A glance at the teacher showed Darian watching him, waiting for an answer. Again. "Who, me?" he asked, surprised.
"Am I losing you already?" Darian teased. "Most people I know don't start to drift off until the second class but you ... you're a hard one to please."
Shaking his head, Stacy assured him, "Oh no, I'm real easy."
You so didn't need to know that, he thought, his face heating up. Someone laughed, Jennifer maybe, or one of the other kids still hanging around, he didn't see who. He was too busy picking at a splinter imbedded in the desk, his head down to hide his embarrassment. When was the last time he got like this? Not with Lamar, surely. Not with Ange, either, despite the fierce crush he had on his friend. Still, they were friends, and nothing Ange said or did made Stacy feel gawky or awkward. But this, Darian...
This is nothing. Stacy watched Darian walk around the workstations, checking locks. The other students were gone now, even Jennifer, leaving the two of them alone. His hands were beginning to sweat inside his gloves. Nothing to get worked up about. This is school, remember? He's a teacher. I'm just stressed from the first day back and it has nothing to do with him, get it? Nothing at all. It had been a long day--he wasn't used to these hours, these classes, homework and math problems and reading. Not to mention the shit that went down at lunch--Darian was right, he didn't want to fall in with that again.
Darian. Why did all of Stacy's thoughts circle back to him?
Angrily he tugged the gloves off, first one, then the other, then ripped off the bands that held his sleeves down. Shoving both into the pouch of his apron, he started across the room as he slid off the safety goggles. The air was cool on his skin, especially around his eyes and along the path where the goggles' strap lay against his face. What time was it now, a little after two thirty? The bus ran every ten minutes but there was no way he'd make the next one, it'd take that long to get to the stop--
You're stalling, he told himself.
It was true. He stood beside the desk closest to the wall, his hands behind his back fiddling with the straps of his apron. His fingers kept slipping over the knot Darian had tied earlier, his mind twisted and twined like the strings he couldn't see. With slow, distracted steps he crossed to the safety supply wall, messing with the knot and then simply holding the apron strings in place, hands on his hips, when he finally untied them. He was stalling, dawdling about, lingering at the edge of the room while he fussed over his apron and gloves and goggles. Waiting for Darian to notice him and say something, waiting to be seen. We're alone again, he thought, watching Darian from the corner of his eye as the older man moved among the workstations. Would the past two hours wedge between them now, forcing them into the roles of student and teacher? Or could they pick things up where they left off during lunch? And where did they leave off, honestly?
There was nothing in Stacy's experience that helped classify these thoughts, these feelings, this guy with the warm hands and quick laugh, this teacher who refused to be filed away so easily as such. Just get your shit and go, Stacy told himself. He slipped the apron off over his head to hang it up on the wall with the others. You can wait at the bus stop. Lamar should be gone by now and Ange should be home, just go and call him once you get back to the apartment, tell him to come over. What you need is a good fuck, Stace. Get your groove back on track and get your mind off--
"So, what'd you think?"
At Darian's question, Stacy dropped his apron like a fumbled pass. "About what?" he asked, too quickly. A glance over his shoulder and Darian was right there, right up on him, Jesus. Stepping aside, Stacy half-turned towards the teacher before he bent to pick up his apron. He remembered all too well the memory of those hands, and the last thing he needed was their touch again, no matter how inadvertent. Scooping up the apron, Stacy set it on the counter that ran alongside the wall and tried to sound nonchalant. "You mean the class?"
Darian laughed and leaned back against the counter beside him. "Yeah the class."
With an indifferent shrug, Stacy answered, "It was cool." Truthfully, it was the best two hours he'd spent in a long time but he wouldn't admit it.
If Darian was disappointed with his response, he hid it with another laugh. "Cool," he repeated, shaking his head. "Guess I can't really expect much more than that just yet. Wait 'til you get your hands on my tools, though. Then tell me what you think."
Oh God, Stacy thought. He stared at Darian with wide eyes--had he meant that to sound like it came out sounding? "Your hands on my tools" ... my mind is in the gutter. Holy damn, but I gotta get home. Call Ange, get laid, work out this tension, where was it coming from? "Tomorrow I'll be better," Stacy mumbled, mostly to himself.
"You weren't bad today," Darian replied.
)
