Chapter 8 Just a kiss

• CALUM
• How do you punish a liar? By ignoring her or taking away her most valuable items. In this case, it’s the choir. With her dad on my side, there’s no pressure to put that miscreant back on the team.
• In her absence, today’s practice goes by without any hiccups. The students are already warming up to me. I didn’t think that would happen so fast. But everything has been moving so fast since I agreed to come here. All Pete wanted to know after Mum told him about letting me handle the singing was if I had any music experience. I had ton shit of that. And it almost ruined me. Didn’t it? This is my first real gig since Mending Hearts crashed.
• The choir wasn’t part of my plan. My plan was to be low-key until I sort my shit out and decide my next move. But Mum hopes it will get me to sing and play again. So far, it’s working. Being a choir director involves showing off what you’ve got so the choristers can believe in themselves. I haven’t played the guitar. Not since I ruined the band. Maybe one of these days with the choir, I might.
• I scrub a hand through my messy hair while watching the video of last year’s performance. She has a great voice but her attitude overshadows it. Christie and Regina have good voices too but she has a better range. If we want to win this year, she either has to get back on the choir or I overwork those two till they are at the level I want. Sighing, I make my way out of my office. Thanks to Pete, I’m not sharing the tiny cubicle with anyone.
• Outside, the cool air rustles my hair and tickles the stubble on my jaw. I need to shave. The lot is empty. I always wait behind till everyone is gone before leaving. It gives me a chance to think before I have to face that lying little scumbag at home.
• As always, the thought of her stirs something in me, annoyance mostly. In the US, they would have had me in front of a jury, ready to be crucified for kissing a seventeen year old. But she acted like it wasn’t nothing. Thinking about it as I drive down to the house, I have to wonder how many older men she has deceived this way; kissed or fucked.
• A bitter laugh escapes me. On my first night in a new town, I got scammed by someone that young. I step on the accelerator and the car lurches forward. Mum is letting me use her car till I can save enough to return to NY. If I have to survive on only this teacher’s pay, I might never get to do that. Being a teacher is cool but the pay sucks.
• The house comes into view. There is no car out in front and it can only mean one thing. Pete is out, probably with my mum. Man be acting like it’s his first marriage and it’s kind of cute. I guess I should be glad to see someone fall so helplessly in love with my mum after life dealt her with sour, tasteless lemons but it still sucks. How can people that old be falling in love again and I can’t even keep up with my best friends or get a girlfriend?
• I park in front of the house and enter inside. It’s not quiet. Cathy is relaxing on the couch, watching a show on TV. She shoots up to her feet once she sees me and the familiar pangs of annoyance sinks into my guts. She annoys the shit out of me.
• “Welcome.” There it is again. That damn accent that got me the first time. Cathy licks her lips, more out of nervousness than anything else but it does sinful things to my body. This is why she annoys me. Because even if she’s seventeen and I’ll be twenty-two, I still want to kiss her. In a few strides, she bridges the gap between us. “I think I’m ready to apologise, Calum.”
• Unfortunately, I’m not ready to accept it. I walk on to my room without a glance or response to her. Dropping my bag into the chair at the corner, I pace the whole room. What’s wrong with me?
• I’m irritated and I’m not sure why anymore.
• The feeling of irritation comes with a nagging urge to roll a blunt. It’s crazy that I quit drugs to fall into the terrible habit of not-smoking. But I won’t lie, it brings an unexplainable calm I haven’t felt since I quit writing new songs.
• A quick search reveals the weed stashed under my box. I throw the doors leading to the mini balcony of my room open. There are two chairs, I sit on one and cross my legs on the second. I light the blunt without smoking it. It’s what I do.
• I inhale. I take in the smell and wait to get high. Being high makes me forget what it was like to be the popular Calum from a long time ago. I hold the blunt away from my face, watching the smoke drift to the heavens. I’ve never understood smoking but I have always understood the need to be high.
• My door opens. “Calum?” I lower my hand. The smell of the weed overpowers her scent. I take in another whiff of it to drown that fruity scent associated with her. “Wow, are you smoking?” My eyes open. “You’re not allowed to do that here.”
• I’m not looking at her when I say, “Then try to stop me.”
• “I’m going to tell my dad.”
• “Go ahead.”
• Cathy scoffs. Her pink hair is pulled away from her face to reveal her beauty and I take in the sight of her. The swell of her breasts peeking out from her white tank top, the curve of her wide hips in the blue jean glued to her body. She’s beautiful in a mature way. Like an adult, instead of an unruly teen. I’m so fucked if I’m thinking of her in this light. Her eyes narrow slightly as she ponders my words, she walks further into my room. So close.
• “Dad?” she screams, just like she did when I picked her friend and those other girls over her. That might have been a hasty decision but the glare, the annoyance written all over her face was worth it. She would know better than to lie to anyone. “Dad. Calum is smoking up here.”
• I toss the blunt to the floor and step on it. “I wasn’t smoking,” I say as I walk into my room. “And your dad is not home. What do you want?”
• Cathy gulps audibly. Now, she’s nervous. I take a slow, calculated step towards her. She stands her ground but I glimpse the slight tremble of her arms before she hides her anxiety behind a mask of indifference.
• “What do you want, Cathy?” I ask, placing stress on every syllable to get the point across.
• What point? That she’s unwanted here.
• Without warning, Cathy starts singing the song we have been practising at rehearsals. Pavarotti and other opera singers would be proud of her.
• Her voice is perfect, sweet like maple syrup dripping onto a heap of pancakes. It flows into my ears and waters my soul, silencing the voices and doubts in my head. Her voice calms me. In ways the weed has never done.
• I fucking hate it.
• “Shut up.”
• “I’m sorry,” she breathes. Her voice is a bit raspy from the singing and her eyes are a bit teary. The emotions she expended into singing flash across her face. “Can I please come back to the choir?”
• “No.” Not until her chemistry grades are better.
• “It was just a kiss.” The fire is back in her eyes, no more innocence or little girl act present like when she apologised. “Come on. It was just a kiss, Calum.”
• Not anymore. It was a curse, a plague because I have spent nights replaying it over and over in my head. And now that I know what she sounds as a singer, I want to kiss her again. It’s wrong.
• Our eyes meet and hold in a silent dare. Blue to blue eyes. Something in my expression scares her off. She backs away as I take steps towards her. Her back hits the wall and she lets out a small groan. Her baby blue eyes fly around my room, searching for an escape. I block out her path by placing a hand on one side of her head.
• My bad.
• The blue of her eyes is clearer up close, clear and gut-wrenching. I can see into her soul, a certain sadness that’s present on a second look.
• Why is a seventeen-year-old this sad?
• Beneath the impenetrable sadness is a flicker of interest. Interest in me, I believe. I’m interested in her too. In ways an adult shouldn’t be interested in a teen and my fingers almost reach up to touch the faint freckles scattered across her nose and cheek.
• She’s stunning.
• Shame soaks my frame at that thought, I push back so we are both standing and watching each other.
• “You lied to me about something so important,” I say. “I could have gotten into trouble for it.”
• “But you didn’t,” she interrupts. That pride that swallows up her other good characteristics rears its ugly head. “We didn’t even have sex.”
• And we might have if Cathy stayed a bit longer and let me work my charms. I study her face for any signs of remorse. Maybe her teenage brain cannot comprehend the extent of the possible damage. She’s not sorry. Given a chance, she might do it again. That knowledge solidifies my decision to keep her off the team. It’s only fair.
• “The age of consent is sixteen,” she continues in my silence. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”
• Maybe not to her. But to me, it matters a whole lot. The pad of my thumb runs up her smooth chin, traces the outline of her lips. Her breath catches. Her gaze locks on my lower lip and my tongue does a slow sweep over it. She shifts her gaze to my face. Without breaking eye contact, she nips on her upper lip the way I did during our kiss. A torturous groan follows after the act.
• Lust clouds her eyes. She’s thinking about our kiss. I’m also thinking about it. I lean in close enough for my lips to brush her ear. “Get out.”