Getting Played - Emma Chase Page 0,55
day.
I remember my doctor’s appointment last week, when he came with me and we listened to the swish of our baby’s heartbeat, which is just the best sound in the whole world. And it felt different than when I was pregnant with Jason—even more joyful—because I had someone there to share it with.
No, not just someone . . . him.
“He’s good for us too.”
I meet Dean’s eyes across the room, as little Will Daniels sits on his lap, smacking the sticks against the drums. Dean smiles at me and winks, and a deep tender warmth suffuses my chest that’s bigger than attraction and more intense than lust. It’s scary and exhilarating at the same time. It’s a piercing, intimate, cherishing kind of emotion—that doesn’t feel even a little bit fake.
Chapter Twelve
Dean
The week before Christmas break, a thick, invisible haze settles over a high school that saps motivation and slows down time. Everyone feels it—I embrace it—and assign my students therapeutic coloring assignments at the end of every class. During my free period, on the way back from making copies in the office, I pass the open doors of the auditorium and see Callie working with Rockstetter—the football player who needed hardcore tutoring and an easy theater-A.
Garrett said she’s been working overtime with him, one-on-one, to get him prepped for his theater debut in the February musical.
This year, it’s The Little Mermaid.
I walk down the aisle to where Callie is standing, directing the big lug of a kid onstage in his red, meaty clawed costume.
A few music students in the pit begin to play, and the tinkling notes of a Jamaican steel drum, strings, and flutes, swirl together and float through the air.
I cross my arms. “How’s it going?”
Callie rests her hands on her baby-bulging stomach, tilting her head. “Well . . . there’s no way for it to get any worse. So there’s that.”
“Good job looking on the bright side.”
“The glass is always half-full.”
I cup my hands around my mouth, and give the wide receiver the same direction I give him on the field.
“Dig, Rockstetter, dig deep! You can do it!”
He waves to me with one claw-covered hand.
“Let go of your embarrassment,” Callie calls. “Feel the water around you—move with it. Think like a crab, be the crab.”
“Wait a second.” Rockstetter shakes his head. “I thought I was a lobster.”
“No, you’re a crab, it’s in the script. It’s in the name—Sebastian the Crab,” Callie replies.
“Ah, shit!” Rockstetter throws his claws up in the air. “I’m so screwed.”
Callie hangs her head. And I verbalize what every teacher will experience at some point in their career. “Yeah, you’re gonna earn your money with this one.”
~ ~ ~
The next day—a Saturday—a mid-morning blizzard blows in and parks itself over the tri-state area, dumping about three inches of snow an hour on us. After I clear Gram’s driveway and make sure she’s good to stay put for the rest of the day, listening to an audiobook with Lucifer curled on her lap, I make my way over to Lainey’s.
She’s in the kitchen, in a tank top and lacey pajama shorts, shaking her irresistible ass and ever widening stomach to Adele while mixing a bowl of dough with a wooden spoon. There are cookies cooling on metal racks all over the counter, and the air smells delicious and sweet.
Not as delicious as Lainey Burrows—but a close second.
“Let me guess,” I say, “Boston Market is out—chocolate chip cookies are in on the craving front?”
She giggles, and just like most everything she does—it goes straight to my dick.
“Snowstorms make me bakey.”
“Bakey?”
Too fucking cute. So fucking fuckable.
“Yep—try one.” She takes a bite of the cookie and pops the other half in my mouth. And—yes—the fact that it touched her lips before mine actually does make it taste better.
How pathetic am I?
“The roads look pretty bad on the news,” Lainey says. “What are you doing here?”
“The roads suck,” I confirm. “I was sliding all over the place—thanks, New Jersey. They said it’s supposed to keep snowing all day.”
I press up behind her, my chest to her back, my crotch nice and snug against her ass, because I just can’t frigging help myself.
“I’m here to shovel your drive, baby. Feel free to take that as the pun it’s intended to be.”
She laughs, leaning back against me—comfortable, warm. That’s where our relationship is now. It’s a sexually frustrating—but good—place to be. I take a deep, quick sniff of her hair, like a coke addict needing a fast fix to get him