Teacher's Pet by Rae Lynn Blaise Page A

debate about continuing the tradition of letting in any juniors this year, and Lynn was grateful nobody had been chosen yet, leaving their space a little less crowded for the time being.
    “Yes. It’s him!”
    “Oh god.” Dana fanned herself. “Captain Kirk is the super-hot actor. Goddamn, Lynn. I’m so impressed. Teach me your secrets.”
    “Funny.” Lynn bit into a too-hot pizza stick and winced. “What a fucking day.”
    Dana tapped her fingers on the table. “You aren’t… you aren’t going to transfer out, are you? Because you can’t freaking leave me during our senior year. You just can’t.”
    Lynn said nothing. It’d be a lie to say she hadn’t considered it. “Professional” or not, it was going to be unimaginably hard to sit in class with that man every day like nothing happened. And if she did get cast in the play? She’d die if he coached her platonically. Die.
    “Look, I’m not saying I don’t get it, because I would totally understand if you felt the need. That’s huge. I mean, if someone found out, you could get expelled, right?”
    “Probably. And he’d get fired. Then again, it was just over the summer, right? He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when we… you know.”
    “Bumped nasties?”
    “Dana.”
    “Tickled his pickle?”
    “Seriously, quit.”
    “Schnoodlypooping? Bam-bam in the ham? Tonking? Entering the castle? Laying the pipe? Parting the pink sea? Playing hide the cannoli?”
    “Will you… bam-bam in the ham?” Lynn laughed. “What the hell?”
    “Whitewashing the picket fence?”
    “Good god. You are a mess.” Lynn rubbed her temples. “We did all of that, yes. And it was all fucking amazing. And it could probably get me expelled and him fired. This is terrible.”
    “Terrible, yeah.” Dana nodded empathetically. “And hot. You banged the hottest thing to ever happen to this school, Lynn. Captain Kirk! In the hot pants!”
    They fell silent as Aria Levens and her crew walked past.
    “In trouble on the first day, Viggiani?” Aria clucked her tongue and laughed. “Not setting the stage for the whole year, are we? I’d hate to see your chances for Romeo and Juliet fall flat because you had too many points to your name.”
    “Eat shit and die, Levens.” Dana smiled sweetly.
    Aria scoffed. “Just a warning for our friend here. No need to get hostile, Moss.”
    “Fuck off, Aria.” Lynn didn’t feel like dealing with her. Not now. Aria was the last person in the school who could catch wind about her history with Matthew. “The big girls are talking.”
    “I can’t wait to own you in the auditions.” Aria bared her shark-like teeth and waved with three fingers.
    “She’s worse than last year.” Dana flicked her off. “I can’t wait for her to contract herpes.”
    “What a glorious day that will be.” Lynn nodded and slumped in her chair. “Dana, what do I do? I can’t leave. My parents would never pull me out, anyway. Not without good reason. And they can not know about this summer. They wouldn’t even let me finish by correspondence, so changing schools is out of the question. And I can’t leave you. But I also can’t get expelled, and… what?”
    Dana had been chewing intently on her straw. She cleared her throat. “I’m just wondering… um, do you even want to transfer out? I mean, do you want to, you know, get back with…”
    “He’s my teacher, Dana.” Lynn whispered. “We’ll both be fucked. I can’t do that to him.”
    “I know, I know. I’m just asking. It’s my duty to ask. If you feel yourself slipping, you tell me immediately. It’s also my duty to protect you.”
    Lynn blew a kiss at her and Dana returned it.
    “Okay, but if it was one hundred percent certain you wouldn’t get caught…”
    Lynn sighed, feeling the same twinges from before wind up in her middle. “In a heartbeat, Dana. A goddamn heartbeat.”
    Suppressing her feelings was harder than she expected. The threat of discovery and expulsion was