The Student Teacher

It was as if a new achievement had been unlocked. There were a number of milestones in a teacher’s career – completing mentorship, earning tenure, leveling up to a professional certificate, and then the opportunity to become a cooperating teacher to a fresh-faced college senior completing their student teaching experience. When she got the email from her principal asking her if she would consider working with a student teacher this semester, Kaitlyn was ecstatic. Of course, she accepted the offer immediately and took tons of notes on everything she thought her new protege would need to know.

“I’m so excited about this, I can’t even tell you,” Kaitlyn told her roommate, Jenny, that night. “It’s some kind of a… I don’t know, an accomplishment of sorts to be asked to do this. It means so much to me that my administration trusts me to have this sort of an influence over a young, new teacher.”

“What are you going to have to do?” Jenny wasn’t a teacher. They had been friends since college, for over ten years now, but they were in entirely different professional fields. Jenny did graphic design and worked for an advertising agency.

“Show her what the curriculum is like and how I plan lessons for the week and what the best way to delegate responsibility to students is,” she gushed, finding it hard to keep still. She paced in front of the sofa where Jenny was sitting. “I started making a list of all the things that I want to tell her. I hope she’s up for talking shop during lunch, because I feel like there is just so much that she needs to know and it’s not exactly something that I can talk to her about during class, when the students are there, you know?”

“You know that it’s gonna be a girl?”

“Yes! God, I’m super stoked about that too! Cause there aren’t that many women teaching science at the high school level. I won’t say that it’s a rare thing, but the male to female ratio is definitely skewed towards the penis owners.” Jenny cracked up laughing at that. “Her name is Rose and she goes to Greendale Valley University and she’s going to start on Monday! I think I might make cookies or something Sunday, just you know,” she shrugged, unable to contain her glee, “welcome her to the school.”

“You’re too much,” Jenny informed her.

Kaitlyn couldn’t really argue there. It was a phrase she had heard on more than one occasion to describe her. But she couldn’t help it. It’s as if she was driven by a little motor that didn’t allow her brain to turn off and kept her moving.

There was so much she wanted to share with the new student teacher. She had started a STEAM club for girls at the school that had a small, but dedicated group of attendees. She always made an attempt to highlight female influences in science. She was almost giddy walking into the school building early on Monday, passing through the office to move her time card and check her mailbox.

“Ms. Anderson,” the secretary got her attention from behind the counter. “Your student teacher just headed upstairs, I hope that’s ok.”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Kaitlyn nearly bounced out of the office, heading for her fourth floor classroom. The fact that Rose was early definitely felt good. They’d have a bit of time to talk about things before the students came in. She could fill her in on the day’s lesson plans and show her where all the equipment was for the labs and ask her about what topics she was most comfortable with teaching and…

Kaitlyn rounded the corner and stopped in her tracks. There was a tall, handsome man standing at her door, looking over the schedule posted on it. He had dark, curly hair, cut short on the sides, black, rectangular framed glasses, a messenger bag hanging crossbody at his back, over his shirt and tie, and his jacket folded over one forearm. She stood there for a moment, wide-eyed and stunned, before he noticed her and turned his head, smiling. He had an incredible smile and he didn’t look like a college senior. Kaitlyn forced her legs to move towards her room.

“Hi, Ms. Anderson?” He asked her as she approached. She nodded. “Gordon Rose, I’m going to be student teaching with you.” He extended his hand out to her and she shook it, staring at him.

“I… thought it was the other way around,” she started saying and he furrowed his brow. “I thought it was Rose Gordon. I thought you were… umm… not a man.” But that’s what he was. Not just that he wasn’t the young girl Kaitlyn expected, but he wasn’t really a ‘guy’ either. He was a full-grown man.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he chuckled good-naturedly, running a hand through his hair.

“I’m not disappointed, just a little surprised,” she was quick to point out. If she had met him anywhere else, in any other situation, she would have been more than happy to have the excuse to get to know this man. She unlocked her door and stepped in, holding it open for Gordon. He followed her through and over to her desk and she unloaded her bag and hung up her coat. Kaitlyn extended her hand out to take his coat as well and he handed it over smiling. “Tell me about yourself,” she prompted him.

“Well, I’m finishing up my Master’s degree in secondary education right now. Last semester, student teaching,” Gordon rubbed a hand against his clean-shaven chin. “Umm… I’m from Brooklyn, New York originally, left the city for college and ended up staying away.” There was a pause. He looked at her in that certain way that made Kaitlyn feel on display, as if he was appraising her.

“Master’s degree, huh?” She had one too – it was a requirement for the professional certification, but she was already teaching full time when she worked on it. Gordon was nodding. “What did you study in undergrad?”

“Biology. Then a Master’s in Biomechanics.”

“This is your second Master’s degree?”

“Yeah,” Gordon sighed. “I worked in the field for a few years and I guess there was a bit of disillusionment for me about what it really entailed.” He stepped back, sitting on the edge of a student desk. Kaitlyn was quickly calculating in her head that two graduate degrees and ‘a few years in the field’ meant he was probably her age or older. She suddenly felt quite inadequate to mentor this man, who likely had a lot more in-depth knowledge on the subject than she did. “I decided to pivot in the direction of teaching and, against all the advice from colleagues and family about acquiring a Ph.D. and teaching at a college level, I decided on doing this.” His hands came up to his sides as if to indicate the school. He had a half-smile on his face which Kaitlyn was finding incredibly sexy, but immediately tried to push it out of her head.

“That’s really interesting.” She was being honest. It was also rather intimidating. “I’m really not sure what you could learn from me.” Gordon’s eyebrows went up and he chuckled.

“The teaching part! God, don’t underestimate yourself! I may have a few years on you, but you’ve actually been in the classroom, teaching, interacting with the kids.” Kaitlyn found herself intently focused on his milk chocolate eyes. They were smiling warmly behind the lenses of his glasses. “Honestly, something I’m worried about is my frustration level and inevitably dropping an f-bomb or something else inappropriate in front of the class.”

“I think I’ve gotten so used to diverting ‘shit’ into ‘shoot’ that it just comes naturally now,” she confessed. Gordon’s smile was killing her though, the way the corners of his mouth upturned, the way his eyes sparkled, those little lines that formed at the corners of his eyes. She felt her heart rate kicking up just talking to him. She shook her head out. “Anyway, I have four sections of freshman bio and a section of Health Ed, which is mostly freshmen. We’re in the middle of learning about the classifications right now and then viruses and monerans are next.”

“That sounds awesome,” he nodded along. “What do you want me to do today?”

“We’re going to do the button activity.” Gordon gave her a questioning look. “You know, it’s a common taxonomy game.” He shook his head, cocking it to the side, looking at her with interest. “They are going to work in groups, each group gets a container of buttons. ‘Buttons’ is the domain. They will have to sort the buttons and say… kingdom will be all the four-hole buttons and phylum would be all the brown, four-hole buttons, and the class would be all the brown, four-hole buttons with a ridge around the edge.” He was nodding now. “Well, you get it. But they just get the bin with buttons and have to work it out themselves, so it’s fun to see what they come up with.”

“Yeah, that sounds like fun,” Gordon agreed.

Her students seemed pretty excited to meet Mr. Rose. She introduced them to each class and with each class, he seemed to feel a bit more comfortable with her students. He sat in the back during the first class and watched her in front of the room. He pulled out a notebook and took notes, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger. In the second class, he walked around among the groups, just like she did, checking out what the kids were doing and engaging with some of them, asking them what their thinking process was. He crouched down next to their desk, getting down to their level, which sent some inexplicable flutter through Kaitlyn’s stomach. In the third class of the day, the Health Ed section, one of the smart-ass boys asked Gordon why he was so old and just now student teaching.

“Shawn, that’s super rude,” Kaitlyn shook her head at the tall boy in the back of the room with hair in his eyes. “Mr. Rose, you don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s fine,” Gordon shook his head, smiling good-naturedly, and explained how he wasn’t entirely happy with his initial career choice and was looking for a slight change.

“So you were an actual scientist? Like working in a lab and mixing potions and what not?” Tia, a small girl in the front with large glasses, asked him.

“Yes to working in the lab, no to mixing potions,” he chuckled.

By the last class of the day, Godon asked if he could try it, if he could actually take over the class. It took Kaitlyn aback just a hair, that he was so comfortable on the very first day and so interested in diving right into it all. But he was great. The only times when he deferred to her was when students asked for the bathroom pass, the rest of the period he was in control. He answered the questions and gave the kids feedback on what they were doing, seeming like a complete natural at the whole thing. He was animated and engaging, if maybe a little overeager, rambling on at a manic speed at times while the class watched him wide-eyed. She’d mention to him later that he should slow down a bit.

“Oh my god, this is going to be a huge fucking problem,” Kaitlyn announced, dropping her bags by the door and plopping down into the armchair in her living room where her roommate, Jenny, already sat on the sofa with her laptop. “I think I have a huge crush on my student teacher and I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next three months.”

“I’m sorry, what?!” Jenny’s eyes were like saucers staring back at her. “Since when are you interested in girls?!”

“He’s not a girl,” she was shaking her head. “So much not a girl. He’s this… tall, handsome biologist with the hair I want to sink my hands into and the lips that I want to taste and those pecs and biceps that you totally can’t ignore underneath his shirt.”

“How did that happen?” Jenny set her laptop aside, sitting forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

“I’m a dumbass, that’s how it happened. I had the name backwards. I was expecting a girl named Rose Gordon and he turned out to be a dude named Gordon Rose.” Jenny nodded understandingly.

“Wait, but he is still like 21 or 22 or something, right? You have a thing for a guy eight or nine years your junior? Really?”

“32. The handsome bastard’s older than me. This is his ‘career change’ degree,” Kaitlyn announced, tipping her head back against the chair. Why couldn’t she meet him someplace else? Out at a bar or at some friend’s party. It would be entirely inappropriate to hook up with her student teacher whose grade she’d have a hand in determining at the end of the semester.

“Well, fuck. It seems that you’re in a bit of a pickle, huh,” Jenny commiserated.

****

“How was your first day back in high school?” Gordon’s brother, Eric, asked him on the phone that night. He felt as if it were his duty to check up on his baby brother regularly and to keep track of what he was doing.

“It was a lot better than I expected,” Gordon admitted. And it wasn’t just because of the pretty, blond with the intense green eyes who turned out to be his cooperating teacher. “It felt like… a confirmation, like ‘yes, this is actually what I wanted to do,'” he tried to put into words what today felt like. He shouldered his phone, returning to the stove to stir the soup from a can that he had been warming there.

“Wow, that’s excellent. What did you do today? Watch the veteran teacher lecture and make some copies, something like that?”

“Bro, I actually got up in front of this class of like thirty 9th graders and taught a biology lesson! And they actually listened to me!” Frankly, he was pretty shocked that they didn’t just start talking or passing notes while he was in front of the class, that he actually had their attention.

“Geez, how did that happen? I thought you sorta watch and work up to it or something.” His brother had enough interest in what he did to look these things up and be informed.

“I watched and I took notes and stuff. She had like four sections of the class all in one day, basically doing the same lesson with different students, and after watching her a few times, I decided to give it a try myself. And she let me. And it felt like… God, I don’t know, a rush, a revelation that ‘yes, I want this, I want to do this,'” he told his brother.

“The teacher you’re working with is a woman?” THAT’s what Eric got from this statement?!

“Yes, she’s a woman.” An incredibly attractive one that he couldn’t take his eyes off.

“I don’t think I had a single female science teacher while I was in high school,” Eric sounded thoughtful. Trying to remember his own high school experience, Gordon realized that he didn’t either, but there were female science teachers in the school, he was sure of that.

“Yeah, she’s kind of into the whole… women in science thing and running this STEAM club for girls that she started at the school, you know Science Technology Engineering Art and Math all combined into one. And making her students aware of the different science-related careers out there. She mentioned to me how, when she was looking for posters to decorate her room with, she was specifically interested in finding ones that depicted women, which she said wasn’t the easiest thing to find,” Gordon rattled off as his soup began to boil and he pulled it off the burner.

“That sounds… How old is she?” There seemed to be skepticism in Eric’s voice.

“What does it matter how old she is?” He poured the soup into a bowl for himself, taking it to the small kitchen table in his apartment.

“She sounds very progressive and… young.”

“She’s thirty.” They had discussed this over lunch, how old they were, where they went to college and grad school. It was so tempting to ask her more about her personal life, about whether she was married or had kids or whether she lived with a boyfriend, but he refrained, keeping things strictly professional. There were no rings on the fingers of her left hand, which Gordon made a point of noting.

“Oh, that’s… I expected that it would be some older teacher with like thirty years of experience under her belt.” Gordon could hear kids screaming in the background, on Eric’s end, and then a door shutting. “Is she hot?”

“You know, it’s really weird to hear that question from a forty-year-old father of four,” Gordon informed his brother. “Yeah, she’s attractive. She’s fit and blond and has these crazy green eyes. But at the end of this, she’s going to have input on what grade I get for this whole thing and… I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it would be a good idea to hit on her.”

“Right, no, you have to be professional. This is important, you can’t fuck it up. But it will be over in three months, so then…” Eric trailed off suggestively.

“Yeah, yeah, three months. We’ll see.” Gordon spooned the thick clam chowder into this mouth.

It wasn’t easy to keep things entirely professional though, not when she looked at him the way she did, as if she had some sort of dirty thoughts in her head when her eyes scanned him up and down. And not when she invited him out to happy hour with the other teachers on Friday nights. Or when the weather started to get warmer and she wore skirts that exposed her long, toned legs.

She was always so encouraging, telling him how great he was doing, finding the nicest possible way to point out what he still needed to work on. She decided she’d signal him when he was talking way too fast and losing the class and the first time that she did this to him while sitting at the bar at happy hour, he almost lost it. He laughed, of course, while she wrinkled her nose in this cute way, but he really wanted to kiss her right then. The urge was so strong that he actually leaned towards her and then jerked back again, remembering that he shouldn’t. Waiting until the summer was fucking hard.

He was fairly certain that Kaitlyn felt it too, that he wasn’t alone in this. They seemed to be becoming a perfect co-teaching team, supporting each other and joking with each other, and really honing their dynamic. The reviews from the observations of his supervising professor were phenomenal and it felt like he could really do no wrong.

But he did.

They didn’t go out for Happy Hour every Friday night, but this one was kinda big. There were a lot of people – a couple of the teachers had birthdays, one had just gotten engaged, and there were a lot of shots being ordered and drunk. It had honestly been a while since Gordon drank like this or been this drunk. The company was great, the teachers at this school were a fun bunch, and his judgment was quickly becoming clouded.

There were three single-person bathrooms in the place, each marked unisex, and when he swung open the door of one of them Kaitlyn was right there, with her hand on the door handle. She stumbled back a step.

“I’m such a clutz, I just spilled half my drink right down my shirt,” she gestured at her chest and the v-neck t-shirt that was wet from her spill. His eyes were drawn to her perfect cleavage as he looked right down her shirt from his height down to hers and all his self-control was gone.

He bent down and kissed her, his mouth hungrily moving over hers and she let him pull her in. First against his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck and then into the bathroom, as he shut and locked the door behind them. He wasn’t thinking, his body seemed to act independent of his brain as he leaned her back against the door and kissed her down her neck and chest until he tasted the drink that she had spilled on his lips.

“Something really sweet,” he said to her, sticking his tongue right down her cleavage. She made a sound that was somewhere between an exhale and a moan.

“Amaretto Sour.” He could feel her breath on his hair when she said it. And then her fingers were in his hair too, tangling, as an affirmation that she didn’t hate what he was doing.

He immediately lifted her shirt then, gaining better access to her breasts, pulling down the edges of the bra cups to lick her nipples. He wasn’t thinking about how wrong it was then, while he sucked each pink nipple to a hard, pink peak. He wasn’t thinking about the potential trouble this could cause them both while he came back up to kiss her again, with everything he had, while his hand pulled up at the hem of her skirt. He wasn’t thinking about what the consequences would be while he pressed his fingers against the damp crotch of her panties. And he wasn’t thinking about his diploma or his certification when he lifted Kaitlyn up with his hands just beneath her ass and brought her to sit on the edge of the sink.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he breathed out as their lips disconnected. Kaitlyn giggled.

“You are really drunk, Gordon,” she was looking up into his eyes, her arms wrapped around his neck, not letting him go.

“You are too, my dear,” he brushed her hair back, away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. He felt a tremendous affection for her. She was this total package that he didn’t know he was searching for until just two months ago.

Her clasped hands behind his neck pulled his face back down to her and she kissed him. Her mouth was so soft and warm and perfect and he never wanted to stop kissing her. His hand was back under her skirt, pushing her panties aside to slide his fingers through her slit. She was just as wet as he was hard.

“I want you,” he confessed, his words brushing against her lips. Her hands slid down his chest and his abs, reaching for his belt.

“I want you too,” she was unbuckling, unbuttoning, unzipping.

His head was spinning when he closed his eyes. How did he get this fucking drunk?! With people from work! Her hand wrapped around his cock, pulling it out through the fly of his boxer briefs and he couldn’t even think. Her touch felt sensational. He stepped closer, hiking up her skirt and pulling her towards him. Her hands returned to clasp around his neck, steadying herself as her ass barely hung onto the edge of the sink, and he pressed inside her. It was one swift, smooth move, gliding right into her warm, wet pussy and feeling incredible relief being all the way in.

Kaitlyn whimpered quietly, then blew out a breath. Her eyes were closed, her lip drawn in between her teeth. God, she was so fucking sexy, he just couldn’t stand it. He moved, rapid, hungry strokes into her. She seemed to be restraining sounds that threatened to escape and only then was he suddenly reminded of the fact that they were in the public bathroom at the bar. He reached his hand between them, pressing his thumb against her clit, rubbing it there as he continued to thrust. She was coming in moments. She dropped her head to his shoulder and muttered a string of unintelligible words against his shirt. It seemed like an entirely positive reception to Gordon and he plowed on, through Kaitlyn’s shuddering orgasm, driving deep into her until he reached his own. He held onto her tightly, pressing her into his chest in a huge bear hug while his cock pulsed, emptying inside her.

****

Kaitlyn had no recollection of how they got out of that bathroom. Her legs felt like jello, everything was really funny, and her head floated. A lot of their coworkers were gone by the time they were sitting back in one of the booths, her head resting on Gordon’s shoulder while he tried to get a cab. They were both plastered. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this drunk.

“Are you guys gonna be ok getting home?” Nate, another teacher in the science department asked them, standing in front of the booth where they sat with an amused grin on his face.

“I just got a cab. Fifteen minutes, they said,” Gordon announced.

“You’re gonna take Kaity home?” Nate checked.

“Yup,” Gordon confirmed.

Only they ended up at his place, not hers. She must have nodded off in the cab and it barely even registered with her, when they got out and walked towards a two-story brick building, that this was not where she lived. She remembered asking to use the bathroom and then they were in bed, naked, their lips and their bodies smashing into each other. She didn’t remember whether she took her own clothes off or whether Gordon relieved her of them, but everything he was doing felt incredible.

Things were slower this time, less frantic than in the bathroom at the bar. He seemed to really enjoy her breasts, sucking on the nipples and the tender underside of them, his fingers twisting and pinching and rubbing the tender nubs. He pulled her leg up over his hip and adjusted himself down to line up his rigid cock with her opening. He pushed all the way in with one stroke, knocking the breath out of her, just like he did at the bar. She felt filled and stretched when he was inside her and the friction between them when he began thrusting was almost too much. She was on the edge of orgasm from the start. Her sensitive nipples rubbed against his hard chest, adding to the overwhelming sensations, as did his hand gripping tightly onto her ass while he drove into her. She let go, falling over the edge, shuddering around his hard shaft, her nerves tingling and exploding with sensation.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God, yes,” her words came out in a staccato rhythm. “So good.”

Gordon didn’t slow down, somehow driving even deeper, though Kaitlyn didn’t think that was possible.

“You feel so good coming, Kait, I can barely stand it,” his voice was rough and ragged. “Will you roll over for me?” She nodded, not exactly sure which way he wanted her to roll. He pulled out, guiding her onto her hands and knees. She rested her head on the pillow and Gordon slammed inside her from behind, making her shriek. “Are you ok?” He leaned over her back, towards her ear.

“I’m great,” she confirmed and Gordon resumed drilling her from behind, his groin slapping against her ass.

He didn’t last long this way, coming with a growl before collapsing next to her.

She passed out. His room was filled with morning light when she woke up in Gordon’s arms the next morning. They were under the covers, her head on his chest, his arms both wrapped tightly around her. Everything they had done the night before was slowly trickling back to her, along with the sober realization that it should never have happened.

What were they thinking?! How did two grown, responsible people let this happen?! Her heart hammered in her chest as she tried to figure out the right things to say. She liked Gordon, a lot, and everything they did, at least everything that she could remember, felt amazing. She wanted him and she wanted all of that, but it was not the right time for this. This wouldn’t end well. It was unethical and probably against some sort of rules and there could be all kinds of repercussions for this.

“Gordon,” she tried to pull away from him, but he seemed to tighten his grasp on her. She rubbed his chest. “Gordon,” she said a little louder.

“Mhmm,” he confirmed that he heard her, groggily.

“Gordan, can you let go of me, we need to talk about this,” she hated saying this because she loved the way it felt in his arms. But they couldn’t do this. It took a moment before the realization hit him and he loosened his grip.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, Kaitlyn.” She pulled away, putting a bit of space between them, pulling the comforter up to her chin. “God, I really fucked up.”

“It’s not just you,” she reached a hand out to his shoulder. He sighed, running a hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut, then opening them again, eyes wide.

“Kaitlyn, I don’t think I used a single condom last night,” he admitted. There was a new rush of panic over her, as her eyes moved over his. She tried to remember things exactly as they happened, to calculate days in her head, to wonder about Gordon’s history. They’ve never discussed their personal lives with each other, not to this extent. It seemed inappropriate. THIS was inappropriate!

“I… umm…” Really, Kaitlyn? This wasn’t the time to be shy about things. “I’m on the pill and I’m only a few days from my period now anyway, so pregnancy shouldn’t be an issue. Is there something else I should be worried about?”

“I haven’t been with anyone in an embarrassingly long time. I’ve gotten tested the last time that I’ve gone without a condom. That was… a long time ago, but I was clean.” This was awkward. She’s never had this sort of conversation with a guy in the morning.

“Gordon, we can’t do this again,” it pained her to say it. Kaitlyn wanted to date the hell out of him. She wanted to spend every weekend in bed with him. She hardly wanted to leave it now!

“Right, I get it. I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have pulled you in,” Gordon rolled to his back, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I really didn’t mean for it to be this kind of… drunken hookup. I meant to wait until… you know, I was done with student teaching and we could actually go out.” He pulled his hand away from his face. The way he looked at her just made her want to melt. She could drown in those milk chocolate eyes of his. “I really like you, Kait, and I planned on asking you out and now I just ruined it all with this stupid inability to restrain myself.”

“I like you too,” she reached out to press a hand against his chest. She could feel his heart racing and it felt comforting, knowing that they were in the same boat. He covered her hand with his.

“It feels really good to hear you say that,” he smiled at her and it looked for a moment like he was going to lean in and kiss her, but she pressed her hand into his chest pushing him back.

“We can’t do this right now,” she repeated. He nodded. “I really want to, I swear, this is not easy, but this is really not good. We need to get dressed and… pretend like none of this happened for at least another month.”

“Right,” Gordon agreed.

She got out of bed, searching for her clothes on the floor of Gordon’s apartment while he turned away. Kaitlyn called Jenny, who picked both of them up to take them back to the bar to get their cars that they left parked there overnight. Jenny kept eyeing the two of them the entire ride while they sat silently, Kaitlyn in the front and Gordon in the back. They waved goodbye to each other, not daring to come into physical contact.

Of course, Jenny wanted all the sordid details when they got home and Kaitlyn spilled them. Everything she could remember, at least. As much as she regretted that this happened, she couldn’t deny how amazing it all felt. She loved everything that Gordon did, the way he felt inside her, the urgency with which he seemed to take her. She replayed those moments, both from the bar bathroom and in his bed, many times over the next month. Especially when she was trying to fall asleep at night, alone in her bed, or while she was in the shower, getting ready for her day and anticipating seeing Gordon at work.

At work, they did their best to pretend nothing happened. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other teachers at happy hour that they had been incredibly drunk that night and had both disappeared for a good period of time. It was the talk of the lunch hour when they returned to school on Monday.

“Did you get home alright on Friday night?” Nate had asked them, a smirk on his face. His gaze shifted between Kaitlyn and Gordon where they sat at the lunch table next to each other.

“Yeah, just fine,” Kaitlyn replied, trying to seem casual, eating her ham and cheese sandwich.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you as drunk as you were on Friday,” another teacher at their table, Lauren, addressed Kaitlyn. She seemed to have an insinuating look on her face as well, as if she suspected something. “Did you and Gordon go home together?”

“We shared a cab,” Gordon jumped in, trying to seem just as unassuming as Kaitlyn hoped she had appeared. “That’s all.”

“Ah, JUST shared a cab?” Lauren wiggled her eyebrows. Kaitlyn tried to affect the most innocent expression she could muster.

“Yup,” she confirmed curtly.

Gordon changed the subject to something else, asking the others at the table if anyone has heard of any openings at other schools for the upcoming year. It was effective for the moment as the conversation diverted safely. But it seemed like there were always suspecting looks from a certain handful of coworkers, Lauren and Nate included. They tried to stay clear of each other when they both went out to happy hour in the following weeks, hyper-aware of the fact that there may be people watching for them to slip up in some way. When Lauren tried to discreetly fish for details from Kaitlyn in private, cornering her at the bar and hoping that she was drunk enough to divulge, Kaitlyn didn’t hesitate with the outright lie, saying nothing happened between them, they were strictly professional. Lies didn’t come easily to her, but this one seemed to have been accepted, appeasing Lauren into not questioning her again.

Gordon and Kaitlyn continued to stay away from personal topics of conversation, they didn’t come into physical contact with each other, and Kaitlyn even found herself avoiding excessive eye contact with him. It was too tempting. They didn’t want to give anyone any reason to suspect that anything had happened between them. And it was agonizing. Days seemed to last forever and Kaitlyn found herself wishing for the clock to speed up and for class to be over so that she didn’t have to look at Gordon anymore. She tried to occupy her brain with anything that would take it off of him. She even started taking a yoga class twice a week but found that all she was doing in the quiet and peaceful studio while perfecting the yoga poses was thinking of the way it felt when Gordon sucked on her nipples or pounded into her from behind.

Weeks crawled. Gordon had his final observation by his supervising professor and the three of them sat down for a discussion on how they felt he had done throughout the student teaching semester overall. Kaitlyn had to write a recommendation for Gordon’s grade and struggled with the fact that she wanted him to get an A. She wondered if it would seem suspicious if she did, whether someone would question it.

“Well think of it this way,” Jenny suggested when Kaitlyn shared her concern. “If you recommend he get a B and they ask you ‘what were your reasons for lowering it from an A to a B?’ what are you going to tell them? Are there any?” Kaitlyn really considered that thought process. Has he done anything that would warrant his grade to be lowered?

“There aren’t really any reasons for it,” she sighed. “He’s never late, he’s always prepared, he willingly takes over responsibilities when being asked to do it. His lesson plans are great. He has a great rapport with the students. He basically took over teaching my entire schedule of classes and graded all of their papers and labs in the past month and I somehow still got paid my salary!” Jenny chuckled.

“Then don’t feel like it’s suspect to give him a good grade! He earned it. And if you have to defend giving him an A, you obviously have a lot more there to support your decision than if you were to give him anything less,” Jenny concluded.

She wrote him a glowing recommendation and baked cupcakes for his last day. It was bittersweet. She had enjoyed working with him a lot, he had become an amazing partner. And yet she couldn’t wait to have this behind them so that she could see him in a different, more personal way. They shared a hug before getting into their separate cars and Gordon said he’d call her, just to give him some time. It sounded a bit odd, as if he may have reconsidered the idea of them dating, but Kaitlyn willed herself not to freak out and not get hung up on the amount of time it took him to call.

****

Gordon wanted to get some things in order before he seriously pursued things with Kaitlyn. He made sure that everything was on track with his graduation and that all the paperwork had been submitted for the certification. He canvassed all the area schools with his resumes, wanting to secure a job before attempting a relationship. Unemployment, he decided, wasn’t sexy. And after a handful of interviews and two invitations to teach a model lesson, he had an offer from a school, a 40 minute drive from his apartment. The call to come in and fill out some sign-on paperwork came on a Tuesday, three weeks after graduation, and the next evening, after getting a tour of the school, signing papers, and shaking hands he called Kaitlyn.

“Hi,” his heart hammered at hearing her voice say ‘hello’ when she answered the phone. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good. How are you?” He tried to figure out what she sounded like, whether she was nervous or relieved that he called or annoyed that it took him that long.

“I’m good. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, I just really wanted to get some things in order first. But I… thought about you every day,” he admitted. She was quiet on her end and he checked his phone to see that they were still connected.

“Uh-huh,” she finally replied, her voice soft. A surge of worry thundered through him. Was she upset with him? He should have called her sooner. He should have been upfront and not launched into this radio silence for weeks and weeks. He’d taken too long. Did she start seeing someone else maybe?

“I really hope I didn’t screw things up for the second time here,” he paced his living room, running his fingers through his hair and feeling like his heart would jump out of his chest. “I was just a bit hyper-focused on finding a job and making sure that when I asked you out I wasn’t still this bum with an uncertain future. I mean, I suppose I could have always gone back and begged for some sort of position where I used to work or gotten something temporary over the summer, which I will probably still have to do,” he rambled, “but I needed to do this for myself before I started something with you. And now I got a job, it’s official. I’m going to be teaching at Union Central next year, Go Patriots!, and I would really like to take you out to dinner, Kait, this Friday or Saturday, whichever is best for you. If you’re still free. If… I didn’t blow it by taking so long and now you’ve met someone else…”

“Gordon!” Kaitlyn seemed to shout in order to interrupt his rant, “Slow down! If you could see me, I’d be giving you the signal right now to take your intensity down a notch and slow the fuck down.” She was laughing which made him laugh too. He could see her giving him that signal that she’d used so many times before perfectly in his head.

“Yeah, ok,” he stopped at his kitchen counter, setting a hand down on the cool stone surface. “Can I take you to dinner?”

“Yes, I would really like that,” she answered, her smile audible in her voice.

“Really? That’s great! Can I pick you up at seven? On Friday?” It almost felt like being back in high school, asking a girl out on a date, feeling the nervous anticipation at whether she’d agree.

“Yeah, that sounds great.”

“God, that’s awesome! I can’t wait,” that was the honest truth. He couldn’t wait to see Kaitlyn again and hoped he’d be able to exercise some restraint when he finally did.

“Tell me more about the new job, but at a moderate pace,” she told him, making him laugh again. He launched into it, trying to keep his excitement down and not rush.

The regret about waiting until Friday for the date seemed to set it as soon as Gordon got off the phone with Kaitlyn. He wasn’t sure how he was going to make it until then and what he’d do to keep busy. It felt like forever since he had last seen her and even longer since he had last kissed her, which was something he wanted to do badly. And it was the first thing he did when he picked her up on Friday night.

She was waiting outside when he pulled up at the curb. Gordon shifted into park and opened the door, stepping out onto the sidewalk as Kaitlyn approached. She looked absolutely stunning in a flowery sundress and strappy sandals. Her shoulder-length, blond hair was down, tucked behind her ears and her face looked so fresh, as if she was glowing. Without hesitating, he crossed the few steps towards her and cupped her face in his hands, leaning down to kiss her. There was a zing of electricity between them as their lips moved together in a synchronized dance. She hooked her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him, and the realization struck him like a lightning bolt that he never wanted to kiss anyone else again.

“Hi,” he finally said, just centimeters away from her lips when they finally pulled apart. He knew that the expression on his face was a big, goofy grin.