“School is over in three months. I’m quite certain I won’t overcome those fears that fast.” I knew I sounded defiant, and maybe I was. But I didn’t know how else to be. I could tell how desperate he was for me to concede to his point, however, I couldn’t. Agreeing with him meant we wouldn’t be together, and I wasn’t ready to wave the white flag just yet.

“Do you know something I don’t? Are you graduating as a junior and didn’t tell me? Or am I losing my job? Because yes, summer starts in three months, but three months after that, school will resume. And we’ll be right back to being teacher and student again.”

“But you won’t be my teacher.”

A sarcastic laugh echoed throughout the room. “Stop being so naïve, Bree. It doesn’t matter if you’re in my class or not. I’m forbidden to date any student in the school. If you were a senior right now, this wouldn’t even be an issue. But we’re talking about over a year of keeping our hands to ourselves.”

“Am I not worth the wait?”

He punched the armrest and stood, running his fingers through his hair as he paced the length of the room. “Want me to spell it out? Fine.” He dropped his hands, squared his body with mine, and narrowed his gaze as he loomed over me from a few feet away. “Are you worth waiting for? Hell yes. You’re worth everything. I’ve told you this half a dozen times, yet you never believe me. But this isn’t about what you’re worth. It’s about being realistic.”

His aggressive tone caused my muscles to tense as I sat in front of him, watching his exasperation pour out of him in waves that threatened to take me under.

“You want to go back to the way things were. Well, that’s unrealistic. It can’t happen. We might be able to pull it off for a few weeks, but eventually, one of us will crack—more than likely me. I’m a passionate guy, Bree. When I like someone, I want to tell them. It may start out with me telling you how beautiful you are, which sounds innocent because it is. But then what happens when you come to school in the spring wearing a skirt, or a dress, showing off legs I’ve never seen? I’ll probably spend the entire time in class thinking about how sexy they are, and before I know it, I’ll be daydreaming about them wrapped around my waist. And then I’d have to hide behind the podium for the rest of the day to conceal what you do to me. Somewhere along the way, I’m going to want to tell you that. I’m going to find the need to tell you how sexy you are, how much you turn me on, and all the things I’d do to your body that I’d give my left nut for if I had the chance.”

The throbbing in my core returned, but I had to block it out and be rational. “All I keep hearing from you is what will happen when. We could go all night discussing hypothetical situations, but it won’t do us any good. Since you seem to know it all, tell me, Axel, what do you suggest we do?”

He shuffled his feet for a second, sucking on his teeth in thought before shrugging. “I don’t know, Bree. I ended things two weeks ago for this very reason. I thought that would be best. No contact, so that way we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.”

“So that’s what you want? Go back to ignoring each other?”

His throat worked as he swallowed hard and then gave me two short, jerky head shakes. “No. I said I thought that it would be best. I’ve never said that’s what I wanted. You asked me what I thought we should do.”

“Let me rephrase. What do you want to do?”

His eyes lit up before they scanned my body. “Rip your clothes off, lick you from head to toe, and make you scream until you’re sweaty and your throat is sore.”

I laughed nervously and rolled my eyes, not wanting him to know how much of an effect his words had on my body. “I’m being serious, Axel.”

“So am I, Bree. Which is why this is a bad idea. We’re miserable without each other. But we can’t be together without endangering my career and your reputation—or worse, without me seeing the inside of a jail cell. So the way I see it, we either spend a year in misery, wait it out, and then try again after you graduate, or take a chance and gamble it all.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t about to let it go that easily. I still had more fight left in me. “You know, there is such a thing as smart gambling. Know your cards, know the risk, and only play with what you’re willing to lose.”

“I don’t know if I’m willing to lose my job, Bree.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, and then waited until he sat back down on the couch. “You can come up with all the what-ifs you want. But I don’t live my life by that. If I left everything up to chance, I would’ve given up years ago. You can’t live and make decisions based on fear of the unknown. People will do things in their own lives, make mistakes and poor choices, and sometimes, those things will affect you. I should know. I’m living proof of it. But if you allow every possible scenario to dictate what you do, then you’ll miss out on so much. Because when you factor in other people, the consequences are endless.”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“Write our own guide. We already know where the brick walls have been placed. We know where we can and can’t go, what we can and can’t do. So, we set our own limits, our own rules. Who better to do that than us, right? If my bare legs will hang you out to dry, I will always wear jeans. If your detailed description of what you want to lick and how you want to do it makes me uncomfortable, then keep it to yourself.” I gained a laugh from him for that.

“You really think it’s going to be that easy?”

“Yes, I do.”

Axel leaned back into the couch and stretched his feet out in front of him. “Okay, so what are these rules? And are any of them negotiable?” he asked, and wagged his eyebrows at me.

I waved off his teasing but answered anyway. “For starters, I think we should keep our actions at school the way they are now. No more sitting at your desk during first period, and you can’t look at me or smile in my direction.”

“Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how hard that’s been?”

“No, I’m not kidding. For the first week of your silent treatment, Jill and Rebecca made comments about it. They accused us of having a lover’s spat. Girls notice things, especially ones that have a thing for you. Which, I can tell you, is almost every female student in the school, and probably a few guys.”

“They said what?” His eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

“It’s a non-issue. I’ve taken care of it, and they’ve stopped commenting about it. No one is saying anything anymore, but it doesn’t change the fact that they noticed. They paid attention to our morning talks, and probably the way you smile at me, and it gave them reason to question our relationship.”

“How do I smile at you?”

My face flamed, but I couldn’t make it stop. “Like you’re really happy. Like we have some kind of secret inside joke that no one else gets. You don’t smile like that at anyone else—at least I’ve never seen it.”

“Maybe that’s because you make me really happy. And we do share something that no one else understands. But I never realized it was anything noticeable.”

“Well, it is. So it can’t happen anymore. Stay up front at your podium. And don’t look at me, either.”

“I can’t even look at you?”

I couldn’t stop my laughter. He made it sound as if I’d told him he couldn’t breathe. “No. Because you don’t just glance at me, your eyes stop when they meet mine. And then they get this sparkle in them like a kid in a candy store.”

“Is it really that obvious?”

“It really is, Axel.”

“So how come you had no idea how I felt about you?”

I held his stare, and for some reason, I wanted to cry. I didn’t, though. I only felt like I could, like I was so full of emotion that it needed to come out one way or another. “I never believed you would’ve ever been interested in someone like me.”