The Summer of Consent Page 2

  Before she could say anything, he was under the desk. For a moment she felt his shirt brush against her legs, could feel his firm torso beneath. It sent a jolt through her and made the hairs of her arm prickle, but she willed herself to stay calm.

  Be cool.

  She inched away in the rolling office chair.

  The muffled sound of cords against wood, and then he was backing up.

  “There you go!”

  “Thanks.” She reached out with her right foot, but the pedal was too far back.

  “Oops, sorry about that.”

  And again, he was invading her personal space, but this time he didn’t go all the way under the desk. He just leaned forward and reached for it while keeping his body turned in her direction.

  “How’s that?”

  She reached out with her foot again. It was a stretch. Then she felt something against the tip of her shoe get pushed farther until the front half of her foot rested on it comfortably.

  “Perfect. Thanks.”

  He backed out again. This time she couldn’t help but notice a change in him. His face was flushed and looked warm. He stood up quickly and went around the desk, out into the main office space.

  He looked at the clock. She did likewise. 9:30.

  “You can get a good day’s work in today.” He turned in her direction but didn’t look at her. Instead, he looked at his watch. “I don’t start classes until next week. Until then, hours would be from nine to five with an hour for lunch. But when classes start, I’m going to need you in by 8:30 and you can leave at 5:30.” Now he raised his eyes to meet hers. “How does that sound?”

  “Fine. I’m flexible.”

  When his lips turned up slowly into a smile, still looking up at her like he did, Gloria allowed herself the delusion that she was getting a seductive come-on from him, so she returned the slow smile. He nodded.

  “Welcome aboard, Miss Goodman.”

  What the hell was he thinking? Looking up Gloria’s skirt like that?

  How could he help it? He was there, sure, to move the foot pedal to the transcription machine, but when she reached out with her foot to check for distance, her leg was right there.

  So he looked.

  Gloria’s ankle, while not stick thin, was nicely shaped—like her lower leg and calf...and her knee...and...

  He could see only three or four inches up the hem of her skirt and a bit of her soft thigh before it got too dark for him to see farther. But he did get a whiff of her scent.

  Clean. Powder. Floral. Roses?

  He had to get out of there—fast. His fingers were only inches from touching her foot, her skin underneath the sheer nylon....

  Getting up and moving away from her desk, he believed he played it off well with the friendly smile. He couldn’t help noticing that Gloria Goodman, while not slender or athletic, had the physique of a woman who knew her way around the makings of a man. When she smiled back at him the last time, the slow curve of her lips suggested to him that she suspected he’d gotten an eyeful and she didn’t mind. But when he finally looked in her eyes, her gaze was unassuming. Her face said it all.

  She was ripe, but untried, ready for the picking.

  Forbidden fruit. And he wasn’t going to be the one to pluck it, no matter how tempting it presented itself. She may have been of legal age, but she was still young. How could he think of such a thing?

  After five years of marriage to a self-absorbed bitch who finally admitted that being married to a teacher was “beneath her,” Nate had put his libido on ice, and none of his prettier or more brazen students could melt it.

  But he definitely experienced a thaw when Gloria smiled at him. She just caught him off guard, that’s all. He wasn’t about to let himself make a huge mistake—similar to the one he made with Jill a few years ago. In a way, he was still paying for that gaffe.

  He looked at the clock and the day had barely begun, and there Gloria was, waiting, willing to do whatever he wanted.

  This was going to be interesting.

  Gloria stuck in a tape in the machine, turned on her computer, and opened a new Word document. She created a basic template for the document, setting margins, paragraph indents, line spacing, and so on based on the style sheet Mr. Larsen gave her—and then she got down to business.

  She wasn’t an idiot. She couldn’t lie to herself and pretend she wasn’t still attracted to the man. Her crush on him was one reason why she performed so miserably in his class. She just couldn’t concentrate, but she’d be damned if it was going to interfere with her job. She needed this money and couldn’t afford the luxury of lusting over Darning High School’s sexiest teacher.

  Ohh...this was going to be interesting.

  Besides, she wasn’t his type, so why kid herself with mind games? This was a paying job. Nate Larsen was no longer her teacher, but he was her boss. She may not have been a model biology student, but she was a model employee.

  I got this.

  Once she put on the headphones and got started, it was easy for her to numb herself to Nate Larsen’s physical presence. But having his warm, smooth, tenor voice in her ear, seeping into her mind and coating it like honey—

  “Gloria!”

  Her head whipped up so fast at the sound of her name, it hurt her neck.

  “Oh, hi, Ms. Oliver.” Gloria smiled.

  It was her former chemistry teacher Jill Oliver. Gloria immediately noticed the yellow lightweight dress Jill wore because Gloria had only ever seen her teacher in a white lab coat. Without the androgynous coat, Jill Oliver’s svelte figure screamed her femininity as did her heart-shaped face, large, almond-shaped hazel eyes, and pixie-cut red hair—obviously a new style from when Gloria last saw her just before graduation not long ago.

  “Is Mr. Larsen around? I’m meeting him for lunch.”

  Gloria blinked. Was it time for lunch already? The clock on her computer confirmed it to be 12:30. Time really flew once she got past the distraction of listening to Nate Larsen’s voice.

  Where was he anyway? And when did he leave?

  Then, on cue, he walked into the office carrying an armful of three-ring binders and stopped just inside the door.

  “Oh! Hi, Jill.”

  “There you are,” she said. “Did you forget our lunch date?”

  “What?” He shot Gloria a glance. “No, of course not.” He put the binders on his desk and sat on the edge. “Where would you like to go?”

  “We can go to the food court at the mall. I’m not sure what I have a taste for.”

  “Would you care to join us, Gloria?”

  Both of them looked at her. Gloria’s mouth went dry and her stomach knotted. Being invited to lunch by the object of her desire—what more could she want? But Ms. Oliver’s warm smile and gaze suddenly turned frosty. Even if Mr. Larsen couldn’t tell from where he sat, the minute change registered on Gloria’s seismometer. She’d give it a Richter measurement of 2: strong enough to pick up if you were sensitive, but ignored by most.

  “Uh...ah, no thanks, Mr. Larsen. I, um...I bought my lunch.”

  Ms. Oliver’s smile warmed again.

  “Are you sure?” He tilted his head.

  Gloria lifted her eyebrows. Was he trying to get her to go? That couldn’t be right. When she was in school, everyone always talked about whether or not Mr. Larsen and Ms. Oliver had something going on. It was so totally obvious that Ms. Oliver was into him by the way they would hang out together in the hall.

  They even parked close to—if not next to—each other in the faculty parking lot. Gloria lost count of the number of times she saw them out there talking by their cars.

  “Positive,” she said. “Thanks for the invite, though.”

  For some reason, she didn’t think he believed her because he pursed his lips together and cocked his head.

  “We’ll be back by 1:30, then.”

  “OK.” She smiled. “Enjoy your lunch.”

  “Don’t work too hard, Gloria,” Ms. Oliver sa
id and headed for the office door, giving her a little finger wave.

  “Yeah, Gloria.” Mr. Larsen came over and leaned against the desk next to her computer. “Go ahead and take your lunch now,” he said softly and then smiled down at her. “You’ve made a lot of progress already. I’m impressed.”

  Gloria clenched her thigh muscles together. If she was going to keep this job, having a spare pair of panties in her purse might be a good idea. The pair she was wearing couldn’t take any more moisture. She never understood what it meant to drown in someone’s gaze—until now. It was hard not to do so in Nate Larsen’s deep blue eyes.

  “Thank you, Mr. Larsen. I’ll see you later.” She smiled back at him and watched them leave. Once she was alone, she exhaled and slumped into her seat.

  “OK, Gloria,” she told herself. “Now you can relax and stop being a spaz.”

  “I’m happy you have Gloria helping you,” Jill said, taking a few napkins from the dispenser. “That’s good. She’s such a bright girl. I’d hate to see such potential go to waste. She’s had a rough time. Hopefully working for you will help.”

  “What do you mean ‘rough time?’”

  “You don’t know about her parents?”

  Nate shook his head and took a bite of his burger.

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I was her homeroom teacher at the time so I got the lowdown first hand from Dr. Gillis.”

  Jill began to eat her chef’s salad. Nate suppressed a sigh. His ex-wife Denise was the same way when she had some juicy info and wanted to make the other person beg. Sometimes, Nate would throw Denise a bone and take the bait, but most of the time he ignored it because he couldn’t care less.

  Denise had said his lack of interest was one of her many complaints leading to their divorce. But today, he had to admit that he was curious about what Jill knew. Considering her source was their principal Dr. Dylan Gillis, this was no idle gossip.

  Jill finally took the hint from his blank stare that he was waiting for her to continue. She leaned forward, prepared to divulge the news.

  “Gloria was removed from her home at the start of her junior year and was in foster care until she graduated. I think now she lives with her older brother. Turns out her parents were really abusive and a neighbor turned them in after one loud fight too many. They removed Gloria on the spot. Poor girl must have lived that life for years, not that you would have noticed. She was getting excellent grades until things blew up when one of Gloria’s teachers noticed a cigarette burn on her forearm.”

  Jill took a breath by taking another, larger bite of her salad and sipping her Diet Sprite. Nate winced at the thought of the business end of a cigarette burning into Gloria’s soft, fawn-colored flesh.

  “Dr. Gillis called me and Gloria’s other teachers in for a meeting to let us know. Quite unusual, but Gloria had been on the honor roll and merit roll, and winning ribbons on the debate team, so when things started to slip, we all noticed. Gillis said Gloria had what amounted to a breakdown. She had been keeping up the facade of a stable home life for so long that when it ended, she collapsed from the strain. She was out of class for about a month.”

  “That must have set her back a bit.”

  “It did. She went to summer school and that bumped up her average close to where it was before the fallout. I understand she got back on the merit roll once or twice before she graduated and still managed a decent average. She definitely did a great job in my chemistry class.”

  Nate’s jaw tightened. Good thing he’d given Gloria the benefit of doubt with her grade. Still, what Jill said confirmed that he’d hurt her more than he’d helped her.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t know Gloria until I had her in my class her senior year,” he said. “I always knew her as a quiet and shy girl. What was she like before?”

  “Oh, she’s always been quiet, but she used to laugh. She’s definitely more fun than she looks—at least she used to be.” Jill shrugged. “I’d call her an old soul, but it’s probably because of her home life. She’s had to grow up before her time. But after all of this—she just dimmed. She definitely became more introverted, guarded.”

  Nate nodded. “Makes sense. That’s how I remember her.” He ate more of his burger. “You said something about an older brother?”

  “Yes. Since she was still a minor, she couldn’t live on her own, and considering she was nearing the age of 18, emancipation would have been a waste of time—”

  “Wait a minute.” He stopped eating. “Are you saying that she tried to divorce her parents?”

  Jill shrugged again. “From what I understand, it was mentioned as a serious option.”

  And here he sat thinking Gloria just couldn’t grasp science. Poor kid. Nate looked out of the window, not really seeing the mall’s vast parking lot, his appetite now gone.

  The one thing he remembered about Gloria was how she struggled in his class. He never gave much thought as to the reason why. And he always prided himself at being so in touch with his students. He shook his head. Yeah, right. All the signs were there.

  Idiot.

  They finished their lunch. Actually, Nate simply waited for Jill to finish hers, and when she did, they prepared to leave.

  Then it struck him. How could Gloria have known to bring her lunch when it was uncertain that she’d get the job? Either Gloria was that confident or....

  “Wait a minute, Jill. I need to get something.”

  Gloria didn’t expect the hamburger and lemonade Mr. Larsen brought her when he came back from lunch. After he and Ms. Oliver left, she went out and walked through the near-deserted school until she got near the cafeteria where there were a few vending machines. She had enough change on her to get a bag of chips and a bottle of water.

  Although her brother Michael had given her fifty dollars for the week, she needed to budget as much as possible if she was going to have enough money to survive at college in the fall. So she only took enough money for a return trip on the bus. She should have come prepared, but a voice in the back of her head told her that, unlike Brittany, there was no guarantee Gloria would get the job.

  But when Mr. Larsen came in with the food, Gloria realized she was hungrier than she’d thought. This fact was confirmed when her stomach growled and her cheeks flamed.

  “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but the burger I had was so good, I wanted to share the experience.”

  Later, she sat at the bus stop waiting for the 5:20 to arrive. The weather forecast had predicted a high of 75. As it turned out, it was only ten degrees off, and Gloria nearly sweated through her blouse as she waited. She couldn’t keep still and kept tapping her feet, more fidgety than a crack head who’d lost his pipe.

  A half hour and a dozen stops later, she was home and ready to retreat into the closest thing she had to a sanctuary. She opened the heavy but ornate door to her brother Michael’s townhouse and stepped inside to be greeted by cool, air-conditioned air. Either her brother was home or he had the foresight to set the A/C to automatic in expectation of yet another incorrect forecast.

  She walked down the entryway that led directly into the kitchen and living area. There she saw not only her brother, but his fiancée Robyn. Both of them stood at the kitchen island looking at a newspaper.

  “Hey, Glo,” Michael said. “I assume since you’re just getting home that you got the job?”

  She nodded, giving him a happy, but tired, smile.

  “That’s great! I knew you would.” He smiled and came over and gave her a bear hug. He was built like a bear, too, albeit a stocky one. He stood just under six-feet tall and was a bit round, but solid. He had dark, wavy hair and soulful brown eyes, but his olive complexion was a little lighter than Gloria’s because his father was suspected to be of Hispanic origin. Neither she nor her brother knew for sure, and their mother would never tell. And although Gloria’s parents were married, her father never adopted Michael so he went by their mother’s maiden name, Harris.

  Her brother
was ten years older than Gloria and worked as a professional welder. He left the family home at age thirteen when he went over to his best friend’s house and never came home.

  Gloria knew he felt guilty for leaving her alone with a pair of functional alcoholics who slowly became dysfunctional, abusive drunks. He may be her half-brother, but he was there when she needed him, and when she asked to stay in a foster home in order to finish school in her district, he allowed it. When she graduated, he moved her in with him and Robyn.

  “We’re going to go to dinner and a movie,” Robyn said. “Want to come? We can celebrate your new job.”

  “Nah, I’m pretty tired, to tell you the truth.” To emphasize the fact, Gloria plopped down on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island. “I guess I’ve been running on adrenaline all day.”

  “I can make you something before we go,” Robyn offered. “Or there’s some leftover lasagna in the fridge.”

  Robyn loved to cook and was a welcomed contrast to Gloria’s own mother. Robyn was an office manager for a construction company during the day, but she also sang with a jazz combo and sometimes in local musical theatre. Robyn was suited for the stage because everyone knew when she entered a room. Her expressive features, ebony skin, and statuesque figure suited any outfit or costume she wore, which more often than not included wigs of various colors, hats, and fascinators.

  “That suits me, Rob. Honestly, I’m just gonna eat and probably be in bed asleep by the time you get back. I gotta be in the office at nine o’clock.”

  “Now what, exactly, will you be doing on your job?” Michael asked.

  “Typing mostly.” Gloria got up and went to the refrigerator, looking for the lasagne. “Mr. Larsen is writing a new textbook and needs someone to type it out for him. I’ll also do whatever other office stuff he asks for. For example, set up for his class.”

  “Does it pay well?” Robyn asked.

  “Oh, yeah. More money than I got working part-time for Mr. Kulp at the insurance agency last year. By the end of the summer, I’ll have enough to cover my living expenses next year.” She got a plate from the cupboard, dished out some lasagna on it, and put it in the microwave with a paper towel over it.