Only we’re locked in a kiss—that same kiss I was daydreaming about a moment ago—right outside my house.
He has one hand on my waist, the other on my ass.
My arms are wrapped around his neck.
Not a hair’s breadth of space is between us.
And I feel—I feel violated.
This was a private moment.
We were inside the gate surrounding my house. The one with six-foot arborvitae—privacy shrubs—all around us.
We shouldn’t have been visible from the street.
We were certainly not standing in a place where someone could have casually snapped this picture.
“Just look at this headline!” Sister Agnes wails.
And I do,
I feel sick as my eyes scan the headline’s giant bold letters:
FIRST GRADE TEACHER'S WILD WEEKEND WHILE OLG FIGHTS FOR SURVIVAL
For a second, I hear nothing.
Not Sister Agnes.
Not the hum of the ceiling fan.
Nothing.
Just rushing in my ears.
No.
No.
No.
This can't be happening.
“Mary?”
Sister Agnes sounds far away.
My hands start shaking.
How?
Who?
Why?
Before I can answer, another familiar voice cuts through the panic.
There’s a tightened and more emotional version that keeps Mary's fears centered on Kai and lets him reassure her: