She cocks her head at me and looks curious.
“I see. And…may I ask about Max’s mom?”
I take a deep breath and prepare myself. I’m about to use a lot of words with this woman.
I’ve been trying to ignore the effect she’s having on me with her cute face and her petite-yet-curvy body and her ridiculous way of dressing that is both annoying and sexy in an “I dress solely to impress 5 year olds” kind of way.
She has a twinkle of mischief in her eye, combined with a joyful, sunshiny quality that I find disquieting. Her bright smile and raised eyebrows are unsettling. Her trendy space buns are trying to charm me but they’re making me mad. Mad because I want to pull the sparkly bobby pins out of her light brown hair and watch it fall around her shoulders. I’d like to know how long it is. See if she’d hold still long enough to let me thread my fingers through it and quiet her cheerful chirping with a rough, sloppy kiss.
Max’s teacher notices me staring at her mouth and licks her lips. The tiniest wisp of pink flushes her cheeks when she realizes what she’s done.
I’m full on glaring at her mouth now. I want that mouth. I gotta get out of here before I take it. I have to control the groan at the back of my throat when she chews on her lips, waiting for me to tell the whole story of Max.
Finally I spill it. “Up until last spring, I was a DSS investigator. I was interviewing a kid. Mom’s not in the picture. Grandma’s boyfriend had him locked up in a closet for three days with no food. I snapped. Punched the motherfucker right in his asshole face. Sorry.”
She rests one hand on her stomach in shock as she absorbs everything I said. After a moment, she leans forward. “Tell me more. Tell me everything. You clocked him straight in the face, didn’t you? He never saw it coming.”
I don’t understand what’s happening right now or what that tone is in her voice, but I go along with it.
“I…well…yeah. And I got fired. Charged with assault. DA dropped it because it was a first-time offense and I agreed to go to counseling.”
Jewel seems to be breathing more shallow than before and her eyes widen. Her knuckles grip the edge of the desk so hard they turn white. “Just a regular law-abiding citizen and then …boom. Tell me about the moment it happened.”
I don’t see what this has to do with anything but sure, what the hell.
I sit forward in my chair and rest my elbows on my knees.
“Well, I felt it building in my chest. After I got done talking with the kid, the grandma’s boyfriend was standing in the hallway, sneering like a filthy prick. I couldn’t hold the anger at bay anymore. I just…lost control. I grabbed him by the front of his stupid t-shirt and shoved him into the drinking fountain. It wasn’t the right thing to do but, fuck, it felt good.”
“Oh my,” Jewel breathes, chewing on her lip. “And then what happened?”
I’m not proud, but she seems very interested in the details. “I went over and grabbed him again, this time to hold him still while I wailed on him. Popped him. Just clocked him dead in the face.”
Jewel’s eyelids flutter and her jaw falls open. “That’s…incredible.”
“It’s not like the movies. I broke two of his teeth and there was blood everywhere. Got a hairline fracture in my hand, too.”
“No!” Her hand goes to her chest.
“Yeah. And so after I was fired…” I reply, while her hand reaches out to examine the hand that I broke. I show it to her as I continue. “I learned that Max was put in foster care. After the charges were dropped, I applied to get the kid placed with me. The state eventually agreed because they saw that I already had the training and…apparently Max wouldn’t talk to any other adult but me.”
She turns my hand over in hers and back again with her delicate fingers, as if she has X-ray vision or something.
“It’s uh…healed now.” Damn, I should have said it still hurts because I’m pretty sure this chick wants to kiss my boo boo. Instead I keep talking. “I’m hoping to adopt Max. I figured, if they won’t let me punch bad guys in the face then at least I can get one kid out of the system.”
Jewel looks up at my face and drops my hand. She clutches her chest like she’s overcome, and her eyes close.
“Uh, do you need some water…?” I offer.
She shakes her head. I don’t know what’s happening. Maybe she’s praying?
After a long moment, she leans in, her voice breaking and full of intensity, and whispers, “Are you serious? I mean, like, are you for real?”
When she leans in like that I get another hit of that pink peppermint scent, and I’m liking it. A lot. I don’t want to like it. It’s fucking with my head. What are we doing here?
I clear my throat and squirm in her chair because my cock needs adjusting in my drawers. I nod my head. “And he only came to me last week.”
Jewel looks at me like I’ve made her day. “Oh my god, I love you…what you did! I mean I love what you did! You’re a superhero. Jiminy Christmas, I have an actual superhero in my classroom!”