The Final Lesson Plan (7 page)

"Me?" I asked, leaving my bra on the floor as I slipped my shirt on over my head. I suddenly felt entirely too exposed, too vulnerable. "Let's see....oh yeah...FOUR!"

"So six, counting Cling and me," he said, snidely.

"No Briggs…four…and that
does
count both of you."

"Bullshit! You're telling me that all those years at Ohio State…while you were in a sorority…that you didn't sleep around?"

"Yes Briggs, that's what I'm telling you. I fooled around and did some stuff, but only Marcus got to 'tap' this," I responded angrily and sardonically. "And before that…my high school boyfriend."

I couldn't be in the same room with him; the pool house suddenly seemed very small. I walked out to the back patio and attempted to slam the sliding glass door. Sliding glass doors don't really slam, and you tend to look like an asshole when you try to slam them. The door bounced right back open just as Briggs approached the door, making it seem like it opened just to let him out. Looking at the door, then at me, he smirked, raised his hands in triumph, and said, "Yeah, that's what I thought."

I turned away, so he couldn't see my smile. It was hard to be mad at him. Usually I loathed cockiness and such blatant arrogance, but with Briggs, it was charming and essentially irresistible. "Briggs…I…" Truthfully, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to say.

"Janelle, you don't want the number," he said as he turned me around to look at him. "You also don't want to know that I probably know more names of NASCAR drivers, which I don't follow at all, than I do of all the girls I've slept with." I dropped my head, not wanting to look at him while he told me these details.

"Briggs, I don't know if I can—"

"Stop," he said, covering my lips with his finger. "I know that this is not what you were hoping for, but it's who I was." Pulling me toward him, he said, "Was…but I'm not that guy any more. I haven't been that guy for exactly one month and two days."

"I know you've only been with me lately, but—"

"No Janelle, it's not just that," he said as he sat down on the chaise. He pulled me down onto the chair and snuggled me back against him as his legs enveloped me, holding me tightly into place. With his breath in my hair, he whispered, "I'm not going back either, Janelle. If I lose this, lose you, I don't wanna be that guy any more. You taught me what something real feels like."

I didn't know how to respond; this profession of his feelings reminded me that this wasn't a game. This wasn't "just for fun." Someone was going to get hurt. I hated that I was going to be the source of someone's pain. I thrived on making people happy, not destroying them. I was usually the one who got destroyed.

Briggs continued, "Janelle, if I could grab a DeLorean, pull a McFly, and go back in time, I'd wait…Oh God, I'd wait…I wouldn't touch one single girl until you came along." He trailed his fingers up and down my bare arms, giving me chills on a scorching hot summer day. "People always say that such and such or so and so didn't matter, and I never understood what that meant. I used to believe all things, all people, mattered," he admitted.

Briggs started kissing my neck, giving my chills chills. Not wearing a bra wasn't helping the goose bumps that were beginning to overtake my entire body. Then softly he whispered in my ear with his scratchy, sultry voice, "All that matters to me anymore…is you."

Briggs and I spent the afternoon out on the patio, talking and really getting to know one another beyond the bedroom. I hadn't realized how little I knew about him, the man. There was a part of me who still couldn't separate him from the bombastic and charming football player who wouldn't do a lick of work to the college-educated, career-driven man who centered his life around his future ESPN career. Oh…and who loved to lick his way through any type of work or situation. It was true; I was indisputably the luckiest and most fulfilled woman on the planet.

Briggs admitted to having some problems with his younger brother, Tate. Tate was only a sophomore, but was proving to be better in sports than Briggs ever was. However, Tate was choosing some seriously wrong paths in life. Neither Briggs, nor his parents, could seem to get through to him. I knew of Tate, but I'd never had him in class or any of the study mods I monitored. Rumor around school was he was a punk-ass, druggie thug. Teachers complained at length about him, wishing that Tate was in anyone else's class but theirs.

Honestly, I remembered a time when I'd wished Briggs weren't in my class either, but I hadn't really known him at all. It was one of those things that I saw his name on the roster at the beginning of the year and groaned even at the thought of having to deal with an athletic megalomaniac. I'd known that since Briggs was the hot-shot Buckeye-bound running back that I was going to have to work extra hard, overtime and then some, just to get him to that stage on graduation day. Briggs wanted to do everything, as long as it didn't involve schoolwork or homework.

After his surfing accident and Ohio State athletics were no longer part of Briggs' future, he'd shut down a lot. The cocky, self-assured Briggs Alexander turned mopey, sulky, and oftentimes belligerent, but never to me. He'd never treated me disrespectfully, but I'd heard his name spat with contempt on a number of occasions. However, with Briggs, he was just downright adorable. He could charm the pants off of anyone, me included…obviously.

Tate didn't have that "Je n'ai sais quoi" that Briggs had. Ultimately, he was just as cocky, maybe even more so than Briggs. Likeable, he was not. He used the "Briggs' little brother" to his advantage, but saw to it that nobody compared or equated him to Briggs. Tate was making a name for himself, one that didn't include him hiding in his older brother's shadow. He was doing his damnedest to ensure that his name, his talents, his reputation extinguished his brother's shining star, while blemishing the "Alexander name" in the process.

I felt guilty, because I didn't admit to Briggs what I knew, or had heard about Tate around school from other staff members and from my students. When seniors talked and took the time to gossip about the antics of a sophomore guy, then typically the material being stated was never complimentary or flattering. I basically just let Briggs rant about his brother, but endearingly beneath his rage, I could tell that Briggs was genuinely worried about his brother's future and choices.

The Briggs who spent the day with me was not like the Briggs I knew seven years ago, nor was he really like the Briggs I'd known all last month. He was honest, funny, romantic, and completely and totally doting. We swam for a bit. I was worried about his hand, but he didn't seem to mind at all. The cut wasn't too deep. Briggs said that the chlorine stung at first, but he was man enough to deal with it. And my God, was he man enough.

Briggs didn't have swim trunks; he opted to just swim in his boxer briefs. I was surprised that he didn't just whip those off too, proud of his manhood and all. When I asked him about it, he looked at me and simply said, "This is your brother's pool; that'd be some disrespectful shit." I even tried a little seduction number in the hot tub, but he didn't think it would be right to fool around in Jasper's hot tub either. When had he gotten these newfound morals? When I mentioned that every time we had fooled around it was in Jasper's pool house, it stumped him, so he picked me up and took me dripping wet and squealing back to my bedroom to make up for all the averted advances.

While we were in my bed, Briggs heard my stomach gurgle; we hadn't eaten since the waffles, and it was well past dinnertime. We'd taken a considerably long nap after the third time. "Girl, we need to fatten you up, get some meat on these delicious bones."

"Oh God, this past month, all I've done is eat and drink. Fattening up is the very last thing I need. I don't know what it is, but every summer, I gain weight," I admitted.

"Alright, you stay here all naked in this bed, and I'll go get us some food," he offered.

"I don't have much; there's nothing in the fridge or freezer," I replied.

"Shit, I don't cook; I don't expect you to either. I'm going on a food run," he said. "I'll be back in a bit. Don't get dressed." He put his shorts on without his boxers since they were still drying out on the patio. I loved watching him pull his shorts up over his bare ass, reminding me what was all mine for the entire month. The muscles in his back flexed as he pulled his shirt over his head. When he turned around, he leaned down on the bed and kissed my stomach, and said, "I'll feed you in a few." Then, he kissed my lips with his own hunger and purpose. "Leaving is such a pitiful sorrow."

Laughing, I said, "What?"

"Leaving is such a pitiful sorrow, you know,
Romeo and Juliet
," he said, staring at me strangely.

"Ummm...no...it's not...whatever…forget it," he was just too damn cute to correct. "Briggs, you're wonderful, thanks for going to get us food. What're ya gonna get, anyway?" I asked.

"It's a surprise, but stay as naked and as beautiful as you are now," he said before he kissed my forehead and left.

Leaving is such a pitiful sorrow? Who could possibly think that, "Leaving is such a pitiful sorrow" could be the right words? I mean, I guess it made sense, but it's the farthest thing from poetic expression. It really was extremely sexy to me when a man could talk about literature and found pleasure in reading. It was cute that Briggs tried to allude to literature, but I was pretty certain that we'd both benefit if he stuck strictly to football references.

After Briggs left, I jumped in the shower to wash the chlorine out of my hair and clean up after three very hot sessions of the Briggs machine. Fuck. Did I just call him the "Briggs Machine?" I was definitely going to need to confess that one to Char. Whenever we said or even thought something beyond cheesy, we reported back to each other. Admittedly, it was more often my admittance than hers. Her cheese factor was a lot less than mine. Fucking Briggs machine? How cheesy was that? Accurate, but cheesy nonetheless.

To think that one month ago he couldn't tell the difference between a clit and peach pit, a G-spot or a tater tot; it was an amazing how far he'd come. Bedroom Briggs used to be beyond below average. After one month of hardcore tutoring and teaching, Briggs became the overachieving learner that I always knew he could be.

After my shower, I put my hair in a side braid that wrapped around to the left side of my shoulder. Briggs mentioned once that he liked Char's when she wore it like that. The night that they were supposed to have a "no strings attached" kind of night to be exact. Thankfully, they both knew what I wanted a lot more than I did. They didn't touch one another, but did have a few heated games of Madden before I barged in to his apartment like a crazy, scorned lover.

One thing that did happen that night was the Briggs Fan Club was officially started. Char became his biggest advocate. If I allowed her to, she'd get a shirt that said, "Screw Edward and Jacob! Team Briggs!" and wear it in front of Leo at all given times. She claimed that she had no problem with Leo, but would have a problem if I ended up with him. Those kinds of statements scared me. I didn't listen to her when she trumpeted her warnings about Marcus and look where that got me. Where did that get me? Oh yeah, sexual paradise. Marcus was the stepping-stone to the two most perfect men ever. I guess I could thank Marcus for being the rotten path that led me to the land of lust and satisfaction.
Between Briggs and Leo both, they'd awakened a desire in me that I'd never known before. I prayed that it never went dormant again. For the first time, I felt alive, sexually and sensually.