Page 3 of Hot For Teacher
“I remember a lot more than that, Blair. Do you happen to remember what I said when you told us all that?”
Her soft blue eyes get even softer as she nods. “You said I could do anything I wanted because I was Blair fucking Scott. And I believed you.”
Nodding, I grin at her proudly. “You believed it because you knew it was true. You were always one of those girls that could do anything, be anything she wanted. Be that girl, Blair.”
Something passes over her face as her shoulders go back and her head lifts. Her entire body changes but she doesn’t pull away from me. A stunning smile overtakes her beautiful face, taking my breath away.
“Iwillbe that girl. I remember something else you said,” she says with a grin.
“What was that?”
“You said you wanted to have your own theater. One that plays the movies peopleshouldsee. What’s stopping you? What’s stopping us?”
And that is how I agree to move in with my stepmother to chase the dreams we had in high school.
Chapter Two
Blair
Being a jilted bride is not at all what I thought it would be.
It could be because my marriage was little more than names on paper. Marriage was never a fuzzy or romantic ideal to me. My parents were both married and divorced twice by the time I was ten, so I hardly believed in love everlasting. When we came to Pine Grove with my mother’s third husband, I decided I could reinvent myself.
Gone was the little girl who yearned for the father who didn’t want her. Before our life here in Pine Grove, I was shy and a bit of a book nerd. I loved school, loved my teachers, and had decided I would be a teacher one day.
With a new life and a new me, I forgot all about wanting to be a teacher. I forgot all about loving books, loving to write, and loving to paint. To be honest, I became a girl I barely knew. But that girl...everyone likedthatgirl. I was popular, I had tons of boys asking me out, and I was even captain of the cheerleading squad.
Only a few people knew the real Blair. Mandi Lock, and the Gallo twins Brendan and Bobbi. They weren’t twins, the Gallo’s, but you couldn’t tell by how close they were. All through junior high and high school, the three of us girls, along with Brendan and his best friend Andrew, were inseparable.
“I remember a lot more than that, Blair.”
Brendan’s words from yesterday rattled me. Because I remember a lot more than just us talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I tried to force myself to forget a lot of things for the sake of surviving them. I had to forget a lot when I became a different person for the second time in my life.
“He’s gone,”my mother’s wails still echo in my ears.
When I was sixteen, we lost my stepfather. Losing him forever was a different kind of pain than when I'd lost my real father from divorce. He was the first man in my life who treated me as his daughter.
After he was gone, my mother was on the hunt for another husband. Oh, she mourned him for a short while, long enough to be respectful, but she was never capable of being on her own. I never wanted to be like her. But I woke up one day all alone when she had run off, and realized I was just like her.
I had no idea how to be on my own.
Before I knew it, I was flirting with men old enough to be my father. First my cheerleading coach, then my boss at the record store downtown. Then I did the unthinkable—I started flirting with my best friend’s father.
Stefan Gallo was a good man, an adoring father, and as lonely as I was. He promised to take care of me, to give me a home to call my own. Once I was eighteen, we rushed to get married. I will never forget how upset Bobbi and Brenden were at us. It was Brenden who was hurt most by our marriage.
“He was no good for you, Blair,” he had said then and again yesterday.
Brenden was wrong. His father was good to me in the ways that mattered. Neither of us were in love, we agreed on that. We were just so tired of being alone. He gave me a safe place to call home in exchange for me playing the role of homemaker. It worked for both of us for a little while.
“Ready to go, Blair?” Brenden’s voice calls, shaking me from my thoughts.
Flushing hot when I look up to see him watching me, I nod. Last night he came over when I called when I needed someone. To be honest, I neededhim, not just anyone. Not even Bobbi. Brenden was the one I hurt the most.
Of course, I hurt him—I married his father two weeks after I turned down his prom proposal.
“Yeah, Bren,” I say softly, glancing back at the first place that felt like home before I follow him out.
“We will talk with Bobbi about what we ought to do with the house. Until then you can just stay with me,” he reiterates his offer from last night.
