“Not really,” I argued quietly.

Daniel arched an eyebrow and stepped back to the front of his desk. He sat again with his legs extended and crossed at his ankles. “Care to explain, Ms. Jennings?” He used my last name, and for some reason, it made my thighs pulse in excitement.

I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to know how much I knew. The palms of my hands were growing clammy, and I ran them against my legs. My teal sundress lay against my body, yet I felt extremely exposed.

Was it bad that I liked how exposed I felt in front of him?

Daniel turned me on with his music, his voice, his sounds, and his touch. His gentleness and sense of humor. But Mr. Daniels made my thighs quiver in a completely different manner. A forbidden way. A seductive fashion. I daydreamed about class releasing and his holding me back—saying that he had to go over something with me. He would close his classroom door and push me against it as his hand slowly pulled up the hem of my dress. My mouth gaped open at his touch, his caresses.

I imagined his fingers finding my panties and rolling against the fabric, back and forth in a slow motion, making me pant for more. His fingers pushed against the fabric before he found his way inside. “Mr. Daniels…” I would whisper against his ear, sucking on his earlobe between moans.

He would kiss me down my neck, licking me slowly. Touching me seductively as he turned me on by breathing against my cle**age. He would scold me, telling me how I’d been a very bad girl. I would moan lightly as he lifted me up against the wall, sliding down my spaghetti straps and cupping my br**sts in the palm of his hands. He would claim my chest, my body as his and his only.

Then, in my deep imagination, someone would enter the classroom and I would hide behind his door. My breaths uneven and rushed, adrenaline coursing through every inch of my body. I wouldn’t pull my dress completely down so that when he glanced behind the door he could see my damp, teal panties teasing him, making him that much hungrier.

Oh yes, Mr. Daniels turned me on in an extreme amount. And that was only in my mind. I wondered what he could do if he actually touched me in the classroom.

“Um…Ashlyn?” Ryan poked me in my arm.

I shook myself from my fantasy. The whole class was staring at me and my wide-open mouth. My lips shut. My cheeks reddened.

“Uh—yeah. Yes.” Clearing my throat and my thoughts, I continued. “There’s a story that’s been going around forever. People contribute the story to Ernest Hemingway, yet it’s hard to say if it’s a fact that it truly happened. Anyway, the rumor is that Hemingway was bet to tell a story using six words.”

“Like I said,” Avery laughed. “Impossible.”

Daniel’s eyes were narrowed in on me. He arched an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth turned up in a grin. Did he know that I’d been daydreaming about him? Did he dream about me, too?

“Impossible?” Daniel muttered. “Is it?” he asked, moving again to the board. He wrote, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Hemingway’s story.

The room went silent. The words on the board even made me shiver, even though I’d already known the story.

Ryan was the first to speak when he said, “Burned by a teacher, Avery!”

The room started cracking up, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I wanted to be shocked that Daniel knew the exact story I’d spoke of, but of course he did. He was intelligent beyond measure.

Daniel held his hands up, bringing the roaring class to silence. “All right. Yes. So what I want from you is to take these papers you wrote for me at the beginning of the year about your goals in life—which I’ve given you all a few notes about”—he lifted a stack of paper and started handing them back to us—“and I want you to sum it up in three different ways. Next week as a sonnet. The week after as a haiku. And three weeks from now as a flash fiction story. At the end of each week, you’ll present your poetry in class. I won’t go Hemingway on you, giving you only six words for the flash fiction. You get ten.” He placed my paper on my desk and smiled at me. It was that same kind smile I’d taken in way back when at the train station. “Make each word count.”

When he handed Ryan his paper, Daniel paused. “This might be the best essay I’ve ever read, Ryan. Keep it up.” Ryan grinned and thanked Daniel.

The bell rang and everyone hurried out of the class. I didn’t understand why they were so quick to leave. This was my favorite class to slowly retreat from. Before standing from my desk, I noticed an extra piece of paper attached to my essay. Flipping it over, I read the words Daniel had written to me.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

You’re going to be an amazing author.

I’ll read whatever you write.

I miss you so much it’s hard to breathe.

When I looked up, I saw his eyes on me. He looked as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders as our eyes connected. I felt the weight remove from my body, too. He was still there. Daniel wasn’t merely Mr. Daniels—he was still himself. And I was still on his mind, the same way he lived in mine.

Maybe there weren’t two different Daniels. Maybe Mr. Daniels was just another part of him. So it wasn’t surprising that I had fallen for both sides of the coin. I was crazy about all of him—the good, the bad, and the broken pieces.

I think I liked the broken pieces the most.

I didn’t even know what it meant for us—his note, my looking up to him. Yet I didn’t care. It was enough for now. I thought the best thing to call it was hope. I really loved the hope in his eyes.

His lips turned up in a half smirk and my lips followed, giving him the other half. We made each other smile without even saying a word.

Those were my favorite smiles.

I stood up from my chair and placed everything inside my backpack except for my current read. I hugged it tight as always, and when I passed Daniel’s desk, I heard him say my name. I didn’t turn back to him, yet I stood still.

“Were you thinking about what I think you were thinking about during class?” he whispered. My cheeks deepened in color. I heard his light laugh. “I think about it, too.”

My head turned to him to find his blues. I smiled. “Really?”

“Really, really.”

I turned away, and when I was out of his viewpoint, I smiled even bigger.

I smiled so wide my cheeks started to hurt.

Chapter 14