And she still couldn’t bring herself to take her wedding rings off. Not when she noticed Scott still wore his.
No, it wasn’t her holding onto some irrational hope, but she wanted to maintain normalcy as long as possible. At least until the end of the school year. She had a room full of kids depending on her to be at her best, so she could help them be their best.
And she couldn’t do that if she was falling apart at the seams.
She opted to spend that night in the guest room, alone. She was already in there, with the door locked, when Scott returned home from work around eleven that night. Considering his shift ended at ten thirty, she knew he hadn’t stopped by Keith’s on the way home. Following his progress, she heard him walk through the darkened house and then open the bedroom door.
His bedroom door, now.
There was a moment’s hesitation, what sounded like him walking around, before he called out.
“Noel?”
“I’m in bed,” she called out, a pillow tightly clutched against her. “Good night, Scott.”
“Why are you in there?”
“It’s my room now. Good night.”
She heard him try the locked doorknob, then knock. “Can we talk?”
“Scott, I have to get up early for work tomorrow. Good night.”
She pressed her face against the pillow, willing him away, praying he gave up.
Finally, he said, “Good night.” Then she heard his bedroom door close behind him.
Part of her wanted to race over to the door, throw it open, and follow him.
Beg him not to leave her.
And then there was logic-brain, which knew she needed to detox, like any other addiction. Go through the withdrawals, suffer through the process, and—hopefully—come out stronger on the other side for having gone through it.
She closed her eyes and hoped for sleep.
* * * *
Keith moved in that weekend. Yes, the landlord did return his security deposit and was letting him out of the lease sooner than expected. He rented a storage unit and a truck, and anything they wouldn’t need or couldn’t use at the house went into storage.
Noel made herself scarce for the move-in process after offering to help and them gently telling her no, that they didn’t expect her to do that. She and Eliza went out to see an early movie and window shop in the mall before grabbing dinner.
“You sure you’re handling this all right?” Eliza asked her.
“No, I’m not, but I’m handling it the only way I know how. That has to be good enough.”
“Okay. I’m here to talk, if you need to. Or if it’s too intense and you want a place to stay for awhile, come to our place.”
“Thanks. But when I move out, it needs to be into my own place. I’ll see how this goes. I might be fine after a few weeks of Keith living with us.”
“No offense, but you’re right, he is a serious hunk of man.” Eliza had caught a good look at him when she arrived to pick up Noel.
“I know, right?” Noel sat back in the booth. “It’s so not fair he found a cute guy.”
“You’d prefer he had a troll? Really?” Eliza arched an eyebrow at her. “You’d be okay with your husband finding an ugly guy more attractive than you?”
“Well, not when you put it like that.” No, she hadn’t thought about it like that, either.
Still didn’t mean she didn’t envy Scott, at least a little, for finding Keith.
Chapter Thirteen
Noel secretly admitted having Keith living under the same roof wasn’t the worst thing. At least she knew where Scott was every night, and that he was safe. Keith seemed really into him, which while she felt jealous, also put her at ease.
And Keith still deferred to her as Scott’s wife. Made sure Scott made time for her, too. Especially difficult sometimes considering Scott’s work schedule. Sometimes she saw more of Keith than she did Scott, but Keith always made sure to send Scott to her first.
She really did want Scott to be happy. If Keith could make Scott happy, she’d do her damnedest to get along with the guy. It was the right thing to do, and while it left her feeling left out and empty in some ways, she knew she could still look at herself in the mirror every morning and know she wasn’t acting out of petty jealousy.
It was Wednesday on the last week of school before summer break started. Noel and the other teachers would still be working a few days after that, finalizing their paperwork in preparation for summer break. Noel was a little surprised when she got called into the principal’s office that afternoon once the students had left for the day.
As soon as Noel walked through the Mary Scarthers’ door, her senses tingled. Whether it was the look on the woman’s face, or just a gut instinct, Noel knew this wouldn’t be good.
“Close the door, please,” she told Noel.
Noel did, dreading the short walk to one of the chairs in front of her desk.
“I need to talk with you about one of your students, Stacy Moog.”
Noel nearly groaned. “What now?”
“Her mother, Barbara, has brought a troubling complaint to my attention.”
“That woman has been trouble since last year. Ask Kennedy Charles. She taught Stacy. The kid has a learning disability that needs to be properly diagnosed.”
“This isn’t about that.”
“Then what?”
Mary opened a file on her desk, removed a few printouts, and slid them across the desk toward Noel.
Noel didn’t want to look at them, much less touch them. She finally took a deep breath and looked down.
They were printouts of Scott’s Facebook page. Not the one where she was connected to him, but his other one, a second one he had used to connect with kinky friends. It wasn’t linked to her or his vanilla Facebook account.
“What’s this?” Noel asked, feeling numb.
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
On it were a few exchanges between Keith and Scott, ones that weren’t explicit, but definitely weren’t innocent under any circumstances.
There were also printouts of Keith’s profile page, and of the likes pages of both men, where they had liked various kinky and BDSM-related things. Including Venture, the BDSM club.
And showing the fact that Keith had listed he was in a relationship with Scott, and that Scott had listed he was in a relationship with Keith.
“Is this your husband’s profile?”
“What difference does it make?” Mentally, Noel was cursing that both men hadn’t taken more precautions with their privacy. Then again, come to think of it, maybe she needed to go through and lock down her page.
“It makes a difference when one of our parents comes in complaining about a teacher who apparently has a husband engaged in immoral acts.”
Protective rage filled Noel. “For starters, my husband is not an immoral man, and what he does or doesn’t do isn’t anyone’s business but his and mine. It’s certainly not the business of some nosy parents who can’t stand the fact that their less-than-stellar homeschooling skills allowed their child to get behind and not get the help she needed sooner. Talk about deflecting blame.”
“That may be the case, but I did some digging. I know that what your husband does in his personal time isn’t a problem for him with his job at the county. Unfortunately, you work with children.”
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“Your contract is up for renewal this year. If you walk away, this incident will never appear on your record. You will have an unblemished personnel record, and you will receive nothing but the highest references from myself and the school board. If you force me to take this to human resources to look into it, unfortunately, I will have to. The mother has threatened to file a complaint and said if her daughter passes and you are no longer teaching, she’ll drop it.”
White-hot rage filled Noel. “I’m being blackmailed, is what you’re saying?”
“You’ve been here ten years. You’re a good teacher. You could get a better job at a private or charter school. You know you could. Please, I don’t want to have to do this. Yes, you will likely be cleared, but do you really want that cloud hanging over you in the future? Who knows what kind of press coverage the woman will drum up in her attempt to ruin you.”