Schooled
RaeLynn Blue
Published by Phaze Books
Also by RaeLynn Blue
Soul’s Kin
“Undercover Lovers” from
Coming Together, At Last: Volume 1
(with Shara Azod)
This is an explicit and erotic novel
intended for the enjoyment
of adult readers. Please keep
out of the hands of children.
www.Phaze.com
Schooled
A novel of erotic romance by
RAELYNN BLUE
Schooled © 2009 by RaeLynn Blue
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Phaze Production
Phaze Books
6470A Glenway Avenue, #109
Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222
Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC.
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
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www.Phaze.com
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60659-175-8
Edited by Kev Henley
Published July, 2009
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Chapter One
Wednesday, James Tennison Middle School
Harper Perry despised the annual parent-teacher conference. A ten year veteran of the open warfare between students and parents, to which the United States government had declared those in her profession Public Enemy Number One, Harper groaned at the prospect of getting into a skirmish tonight. The battle of blame had been marked on her calendar in red. She’d had plenty of warning and time to prepare. Nevertheless, she could feel the knot of tension and stress take refuge in the base of her neck and throb to a rancorous rhythm all its own. She knew with absolute certainty that by night’s end, it would emerge like a monster, tearing through her usual calm and tranquility with scary accuracy and deadly consequences.
Like the loss of her professionalism.
Harper fidgeted and awaited the first hurling verbal assault bomb to begin the start of a long night. Her feet ached and her back hummed in soft agony. She’d been at the school since six-thirty that morning and now, she had an additional three hours of school-related engagement to contend with.
“You’re hoping against hope, you know,” Carlita advised. “His parents don’t ever show. Kids like him don’t have parents who get out of their beds and drive to visit the likes of us.”
Harper sighed from behind the table. She watched the scores of students clutching their portfolios and walking to the bleachers. The sprinkling of parents slipped into the gym. Whispers and nervous twitches moved through the warm forced air, and Harper suppressed the grimace threatening to sour her face. She sipped her bottled water, washing the hunk of anticipation back into the pit of her stomach.
“Scott Pearson’s parents show up yet?” Mark Shoemaker asked, sliding his metal folding chair over to their table with a screeching scream as a soundtrack. The special education teacher, Mark co-taught classes with Harper, the team’s language arts teacher, and Carlita, who taught math. Despite co-teaching the two content areas, Mark’s actual caseload came to a whopping twelve students.
Dwarfed by the paper box crammed with Harper’s and Carlita’s folders, Mark’s student portfolios sat latched together by a thick rubber band.
Harper bit back a bitter retort. She had sixty-five students to his twelve.
“It’s only two minutes after five,” Carlita snapped, rolling her large ginger eyes. “Come on, Mark, at least pretend you think the kid’s parents are coming.”
“Why give false hope?” he replied, stretching like a lazy cat. His blonde hair had begun to lose its sun-kissed highlights, turning instead to the dirty dishwater shade of his other strands.
Carlita actually snorted.
Teachers at the surrounding tables shot them warning glances and one even shushed them. Somber tones and fake laugher drifted among the pockets of three-teacher teams spread throughout the gym. Harper and Carlita also had a science/social studies teacher, but she was out on maternity to leave. The long-term substitute had opted out of attending the event, leaving their team down to two-and-a-half team members.
Harper sighed as one of her star students, brightly scrubbed and expensively dressed, bounced over to their table with parents in tow. The daughter presented a complete copy of the father, down to the dimple in their right cheeks.
“Come for the report card,” the father said, way too happy for Harper’s taste.
She erased the scowl on her face and muttered some polite noises. The student’s mother joined in, and thus the game began.
For the next hour of her life—to which she would never ever get back—Harper flashed the high-wattage, no-warmth smile and shook hands with people she’d only see once this year. Students snatched their report cards and scampered to the outlying edges of the gym, far from the teachers’ tables tucked in its center. The students hopped around with their parents tethered behind them, attempting to corner them long enough for explanations and congratulations.
“God, I hate this,” Carlita sighed as a temporary reprieve arose from the lack of fresh parents. “Come on, seven-thirty.”
“And to think we get to do it all again tomorrow,” Mark added, reclining in his folding chair as if at the beach. “Back here at seven-fifteen in the morning.”
Carlita snorted again, and Harper pressed her fingertips to her temples where the ball of stress had split and crawled painfully up to these new locations. She opened her eyes, and through thin slits she could make out the doorway of the gym. More people had arrived.
Why do all the parents seem to wear that same smile? The plastered-on-with-glue-stick farce that they believed hid their pain. Why? Show the whole world you hate this shit as much as I do. Don’t fake it. They’re not paying you to sham it up. Be real.
“At least it doesn’t smell like wet socks or feet in here like last year,” Mark was saying as Harper tuned back in to the conversation around her. His fingers drummed in absolute boredom.
“What?” Harper coughed out.
Mark rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”
“Oh, did you hear about Scott’s latest attack against education today?” asked Carlita with all the suspense of one who enjoyed gossiping immensely. “Down in art class?”
Harper screwed up her face and said, “Not really, Car. The boy is always in trouble. No home training, respect for authority figures, or any responsibility. His homework is nonexistent, and contacting his parents…” She shrugged unable to finish. Talking about Scott only managed to make her blood pressure high and the cadence of the headache at her temples pound.