Burning Up (Flirting With Fire Book 1) Read online

  “I didn’t just come here to get a peanut-butter sandwich.” He quickly added, “Although this really is amazing.” He held up their signature peanut-butter-and-bacon sandwich, by far the most popular item on the menu.

  “Then why did you come?” That damn shudder in her chest turned to a full gallop again. It seemed to do an awful lot of that when she was around Jake.

  “Can I take you out?”

  Her breath fizzled out of her lungs. “Out?” No way she’d heard him right.

  “I think we started things off a little backward. I’d like to take you on a date. A proper one. With no porn in sight.”

  Holy crap. An actual date? “I was beginning to warm up to those videos. Harry Twatter was a personal favorite.”

  He chuckled, his mouth pulling into a smile. “Is that a yes?”

  “You don’t think this is a mistake? You made that loud and clear at the party.” What the heck was wrong with her? Was she actually arguing her way out of a date?

  “Of course I think it’s a mistake. The way you make me feel—” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’ve never felt more out of control. I’m sorry that I acted weird at the party. It’s just, Reece was there . . .” He shook his head again. “No, that’s a terrible excuse. I was an asshole, and I own up to that.”

  Her body was about to break out into a football victory-touchdown dance, but her mind was going, Sloooow down there, Speed Racer.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Your brother, actually.”

  “My brother.” She laughed. “He told you to ask me out?” She would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation.

  “No. But he did tell me I needed to have a little more fun in my life.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you. At the station. Driving. In the shower. Everywhere.” He took a deep breath and gave that damn smile that showcased the dimple in his left cheek. Charge the paddles because she was going to need a shock to the system with the way he looked at her, both shy and so damn sexy. “I haven’t done this in a really long time, so I might be a little rusty, but if you’re still interested, I’d really like to take you out. Properly.”

  Bad idea. Alert. Alert. He’s too nice—and you know where that leads. The good ol’ f-word. And she didn’t mean the fun one. No, this was the one that promised attachments. Ones that she couldn’t afford to have, not when she was leaving soon.

  If she valued her sanity, she’d use her damn head and give him a polite no.

  She never claimed to make great use of intellect when it came to men, though. Really, what was there to lose? It was a date with Jake. One single night to finally get him out of her system. That was all this was.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at eight on Friday if that works for you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Have you seen my pants?” Erin riffled through her dresser drawers, then sprinted to the closet. None of her dress slacks were in there. Had she left them all in California? “I have an interview with Highland in five minutes.”

  “What’s wrong with what you’re wearing?” Andie stood in the doorway with a bag of gummy worms in one hand, her phone in the other. A green-and-yellow one hung out of her mouth as she tapped out a message to someone.

  “What’s wrong with this?” She’d picked out her favorite black top and covered it with one of the cardigans Andie had made fun of the other day. That wasn’t the problem. It was the pants situation. “Unicorn leggings aren’t professional.”

  “It’s Skype, Erin. They’ll only be able to see your top half.”

  Of course she’d just thrown all her jeans in the wash, or she’d pull on a pair.

  “You think so?” She’d done this a few times when she’d taped videos for class. Why not sit in comfort while she got grilled about lesson planning and her ability to collaborate with other teachers? But this was different. It was a job interview. The admin probably had some super-spidey sense that would be able to tell she was wearing unprofessional attire off-camera. Or maybe going through too many interviews in a matter of weeks had somehow made her paranoid.

  “Trust me. Just make sure you’re sitting and you’ll be fine,” Andie said, shoving another worm into her mouth.

  Erin took a deep breath. Okay, she could do that. She had a good feeling about this interview, especially after she had done a little Internet sleuthing last night. Highland Prep had been named the top private school in the city for the past three years. They catered to families who wanted a more hands-on approach to learning. From the pictures, they’d done projects in Africa, South America, and Asia, helping problem-solve world issues.

  In terms of classroom management, this job would be cake. Dealing with the parents would be a whole other issue, but honestly, she’d take a job just about anywhere right now, and she felt particularly lucky this one had fallen into her lap.

  She glanced at her closet mirror, fluffed her hair, and tapped a pencil on her desk, waiting for the call. A few seconds later, the video call function on her computer dinged.

  You got this. You’re going to kill it. She gave herself one last reassuring nod and then clicked into the chat.

  On her screen, three people sat huddled together at what seemed to be a boardroom table. All were wearing nice tailored blazers. Behind them hung the school crest along with their slogan: EXPANDING HORIZONS, EDUCATING YOUNG MINDS.

  “Ms. Jenkins. Thank you for interviewing with us today. I’m Brenda Johnson, vice principal. We know this is a bit unorthodox, but we didn’t want you to have to fly down.”

  “I appreciate it.” But she also didn’t like the sentiment behind it. We didn’t want you wasting your money on a flight. She shook off that thought and also the one about how many people they were interviewing. Glass half-full. They wouldn’t have interviewed you to waste your time.

  The man in the middle said, “I’m Jeremy Tyler, the principal of Highland.” He gestured to his left. “This is Steve Rogers, head of the science department.”

  “I didn’t know that I’d be interviewed by Captain America today,” Erin joked. She also could have busted out a Mister Rogers “Won’t you be my neighbor?” but refrained.

  All three remained straight-faced. Her own laughter faded. She shifted in her chair, crossing her legs, making sure to keep her leggings offscreen. Well, okay, then. Tough crowd. Maybe pretentious schools sucked the humor out of people. She cleared her throat after another awkward beat of silence. “It is very nice to meet all of you.”

  “I’ve just gotten off the phone with your previous principal. He speaks quite fondly of you. We also see on your résumé that you received Teacher of the Year for your school district. That’s very impressive.”

  Heat filled her cheeks. Compliments weren’t really her strong suit. She never knew how to act. But she had to admit that the award ceremony where she’d received that placard had been one of the highlights of her career so far. All the late-night lesson planning. All the strategizing over seating charts, creating assignments that engaged her students—now that was worth everything. She may have let a whole lot of other people down in her life, but at the very least, she had her students.

  “Thank you.” She’d miss Stephens. Three years in the same place was a record for her. Stupid budget cuts.

  “We’re just going to cut to the chase here,” said the principal. This didn’t surprise her. Erin didn’t normally judge right off the bat, but they struck her as people who didn’t congregate in the halls of their school to talk about the latest TV shows or chat about the best Thai food in town. They were probably the type to always eat dinner before dessert. She didn’t need dessert-first people (although she was definitely one of them). She only needed a job.

  “Why do you think you’d make a valuable addition to our staff?” he continued.

  Erin launched into her canned spiel that she’d given in every other interview, describi
ng how well she worked with other teachers, making sure to use key words like collaboration and inquiry-based learning. Forget the fact that she’d worked her ass off to get to know students on a personal level and that she was one of the few who actually enjoyed working with her age group.

  All nodded along at her response. She couldn’t tell by their reactions if they were impressed or bored. A chill ran through her at the thought of working with people so . . . uncharismatic as an admin. All her other principals had joked around with her, keeping a lighthearted feel in the school.

  It’s a job, she reminded herself.

  “Did you get the lesson plan sheet that I e-mailed to you?” Jeremy asked.

  “Yes. I filled it out with a lesson on mass and density.” She’d stayed up past midnight making sure the plan was both educational and engaging.

  He nodded. “Do you mind sharing with us?”

  “Sure.” She reached for it, in the spot she’d left it two nights ago when she’d been working on it. Her hand hit empty space. Shit. A quick glance around her desk, and nope, no lesson plan. Then she cut her gaze to the nightstand by her table, across the room. Perched next to her lamp was her lesson plan.

  No. Why, why, why did she have to go and make last-minute tweaks?

  “Um, yes, I seem to have misplaced them in the other room—” She was about to tell them that she could recite the lesson to them. She’d done it dozens of times with her students.

  “We’ll wait. Go ahead and get them,” the principal prompted. The other two just stared at her, expectant.

  Okay. She could get up and go across the room. But . . . she was wearing unicorn leggings. Either way she cut it, if she got up from her chair, those uptight blazer-wearing dudes would know just how much of a fraud she was. Damn it, why did she have to go and listen to her sister? Those wet jeans from the laundry were looking awfully appealing right about now.

  She weighed her options. Nothing good came to mind, and she wasn’t about to argue with her future employer. If she shut off the camera for a minute, they’d question why, and she didn’t want to have to deal with that either. Being on the other end, helping hire staff before, she knew any negative mark was pretty much a no in terms of getting the job. Unicorns screamed a big, fat “Hide your impressionable children.”

  She glanced at the camera again. No, she could totally move out of the frame and get away with this. Her fingers clutched the edge of her desk, nails digging into the wood. Okay, do-or-die time. She braced herself and tried to scoot offscreen to the best of her ability. Maybe if she was quick enough, they wouldn’t notice the bright pink unicorns with the sparkly horns.

  One, two, three—go. She shot up at Flash speed. Looked like Steve Rogers wasn’t the only superhero in the house today. She quickly walked to the edge of the room. Maybe, just maybe—

  A sharp intake of breath speared through her computer speaker, followed by a sputtering cough. Yep, there went her chance of not being noticed. Her face burned, and she cursed under her breath. You got yourself into this mess. Own up to it and get this job. Erin grabbed the papers, squared her shoulders, and held her head high as she walked back to her chair. She’d own this unicorn outfit.

  To the credit of Jeremy, Brenda, and Steve, they didn’t mention her outfit. That didn’t mean she didn’t realize the interview was over before she was even able to talk about her lesson. But she explained her density and mass lecture and did it with a smile.

  “Thank you, Erin. That was very impressive.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate you taking the time to interview me.” At least she could say that she gave it her all.

  And with that, they signed off. Erin had done enough interviews to know this was the worst of them yet. Which meant there was zero chance of her getting this job. She plunked her head on the desk and groaned.

  Moments later, someone knocked on her door.

  “What?” she called out.

  Andie cracked open the door. “How did the interview go?”

  “You were wrong about the outfit,” she said, her voice muffled in the crook of her arm.

  What was she going to do? That was the last interview she had lined up for the foreseeable future. There was no way she could move back to the city if she was a substitute. There’d be no health insurance, and rent was already ridiculous. She could look in other parts of California, but the farther away she got from the city, the less chance she had. Not only was there a teaching-job shortage, but a lot of hires were also based off connections. She needed to come up with a plan B. And fast.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So let me get this straight.” Jake’s tongue swirled around his scoop of double-chocolate-chunk ice cream. “You wore unicorn pajamas to a job interview.”

  “Leggings,” Erin groaned. Not even a sea-salt-and-caramel ice-cream cone from Salt and Straw could lift her spirits after how badly she’d bombed that interview. “And they weren’t supposed to see them.”

  His tongue gave another swirl around the ice cream, and her stomach bottomed out as she watched. She didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose, but with every flick, all she could think about was how that would feel between her thighs. She crossed her legs, and the fabric of her underwear brushed against her sensitive flesh, amplifying the low throb that settled between her legs. Ever since the other weekend, she’d been thrown off-kilter. She blamed it on a major case of female blue balls. That shit was real and painful.

  The sun hovered above the waterfront, deep shades of pinks and purples melting into the horizon as they walked together.

  “It’s their loss if they can’t look past that.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that’s their mind-set.”

  “If you’re even half the teacher I think you are, they’d be stupid not to hire you,” he said.

  “For all you know, I could duct-tape my students to their chairs and put on Bill Nye every single class.”

  “I think you’d be fulfilling some of those teenage boys’ fantasies with that.”

  She swatted his chest. “Sicko.”

  He grabbed her hand before she could drop it from his pec and gently squeezed. “Something will work out. Even if it’s not this job, there’ll be something else.”

  “How are you so sure?” When it came out of his mouth, she almost believed it. She wanted to believe it. Badly. But something about Jake’s sure-and-steady tone calmed the chaos swirling like an EF5 tornado in her head.

  “Because life has sucker-punched me in the face a hell of a lot of times, and I’m still standing.”

  They walked in the section where there was a large fountain with a sculpture of a metal fish jumping high in the air. Behind it was a tall metal fence with locks hooked through almost every available space. This place was called Wishing Corner, where all wishes were supposed to come true. Messages threaded through the holes, dreams waiting to be fulfilled. Hopes bound tightly to this city.

  It was a hokey spot tourists usually traveled to because it was in the guidebook. Much like they went to Voodoo instead of the local favorite, Blue Star. Madison and Sloane both had locks here somewhere. Erin didn’t believe in luck. She’d worked too damn hard her whole life to leave things up to chance.

  “Do you think any of these wishes have come true?” she asked, staring at the thousands of pieces of silver glinting in the remnants of the sunset.

  “I’m sure they have. They say that if you wish for something hard enough, then it’ll happen.”

  “If that’s the case, wouldn’t everyone be asking for chocolate and six million dollars?”

  “No. Deep down, everyone wants something deeper than what money can buy. Craves it.” He swallowed hard. And for a moment, Jake looked just like the wild boy she’d loved when she was a kid. “When I first found out Maisey was pregnant with Bailey, I came down here.”

  They moved to the bench that sat directly across from the fence. The moonlight shone on his profile, his hair glossy and looking completely touchable. He lea
ned back into the seat, resting his arms on the top of the bench. The tips of his fingers caressed her shoulder, and a wave of goose bumps cascaded over her skin from the simple touch. She still couldn’t believe she was here with him. So many times in high school, she’d lie in her bed, spoon peanut butter out of the jar, and dream up dates she’d go on with Jake. Sometimes he took her to the movies. Sometimes he took her to the local make-out spot in the West Hills area. None of those compared to actually being near him, feeling the warmth of his skin, and being his entire focus at the moment.

  “At first, I just wanted to blow off some steam and take a run along the river,” he said. “And then I saw the fountain. For some reason, I liked it better than the big fence with locks. Reece and I would sometimes come down here and pocket some of the change.”

  “You know that’s illegal, right?” She might drive five miles over the speed limit and fudge the truth a little when she talked with her mother, but half the stuff Jake and Reece had done as kids would have had her rocking in a corner if she’d participated.

  “Hey, I didn’t claim to be a good kid.” He smirked.

  But damn, did he grow up to be a fine man. Which was more important.

  “That morning, I’d just been accepted into an elite training for a hotshot crew. And then Maisey dropped the bomb. So I threw out my one wish to the universe.”

  “What did you wish for?” she asked.

  The muscle in his jaw feathered as he stared at the fountain. “I hoped I’d be good enough for my kid.”

  Erin swallowed hard. She realized that this was probably the day that Jake had turned from a bad boy into a good man. And she felt slightly guilty because the first thing she’d wish for—if she did believe in wishes—would not be something so altruistic. Maybe she’d save that for the third or fourth penny.

  “I never looked back. She’s always come first.”

  “I think you’re doing a great job,” Erin said, suddenly feeling out of her depths. Jake had a whole life here, a daughter who depended on him. She’d always claimed to have a responsibility with her students, but she saw them for fifty minutes at a time. This man had raised a human. And somehow being a good dad was sexier than any firefighter outfit.