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Home / Romance / Hot Professor Is My Step Dad / Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

All Chapters of Hot Professor Is My Step Dad : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

126 Chapters

061

BonnieDinner was almost over when my mother brought it up.She had heard about the invitation. Marcellus already knew. He had known for days. But my mother was the one who could not stop talking about it. She was in a good mood. The kind of mood that came from a full stomach and a glass of wine and the quiet satisfaction of a day that had not gone wrong. She was pushing peas around her plate and humming something under her breath."So Sunday is the big night," she said. "Lucian's mother. Are you nervous?""A little," I admitted."You should be. First impressions matter." She set down her fork. "But you will be wonderful.""Mom.""I am serious. She is going to love you. How could she not?"Her enthusiasm was almost enough to make me forget the way my stomach was twisting. Almost enough to ignore the weight of Marcellus's gaze from across the table. He had not said a word since we sat down.Then he stood up.His chair scraped hard against the floor. His napkin fluttered to the ground a

062

MarcellusI walked back inside like nothing had happened.The screen door clicked shut behind me. The only sign that anything was different was the soft sound of footsteps on the stairs. Quick and hurried. Like someone trying to disappear before they were seen.Classic Bonnie.She had scurried away like a rabbit.I heard her bedroom door close upstairs and the lock clicked. The same lock she had started using weeks ago. After the party. After she decided she needed to keep me out.I did not need to be inside her room. I had other ways of keeping her close.My hand slipped into my pocket.The fabric was soft. Lace and black. Still warm from her body. She had been wearing them under her jeans. I saw them when she stood up too fast. When the waistband of her pants slipped just enough to reveal the edge.She had not noticed me noticing.She never did.I pulled the panties out of my pocket and held them in my palm for a moment. Then I folded them carefully and deliberately and tucked them

063

BonnieMy mother appeared in my doorway with an armful of dresses."You cannot wear that," she said as she nodded at the black jeans and sweater I had laid out on the bed."Why not?""Because you are meeting his mother. Not going to a funeral."I looked at the sweater. It was cashmere. Soft. Expensive. The kind of thing you wore when you wanted to look like you had not tried."It is nice," I said."It is boring and that you are not" Mum dumped the dresses on my bed. They spilled across the comforter like a rainbow had exploded. Navy. Emerald. Rose. A deep burgundy that reminded me of the party. "Try these.""Mom it is just dinner.""It is not just dinner. It is the first time his mother is meeting you. That is a big deal."I sat down on the edge of the bed as I ran my fingers over the fabrics. Silk. Velvet. Lace. Things I never wore. Things that belonged to a version of me who went to

064

LucianI went to bed smiling.That was the first sign that something was wrong. I never went to bed smiling. Not because I was unhappy. I just was not the kind of person who fell asleep with a grin on his face like a character in a bad romance novel. But tonight was different. Tonight Bonnie had sat in my mother's kitchen and had eaten her lasagna and laughed at her jokes and looked at me like I was someone worth looking at.I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and replayed the way she had said goodnight. The softness in her voice. The way I had tucked her hair behind her ear before she got out of the car.She was scared. I knew that. But she had come anyway. She had sat at my mother's table and answered questions and pretended for a few hours that she was not carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.Christ! I even fell asleep with her name on my lips.The next morning my phone was dead.Not dead as in out

65

BonnieThe oak tree felt different today.Maybe it was the photos. Maybe it was the way Lucian had looked at me in English. Like he wanted to say something but did not know how. I had been sitting on the grass for ten minutes and was picking at the blades but not really seeing them. The sun was lower than it had been at lunch. It cast long shadows across the lawn and most students had gone home. The ones who remained were scattered across the field and were too far away to hear what we said.I cleared my thoughts as I heard footsteps and I looked up immediately.Lucian was walking toward me with his hands in his pockets. His hair was messier than usual. He had been running his hands through it again obviously. He always did that when he was nervous."Hey," he said."Hey."He sat down beside me. "You saw the photos," I said."Everyone saw the photos.""Jeremy took them. The kid from detention.""I know. I talked to him."I turned to look at him. "You talked to him?""He apologized. He

66

MarcellusThe letter came on a Wednesday.Cream colored envelope with the school's letterhead. My name typed in crisp black letters across the front. I knew what it was before I opened it. I had been expecting it for weeks ever since the anonymous complaint landed in the administration's inbox. But holding it in my hands and feeling the weight of the paper was different.I unfolded the letter and read it once. Then I read it again."It is about time," I said out loud.No one was in the room to hear me. I had been sitting at my desk for the past hour. I was not grading papers but I was thinking about Bonnie. About the way she had looked at me in the laundry room. About the way she had said she was going to that dinner anyway. About the way she had kissed Lucian's cheek after your party and then come home to me.Fuck! Every single one of my thoughts is always about Bonnie in different timelines and events and not even the woman I would be spending the rest of my life with but her daught

67

67BonnieGood heavens...The cafeteria was a war zone.Not literally. No one was throwing punches or shoving trays. But the words were weapons. Sharp and precise. Aimed at the places where I was weakest. I had learned to ignore most of them. The ones about Sloane. The ones about the accident. The ones about Marcellus which I pretended not to hear.Well...it was even from the rumors I heard Sloane was expelled. If they really did follow up the matter, I wouldn't know because they didn't involve me in it.But today was different. Today the words had teeth."There she is.""The one who got Sloane expelled.""I heard she has been sneaking around with the Professor.""I heard they are dating. Like actually dating."My tray was full but I had barely touched my food. The mac and cheese was cold. The apple was bruised and the milk was warm. I dumped the whole thing in the trash and walked toward the double doors wit

068

68MarcellusI did not take her straight home.The school had released early. Early dismissal for teacher meetings and the parking lot was chaos. Students flooded out like water from a broken dam. Bonnie sat in my passenger seat with her bag in her lap and her face turned toward the window.She had not spoken since the supply closet but I did not push.Instead I drove and it wasn't the usual way home but she did not ask where we were going. She did not ask why I was not taking her home. She just sat there quiet with her breath fogging the window.The place I was taking her to was a diner and it was on the edge of town. An old place. The kind with cracked vinyl booths and a jukebox that had not been updated since the nineties. I had come here as a graduate student back when coffee was all I could afford and the waitresses knew my name. It felt like another life.I parked and cut the engine and that's when Bonnie looked at me.

069

69MarcellusIt was days later and things were starting to turn out nice.The kitchen smelled like coffee and something sweet.Pancakes maybe. Or the syrup Bonnie was drizzling over her stack with the kind of focus most people reserved for surgery. She had been smiling when she came downstairs. Not the careful smile she wore around me. Not the tired smile she wore around her mother. A real smile. The kind that made her look like the girl she used to be before everything got complicated.She was on her phone. The device was propped against the sugar jar and Bonnie's face was lit up in a way that had nothing to do with the morning sun streaming through the windows."No you did not," she said into the phone. Her voice was bright and animated if not almost giddy. "You are lying."A pause then she laughed again. The sound was loud and unrestrained and completely unlike the whispers and silences that had filled this house for weeks."Oka

070

70BonnieI woke up buzzing.The kind that made you want to jump out of bed and throw open the curtains and let the sunlight hit your face like a promise.Bianca had texted me at six in the morning.I have a surprise for you. Do not ask what it is. Just be at school early. And wear something cute but not try hard cute. You know what I mean.I read the message three times. Then I read it again.A surprise. Bianca loved surprises. Her surprises usually involved sneaking out of places or eating things we should not eat or doing something that would make my mother sigh and say that girl is a bad influence. But I did not care. I needed a surprise. I needed something that was not Marcellus and not Lucian and not the constant weight of everything pressing down on my chest.I got out of bed and picked out an outfit. Jeans that fit well, a sweater the color of honey and sneakers that did not squeak when I walked. I looked at myself in the

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