I was still fuming over it. Drew peered through the classroom door at Ms. Wahl, sitting at the teacher’s desk and cringed.
“Oh man, you got Ms. Wahl as a sub. That sucks.”
“Yeah, but she’s only a sub.”
“True, but she will be your sub until Mrs. Camden gets better—if she gets better. That can take a while, so you are stuck with Ms. Hooknose, as you put it, until then.”
“Shit! Drew, why do you have to be a pain in my ass, and point that out?”
He chuckled, and my bad mood improved a little as we headed toward my next class. We were passing the boys' bathroom when he yanked me through the door. It happened so fast I hadn’t seen it coming.
“Drew! What are you doing?”
“Shh, you’ll see.”
I’d never been in a boys' bathroom before, never seen a urinal in anything other than the movies. I found myself wondering how guys could stand side by side in plain view of each other and be comfortable peeing like that. He followed my gaze and chuckled again.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, looking at me as we stepped into the handicapped stall. “But the only time that happens is when it’s crowded in here, which is never. We usually put a urinal between us—unless it’s a guy who—you know, likes guys.
“How’d you know that’s what I was thinking?”
“I didn’t, it was just a hunch.”
My back hit the wall against the side of the stall that had a high ventilation window, and I took in our surroundings. There was the white toilet, the haze gray metal stall, the white and black check tiled floor—the typical public bathroom aroma—only worse, it wreaked of urine. All that disappeared for a moment when I felt Drew’s hand trace the contour of my cheek and slip under my hair to cup my neck. A tingle wiggled its way down my spine as he closed the distance between him and I. It would have been perfect except with my mouth being occupied the way it was, I was forced to breathe through my nose, and that amplified the offensive smells—a lot. I pulled away and Drew looked down at me, a look of confusion lingered in his eyes.
“Um, I love that you want to have a moment for just you and me,” I paused and looked around the spacious bathroom stall. “But Drew, this isn’t romantic.”
“I would tend to agree,” Mr. Masson said as he swung the door of the stall wide and looked from me to Drew with clear disapproval on his face.
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks and singe all the way up to my temples.
“Graves, what is it with you and girls in bathrooms. I was kidding when I said what I said about not wanting to repeat another situation like this. I didn’t expect you to actually make the same mistake twice, but here we are.”
He sighed and looked at both of us for a long moment in silence. I saw the distaste he’d displayed over us being together in the gym return to his features. I just knew he was trying to figure out what to do about this latest infraction of school rules. Drew was repetitively running his hand through his hair, and I knew he was as nervous as me.
“Both of you get out of here, this is the only warning you two are going to get.”
We left the bathroom with our metaphorical tails tucked between our legs and walked to my next class in silence. I think both of us were scared of being the first one to break the awkwardness that had settled between us, although I think our respective embarrassments sprang from different sides of the same coin. Where I felt an underlying sense of shame for being caught in the bathroom at all, I got the feeling Drew had it coming from two directions. One was the embarrassment of me being reminded I wasn’t the first girl he’d been caught with like that, and the second was for being caught doing it again. Hopefully, Mr. Masson would be merciful and keep it between the three of us.
By the time lunch hour came around, we’d pretty much gotten over the awkwardness and had found our normal rhythm again.
“You got caught in the bathroom with him!”
Jennifer’s eyes were big bright blue orbs that danced with shock.
“Oh my gosh, that is so not like you, Eden,” she clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back the laughter that was trying to break free at my expense. “I see you—letting Drew turn you into a naughty little girl, aren’t you?”
“Knock it off Jennifer, it was my idea she never even knew it was coming, I pulled her in there so fast.”
“Right because you teleported her into the guys' bathroom,” Aiden said with dry sarcasm. “She didn’t walk in there of her own free will because you are just that damn magical, Drew.”
Aiden playfully jabbed him in the shoulder. Drew made an elaborate display of dusting off his clothes and shoulders before he pinned Aiden with a bright smile and said, “It’s alright, my dude, you are just upset because you don’t have someone to sneak into the bathrooms and make out with.”
It was fast, but Drew and I both caught the look that passed between Jennifer and Aiden. I turned to Jennifer in shock. “Seriously!”
“What! It was just coffee, it’s not like we were playing tonsil hockey in the bathroom, Eden.
If what you and Drew were doing is considered tonsil hockey these days, then we need to have a serious talk because you guys are really missing the mark.
I sighed, then rolled my eyes, and Jennifer took it
