Disclaimer: Though this story has a high school setting, both characters are over the age of 18.
*
Jackson sits at his desk, anxiously tapping a pen against his temple and watching the ancient clock on the wall tick one minute closer to 4:30. He's begun to look on these after school tutoring sessions with a strange mixture of anticipation and dread. No, he knows it isn't the tutoring itself. His pulse never sped on Monday and Wednesday, his stomach never tightened during the groups sessions on Friday. No. He knows it's her, he just doesn't want to admit it to himself.
He hears those insufferable Uggs, clomping down the rickety wooden deck that connects the temporary buildings in the muddy field behind the school, and he jumps with a sudden need to appear busy. As the footstep sounds lift above the intermittent plopping of the rain, he shuffles his scattered papers into a rough stack and stands, turning his back to shove them into a random drawer of the filing cabinet.
"Hey, Mr. Denney." Familiar and cheery, as usual.
Jackson runs a hand through his unruly dark hair and looks over at her. He takes in the skinny jeans, the tight ponytail, the fitted blue-striped shirt coming into view as she strips her jacket off, all in one jumpy glance. "Hi Gwen," he replies, returning to his fake work. Sure, he tried as much as he could to keep his voice level, casual, but inwardly he curses his school-boy nerves that made it sound oddly eager to him. "Be with you in a second," he continues. Better. "Take a seat, get out your practice set. How's your day been?"
"Stellar," she answers with a touch of good-natured sarcasm. He can see her rolling her eyes without even looking. "You know, it's always been my dream to have one of Mrs. Lange's pop quizzes and the cafeteria's tuna casserole in the same day." He has to laugh.
When he turns around he sees she's slid herself into the nearest chair, one of those time-worn wooden models with the half-size desk tacked onto the side, and is smiling up at him. She leans her elbows onto that tiny strip of board, pinning her papers down and displaying more than a hint of cleavage at the bottom of that V-neck. He swears, she does that shit on purpose. "Can't all be that bad," he replies lightly.
"Nah," she admits, pertly adding, "I get to come see you after."
"Aw," he retorts, as if making fun of her cheesiness, but he can't help feel some misplaced bit of gratification. After a quick clearing of his throat, he switches the subject to the task at hand. "So anything on this give you trouble?" He gestures at the problem set and circles his large desk to lean against one of the smaller ones next to her.
Put the students at ease, he was taught at university, not so long ago. Talk to them on their level, facilitate a comfortable learning environment, all that. He didn't think his professors had anticipated him having to fight an erection during those techniques, though. He remembers one day weeks ago when she'd come in wearing yoga pants and one of those stretchy tank tops with no bra; he'd had to retreat behind the big desk and sit there the whole time to hide his stiff cock.
Yes, she's beginning to get over her difficulty with logartihms, that's what she's telling him. He mutters mild noises of encouragement as she walks him through one of the more difficult problems on the sheet, all the while marveling at the way she carries herself. The way she stretches out in that uncomfortable wooden seat as if it's a deck chair by the pool, slender thighs lusciously crossed. The slow drape of her blond hair as she leisurely brushes through it with idle fingers. The curve of her modest but shapely breasts peeking through her shirt, angled purposefully toward him.
She isn't tied down by any of the definable cliques of the school, he often observed. Not the cheerleaders, the athletes, the artists. She's popular, no doubt, but it seems to be based on pure charisma. She's the kind of charmer that eluded him in his own high school years, nearly a decade ago. His long face and slightly too large nose, his and soft eyes and scholarly bent, they all kept those girls far out of his league. He had some manner of success in college, when he filled out playing intramural soccer and ditched the wire-framed glasses, but even then, none of those women had had half the raw allure that Gwen had.
"And I didn't know if that was right?" Gwen's prompting for a response snaps him back to reality. With a little frown he focuses himself on her work, scanning the problem in question and moving the numbers around in order to keep his mind off of warmer, softer things.
She's your student
, he keeps reminding himself.
She's your fucking student
.
He manages to make it through the rest of the session without letting his attention wander too far, despite the temptations of her lip gloss application and a glimpse of bra strap. Still, it's Gwen who notices that they're five minutes over time.
"Oh, right. Let me get your next..." He has to stop, because as soon as he stood from his lean, she stood too, leaving them in provocatively close quarters in that narrow aisle.
Gwen smiles wide, looking up at him from their few inches height difference and murmuring, "Oops, sorry." But she doesn't move an inch. Instead she lifts a hand to his arm and gives it a subtle squeeze. "Thanks for your help, Mr. Denney. Really. I think I'm getting it. Finally." And she laughs a bit, plump lips drawn prettily taut.
"It's... just doing my job," he answers her, lingering only a second longer to give her a stilted smile and a cool pat on the shoulder before he sidesteps. He waits until his face is turned before he grimaces at the lameness of his response. It's with a purposeful restraint that he says, "See you again next week," and hands her the next worksheet at arm's length. He doesn't even wait to watch her gather her things and go, he just returns to his imaginary work at the filing cabinet.
