A betting pool.
God, as if things weren’t hard enough, now there was money on who could make me act inappropriately first? I’d had girls requesting one-on-one tutoring, girls leaving me gifts on my desk, and the number of girls “dropping” things while I was in their close proximity so they would have to retrieve them, asses high in the air, would almost be funny if it were happening to anyone else.
Hell, one girl had her father make a sizeable donation to the History department, stating that my techniques had encouraged his daughter to take her education more seriously. I’d been here a week! She was taking something seriously, but I doubted very much that it was her education.
Taking my lunch out of the fridge, I smiled and sat down next to Mark. At twenty-seven, he was four years older than me, yet the only one even remotely close to me in age. Every other teacher here was over thirty—with some having taught at the school for more than thirty years. Talk about feeling out of place.
Don’t get me wrong. Everyone was nice, but the difference in age made it difficult to evolve relationships beyond the usual small talk. At least with Mark I could talk about football, or cars, and whatever else. The other teachers and their talk of politics and evolution intimidated the shit out of me.
My first impression of Tennerson Academy had been holy fucking shit.
Tennerson has consistently been in the top twenty preparatory schools in the country. As a senior school, it accepted students aged between sixteen and eighteen.
It had been exclusively a boarding school until 1983, when it began accepting day students as well. Today, the hundred and thirty-eight residential students were divided among five houses—each house accommodating up to twenty students. In each building there was a leader and two teachers. The remaining teachers either lived on or off campus.
As a new teacher, I was living on campus in my own unit, which somewhat resembled a hotel suite—modern and clean—located in the teachers’ quarters.
Thank fucking Christ they hadn’t put me in one of the residential houses. I wouldn’t rule out being attacked in my sleep by some of these girls—girls who were used to getting exactly what they wanted.
This was so much more pressure than your usual teaching job. Here, you’re around it 24/7. That’s a hard thing to adapt to when you lack experience.
All you had to do was look around the teacher’s lounge: Tennerson’s liked experience, and lots of it. That made me feel nervous—like everyone was wondering what I did to get the job. Hell, I sometimes wondered myself how I got this job.
Oh wait, that’s right: my interfering mother.
“Tuna fish?” Mark screwed his nose up as he glanced over at my sandwich.
“You don’t have to eat it,” I told him, taking a big bite and washing it down with a soda.
“Yeah, but I have to smell it,” he retorted, moving a seat down.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Are you going to Layna’s tonight?” I asked him. Layna—the headmistress—and her husband, Dan, lived in a house behind the main building. Every Friday night, she and Dan hosted a dinner for the staff.
I’d known Layna for years, though we had only met a handful of times at big family events. She and Mom spoke regularly, but living so far away from each other made catching up hard. It was those big events—like Dad’s funeral—where I had actually met her.
Mark nodded. “Probably. Nothing better to do, may as well get a free feed, huh?”
“My thoughts exactly.” I chuckled.
“Glad your first week is over?” he asked.
I groaned. “That would be an understatement. I just found out there’s a betting pool on which one of my students is going to kiss me first.”
Mark laughed, banging his fist down on the table. I glowered at him. Was it really that funny?
“Seriously? Watch out, dude, these girls are brutal. That’s the trouble with rich kids—they’re used to getting whatever they want, no matter the cost.” He glanced down to his beer belly. “Not sure why they’re not trying to hit me up, though.” He grinned.
“No idea, dude.” I laughed. “But I have to admit, I’m glad this is only a short-term contract.”
“You say that now, but give it ten years. A pretty girl paying attention to you then will be the highlight of your week.” He laughed again as I shook my head. There were so many things wrong with what he’d just said that I didn’t even know where to start.
“I don’t know about that, but I do wish girls had paid this much attention to me in college.” I chuckled.
Mark snorted. “I find it hard to believe college girls were doing anything other than throwing themselves at your feet. And think about this: all those pretty college girls you were fucking last year? They were these girls only a year or two earlier.”