“School,” I blurted out, trying to step back without looking where I was going. My back collided with the doorframe and I winced. “Ow.” I tried to calm my breathing, but the wood had taken my breath away. “I’m leaving in twenty,” I told him, and finally moved my hand off my eyes. I kept them squeezed closed as I felt my way out of his bedroom then spun around to walk into mine.
My pulse was thrumming in my ears as I heard him move down the hallway and then the shower turned on several minutes later. I shouldn't have still been thinking about his naked body. I shouldn't have had his tensed abs and V burned into my retinas, but I did. Dammit. This wasn’t the plan. He was meant to be my sweet nephew who would lie low for a couple of months and leave like he’d never been here, but now all I could think about was his naked body standing in my shower.
I slapped my hand on the wall beside me and growled at the vibrations it sent up my arm. Stop it, Sky. He’s eighteen, your nephew, and just needs help. I was overthinking everything, and I had a feeling it was because I wasn’t used to having a male in my house, unless you counted the stray cat who liked to stroll in like he owned the place.
My cell pinged with a message from Guy, the man I’d been dating for the last month since the school year had started. He was the chemistry teacher in the school, and he’d used a cheesy pick-up line that had made me laugh, so when he’d asked me out, I figured I had nothing to lose.
Guy: Missed you this weekend.
I grinned down at the message and typed one out.
Skylar: Missed you too. Meet you for lunch in the teachers’ lounge?
Guy: It’s a date.
“Hey, Skylar? I’m ready to go and fully clothed,” Carter called from outside my bedroom. I jumped on the spot and locked my cell on impulse.
“I’m coming!” I shouted, checking in the mirror one last time. My face had minimal makeup and my shoulder-length black hair was straight, but it wasn’t what I was looking at. It was the tattoos on my back and shoulders I made sure were covered up. People had an opinion of me from who
my mother was and the way I acted, but they’d never know my love of ink. I’d noticed some ink on Carter’s chest too—no, stop it, don’t think about it.
I shook my head, trying to eject the image of Carter out of my brain, and pulled a smile on my face as I opened my bedroom door. Carter wasn’t there, but I could hear him murmuring to someone in the living room, and when I walked in, I saw him talking on his cell.
“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine.” He turned and stared at me, his gaze tracking over my pale pink blouse and down to my knee-length skirt I was wearing. His eyes flared, and I hated how much it drew me in. “Skylar is fine too,” he said, his voice deeper this time. I was sure there was another meaning behind his words, but I ignored it as I grabbed my bag full of assignments and my laptop off the sofa.
“Tell your mom we’re leaving for school,” I told Carter, to which he repeated me, and I headed to the front door. I’d just gotten it open when his footsteps came closer and his hand wrapped around my wrist.
“I can get that for you,” he said, his voice low.
“I got it,” I told him. And I did have it. I was used to lugging this bag to and from school every day. “Lock the door behind you, I got you a key made yesterday, it’s on the shoe rack.” I stepped away from him, feeling his hand trail off my wrist, and walked to my car. My trunk opened automatically when I waved my foot near the exhaust, and I placed my bag inside it.
“Well, shit, that’s fuckin' modern.”
“Language,” I automatically said. It wasn’t that I wasn’t used to hearing it, because I was. I was around a bunch of teenagers all day, but that didn’t mean it was part of my vocabulary. There were much better words than fuck, unless you stubbed your toe, which in that case, was more than acceptable.
“Damn.” Carter leaned against the side of my car, his arms crossed over his chest. “You one of them people, Aunt Skylar?” I flared my nostrils at the way he said my name. My skin felt icky with the tone he’d used and the fact I’d seen him naked not long ago. Dammit, I was thinking about it again.
“One of what people?” I asked, opening my door and sliding inside the car.
He didn’t answer me as he got in too, not until I’d pulled out of the driveway and was on the ride to school. “The goody-two-shoes kind.” I shrugged, not committing to any answer. If I said no, he wouldn’t believe me, and if I said yes, I’d be setting myself up for failure because that wasn’t who I was.
“Just because I don’t use fuck and shit for every second word I say, doesn’t mean I’m opposed to cursing. But it has a time and a place, Carter.” My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as I took a corner, my heart hammering as I did. There was a reason I had such a small car, because I hated driving. Someone beeped from behind me, and I gritted my teeth. I was going the speed limit, and just because I wasn’t going to be late, didn’t mean I had to go over it.
I kept my gaze fixated to the road and flinched as the car overtook me and beeped his horn again.
“You okay there, Skylar?” Carter asked, but I couldn’t look at him. I was meant to be the adult here. I was meant to be the one keeping him safe, when I couldn’t even do the ten-minute drive to school without breaking a nervous sweat.
“I’m fine,” I gritted out, finally pulling into the school parking lot. I drove toward the back and to the section just for teachers, and blew out a breath when I turned the engine off. Maybe I was just extra nervous because things had been so...weird the last couple of days. I was a woman who liked her routine, I had been since I was a kid, and now, even at the age of twenty-eight, I still liked to schedule my days out down to the last minute.
“Can’t believe I’ve gotta go to school,” Carter huffed out, and I finally looked over at him.
“When was the last time you went?”
He shrugged and opened his door. “Maybe when I was in tenth grade. I dunno, Sky. School don’t mean shit to me.”
I followed him out of the car and toward my trunk, but he was already retrieving my bag and closing the trunk by the time I got there. I clicked my fob and the lights flashed as the car locked.
“School can take you places,” I told him, walking side by side with him toward the main entrance. The glass doors were shiny, but would no doubt be marked with a thousand handprints by the end of the day.