“No, not me personally, but I occasionally have to send some for after school detention, which feels like discipline to me.”
“What merits detention these days?”
“Habitually tardy, disrespect towards me or any of the other students, excessive interruptions, or cheating.”
“Cheating only gets a detention?” Michael was incredulous.
“Well, when I can actually prove cheating, both students, if they’re in it together, are expelled. I categorize it in the general area of discipline since I have to deal with cheaters occasionally.”
Michael nodded his head, chewing thoughtfully as he thought back to his high school days. He couldn’t fathom ever having the balls to cheat, either in high school or at any other time. On anything. But then again, he’d never needed to in order to gain an advantage. Despite everything Don Santiago had drilled into him, Michael discovered he wasn’t stupid, at least not in school. The Jesuits were fucking exacting with their expectations of the students. Michael had met and exceeded most of them. He had an irrational urge to tell Mary he’d graduated fourth in his high school class where 100% of Catholic Central graduates continued on, but promptly disregarded it. She probably wouldn’t believe it considering the circumstances under which they’d met.
“Doesn’t that piss you off?” he asked, thinking how angry he’d be if some little punks thought they’d pull one over on him.
“Of course it angers me. But the bigger problem is trying to find out why they feel the need to cheat.” Mary delivered her response in such an even-tempered tone that Michael immediately felt like an overbearing ogre about something that didn’t even affect him.
“Who cares why they do it? The bottom line is a cheater is a liar and clearly has no respect for you if he’s doing it in your classroom.”
“Well, it’s kind of like drug addiction. With drug addicts, if we can’t determine why they’re addicted, we can’t help them overcome their addiction. If I, as their teacher, can’t figure out the root of the problem and why I have students who believe the only way they can progress is by cheating, I can’t solve the problem. And if I can’t solve the problem, no one wins. My students lose because they aren’t learning the material they need to know in order to succeed and they are either expelled or suffer other, fairly traumatic consequences. I lose because I’ve failed if I haven’t created an environment for them in which they’re comfortable coming to me for help or with any problems.”
“So, you assume every student who is cheating is doing it because they don’t understand the material and are afraid they’re not going to pass?” Michael marveled at her naïveté, but was simultaneously charmed by it. How…lovely to go through life believing only the best of people and that when people committed dishonest and wrongful acts, they did so only because they believed such acts were their only options. He knew better.
“No, not every student does it for those reasons,” Mary responded, picking a non-existent piece of lint off her sweater. “But it’s those kids we need to do the most to work with.”
“What about the kids who do it for kicks? To see if they can get away with it,” he challenged.
“Once they’re caught, like I said, they’re expelled. Trust me. That’s not anything a student wants on his record.”
“Can’t they just enroll somewhere else?”
“Yes and no. Generally speaking, a lot of other schools, including public schools, won’t accept students who’ve been expelled from other schools. At that point, usually the student’s best and only option is either a school for ‘troubled youth,’” Mary used air quotes to emphasize her point, “or if their family has money, they can occasionally get accepted into private schools.”
“Good to know money can still buy anything. Including giving cheaters a second chance.” Michael rolled his tongue around his teeth, crumpled up his napkin and threw it down on his plate before turning back towards Mary.
Mary shrugged and took another sip of her water, now wishing she’d accepted Michael’s earlier offer for another beer. She could tell by his tone that he disapproved of her approach to cheaters and his general attitude indicated he thought she was too lenient. Which she may have been. It was evident he’d had a hard life that had hardened him, both physically and emotionally. Tonight, talking about how hard the week’s practices had been, was the first time since she’d known him that he’d actually opened himself up and shared personal, important details with her. It was great to discuss music and movies and television, even though he didn’t have anything to do with either movies or television, but tonight they were progressing to a different level, one where she wasn’t the only one in this equation putting herself out there, sharing the personal details of her life with him.
“Honestly? What’s the alternative if they don’t graduate from any high school? You came to Walker to talk to the students about how important it is to go to college. Can you even imagine how difficult it is to make it in this world and have any type of chance at a future without a high school education? If other schools won’t take them, they’re screwed.”
Michael’s dark eyes looked deep into hers as he nodded his head and smiled his shy, almost bashful half smile. “Okay. I’ll buy that. I still don’t think it’s right that the repercussions from cheating are…inconsequential.”
“Trust me. When you’re sixteen and you get expelled and, at best will have to find another school where you don’t know anyone, with other kids who are often there for violent crimes or far worse transgressions, it’s pretty shitty from the student’s perspective.”
“Oh, I trust you, Mary. I trust you a lot,” he growled, reaching to envelop her smaller hands in his larger ones.
“You trust me?” he asked, still holding her hands and beginning to back away, all the time pulling Mary with him through the hallway and towards the condo’s sole bedroom.
“Yes,” she breathed as he stopped at the bedroom’s threshold.
“Good,” he purred. Then he leaned in and placed his lips on hers.
Chapter 11
Michael’s lips were even softer than Mary remembered. Smooth and supple. He cradled her head in his wide hands and tilted her head to the right leading to a better, deeper angle for their kiss. Gone were the tentative forays that had marked their first night together. Tonight, Michael was confident and firm. She snaked her hands around his waist, gripping his t-shirt, feeling the flex and play of his strong back muscles through the thin cotton underneath her fingertips.
“You know what I love?” Michael murmured, drawing away from her lips to plant soft, feather-light kisses all along her neck, moving up and down as corresponding shivers danced up and down her spine.
“What?” she whispered back, lost to the sensations coursing through her.
“I love how soft your skin is.” He’d moved to the other side of her neck to lavish it with equal treatment. “And how terrific you smell,” he continued, moving his hands underneath her sweater so he could reach the skin on her back. She started mimicking his actions, tunneling her hands up under his shirt to caress the warm skin underneath, while leaning her head even further to the side, allowing him better access to her throat and neck. He could kiss her there forever.
Mary sensed she could ease him, that her body could banish the shadows constantly blanketing his dark eyes. The man was all rough, jagged edges, physically and emotionally. Everything about him was hard. The hard angles of his prominent cheekbones could have cut glass. His hard pecs. The hard biceps could bench press her on a second’s notice. His hard attitude. His hard life. She wanted her body to soothe and comfort him in a way that words couldn’t. Smoothing and softening his hard edges.
Well, not
all
of his hard edges.
A lone table sat on the right side of his plain bed that was graced with a simple, mission-style headboard at the top and dark comforter. A dresser sat off to the left. Pulling up from her collarbone, Michael whispered against her lips, “Are you okay with keeping the lights off?”
Immediately, she stiffened.
He must be ashamed of me
, Mary thought, wishing there was some light so she could read his eyes. If she could only look into them, she could determine if her knee jerk reaction was correct, or if she was overreacting.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. Michael stroked both of his hands up and down the length of her stiff back while they stood at the foot of the bed, not moving, not kissing. Just standing there, gazing at each other in the dark.
“Nothing. I, ah, nothing,” she answered, averting her eyes.
“Mary, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
She let out a short puff of air followed by a harsh, shallow imitation of a laugh. “Look, nothing’s wrong. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to see me completely naked either. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we,” she said, moving her hands up to the edges of his t-shirt to lift it up and over his head.
~ * ~ * ~
Michael placed his hands over hers and willed her eyes to return to his in the quiet, opaque darkness. Fuck. He’d never considered his simple request could lead to this. He was ashamed his own head fuck had somehow led Mary to think he thought she was anything short of perfect. The fact that his careless words altered her perception of herself shamed him.
“Mary, that’s not it at all. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. You said you trusted me before we came in here, right?”
“Yes.”
“Trust in me when I tell you I want to keep it like this in here tonight, with you, for reasons that have nothing to do with your body. Your body is perfect,” he reassured her, hoping like hell she recognized the sincere truth in his plain and simple words. But if she wanted it, he’d turn the one light by his bed on and do his best to shelter her.