“That’s great,” my dad said. “I’m not surprised.”
“Well, I called her teacher an asshole the first time we were together, so I kinda fucked up there.” Lizzie thought I was funny, and she seemed to respect me because she listened to me pretty well. I noticed she talked back to her mom a lot, but that seemed to be how most daughters were with their mothers. I remembered the fits Daisy used to throw. “But she listens to me, she’s grasping the lessons, and I feel like we accomplish a lot by the time the session is over.”
My dad continued to eat as he stared at me, interested in everything I had to say.
“She said she prefers me to her own teacher.” I had a feeling I wouldn’t like him because he didn’t show much mentorship toward his students. I was hard on my own students, but I was always there for them outside the classroom, answering their emails late into the night, making videos of problems they didn’t understand and sending it back to them, and spending my office hour in the classroom so they could all benefit. I was a busy man who had a lot of shit to do, but I made a commitment to them and I honored it. “I know he just teaches seventh grade, but instruction at the younger ages is more important than instruction at an older age…if you ask me.”
“Well, you’re also very bright, Derek,” my father said. “Not only do you understand things well, but you understand what people don’t understand—and that’s why you’re such a good teacher.”
I looked down at my food and let his compliment wash over me. “Maybe.”
“Did you talk about her?” Mom asked.
“Yeah, I asked about sports and her friends. She didn’t say much. But I feel like she’s more confident. I told her she could be anything she wanted to be, that she’s not stupid, that no one is stupid. And she seemed to take that to heart.”
“Good,” Dad said. “That’s what young people need to hear when their teachers tell them otherwise.”
“When do you think you’ll tell Lizzie about your relationship?” Mom asked.
“I…I don’t know.” That would be a completely different kind of relationship, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it. I was less timid because Lizzie seemed like a nice girl, but our interactions would be totally altered once she knew I was romantically involved with her mother. “We’ll just see how it goes for a while.”I stepped outside the lab and approached the golf cart when Emerson drove up and parked.
“Where are you going, hot stuff?”
I grinned at the nickname. “Hot stuff?”
“Yeah.” She parked then got out, looking me up and down. “Come on, walking around like that all day…”
“Like what?” I looked down at myself, wearing a black hoodie and black jeans.
She rolled her eyes, like I was the stupid one. “So, where are you going?”
“Driving to Warehouse C. They built part of the rocket, and I want to take a look.”
“Cool. Can I join you?”
“Of course.”
She got into the golf cart.
I moved to the seat beside her and turned on the engine.
Her hand moved to my thigh, and she leaned in and kissed me, even though she hardly ever did that at work, at least not when Jerome and Pierre were still there. But no one was around now, so she just went for it.
I kissed her back, briefly forgetting about the rest of the world, forgetting about the rocket, my hectic calendar, all the shit that needed my attention, but I would probably never get to.
Her hand moved farther up my thigh until she rubbed my dick through my jeans. Then she pulled away, tracing her finger along the edge of her lips like she’d just smeared her color all over my dick. Then she looked at me and wiped her shade from the corner of my mouth, wearing that affectionate look like I was her entire world and beyond. “There. Good as new.”
Now I knew I wasn’t leaving this lab tonight until I had her. Jerome and Pierre would leave, and then I would be all over her, taking her on the couch in my office, getting that lipstick all over my neck and mouth—but this time, I wouldn’t wipe it away.
I drove to the other warehouse and tried not to think about it. Otherwise, people would notice the big bulge in the front of my jeans. We walked inside and saw the base the engineers had constructed in the hangar. I greeted a few people before I walked closer to the base, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Whoa…” Emerson stood beside me and looked up the base, which went at least thirty feet in the air. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
I examined the plates on the outside, saw the electrical engineers working on the wires in the component, the ants on the hill functioning as a team to put this together. Jerome, Pierre, and I conceptualized this thing, but they were the ones who had to put it together. A lot could go wrong, get lost in translation.