But there’s nowhere to run. And so I don’t look like a complete freaking moron, I gesture to my now empty seat, saying to the beautiful woman with chestnut hair and big doe eyes the same color as her son’s, “Please, sit.” It’s then I realize I’ve backed myself into a corner, and I don’t know whether I feel trapped, or if I feel safer since nothing can come at me from the back.
“Oh, thank you, sweetheart,” she replies and sits, and her voice is so sweet, so pleasant-sounding, and it breaks my heart to think that it’s going to sound so very different when she hears why she’s here. This woman, who Nate painted such a wonderful image of in my mind, the best mom, the Pinterest mom, the woman his dad married for true love. I’d fantasized about meeting her in the future, about what it’d be like to have a close relationship with her, since I no longer have a mother of my own. She had been as much of a dream as Nate was, and now I’m going to lose it all.
Nate stands as well and offers his dad the chair, and his dad glances at me, asking silently if I want to take the now open seat—a gentleman, like his son.
“No thank you,” I reply, my voice trembling, and Mrs. Black’s face falls a little when she hears it.
Nathaniel comes to stand next to me, and as if he isn’t aware that his parents are right here, staring at us, as if we are on stage and in a spotlight, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to his chest. I stiffen, my eyes going wide, and I start to struggle away, but he just tightens his grip, bending down to press a kiss to the top of my head and whispering a “Shhh” against my hair. “Trust me.”
Mr. Moran clears his throat yet again, and all I can do is watch this train wreck happen, unable to look away with Nate trapping me in my front row seat. “Mr. and Mrs. Black, let me start by saying this is incredibly awkward for me. Obviously, seeing as this academy is your family’s legacy, and I am an employee of yours. Also, because Nathaniel is a star student. He’s never had to be disciplined in any way, always the epitome of what a pupil should be.”
I can’t help but snort at that, knowing damn well I tried to turn him in for basically harassing me and was shut down before the words could even leave my mouth. And then I yelp when Nate reaches down and pinches my ass, horrified when everyone turns my way in confusion at what probably looks on the outside like I have Tourette’s. Thankfully, Mr. Moran just continues.
“I must inform you that a student came upon your son and Ms. Richards in a… compromising position in the library.”
Mrs. Black eyes widen, and her mouth drops open just a little, her cheeks turning bright pink. Mr. Black reaches over and takes her hand, but his expression doesn’t change except to lift a brow at his son.
“As your son is eighteen, he is a consenting adult. In our state, there is no statutory rape case here. But… there are ethical considerations to be made. There is a policy in place at our school to punish faculty to protect students, since their parents have entrusted their children with them. You may choose to press charges against Ms. Richards that will take away her teaching certification,” he tells them, and I sink against Nate, Mr. Moran’s words taking the life right out of me.
Nate’s arm comes up to pull my head against his chest, and I shut my eyes, forcing myself to absorb the sound of his strong but steady heartbeat against my ear. How can he be so calm at a time like this? How can his pulse be so smooth when mine feels like I’m having a full-on heart attack? It almost makes me mad, him being so cool and collected. I mean, it’s not his life that hangs in the balance. But I thought he’d at least be worried for mine, especially after all the things he said to me in the library not forty-five minutes ago.
And then I flinch back at the sound of Mrs. Black’s gentle voice that is so close to me, so close she could attack me for corrupting her “perfect” son. But when I register her words, recognize she’s not speaking to me but to Nate in a tone I fully didn’t expect, I crack one eye open.
“So this is your little mouse, my boy?” she asks him, no smile on her lips but her eyes are twinkling, and my brow furrows in confusion.
“It is,” he replies, his voice proud, and her eyes look down from his towering height over both of us until she’s looking straight ahead into mine. For some reason, my body relaxes when she stays there, seeming to read me, seeming to tell me something with her beautiful doe eyes, and Nate unfurls his hand from the back of my head so I can stand up straighter, still in his arms. A moment later, Mrs. Black gives me the smallest smile, and she turns back to the assistant principal.