The Principal's Office Read Online Free Page B

have anything left over when he got home. Gary and sex? Gary and dating? “I don’t think so.” Maybe Gary’s lack of libido had been part of the reason Rachel’s had disappeared. There was only so much rejection you could take before you stopped asking. But it was certainly returning now.
    Suddenly she
needed
to talk about her Viking. “I don’t know his name. And I don’t want a relationship or anything. But sometimes I think about—” She stopped. She didn’t know Bree well to reveal her sexual fantasies. In fact, she didn’t discuss sex with anyone. It just wasn’t something she’d ever done.
    With that same look on her face that could have meant anything, Bree said, “If you don’t want to have a relationship, then just have sex with him.”
    It was as if the whole bar went stone quiet. Rachel could have heard a pin drop. Not really, but she was in such complete shock that she felt like she’d lost her hearing. All she could see were a bunch of mouths moving out in the crowd and faces contorted with laughter. “I can’t believe you said that.”
    Bree simply looked at her. “I’m not a saint or anything. If you don’t want to have a relationship, it really is okay to just have sex.” She opened her purse, pulled something out, and slid it across the table. A square of gold foil.
    A condom. Rachel slapped her hand over it before anyone saw. “You carry one in your purse?” She was aghast. Only teenage boys doing a lot of wishful thinking carried around condoms.
    Bree laughed. It wasn’t that Rachel had never heard her laugh before, it was just…different. Bree was different in some way she couldn’t pinpoint. Different since her father died. Since that confrontation with Marbury. The laugh was almost natural, even confident.
    “I’m not a prude, Rachel. Though I have to admit I’d forgotten I had that condom until today when I was searching for something.” She smiled. “Perfect timing.” Then Bree leaned close. “But I do believe in being prepared for whatever comes my way. I even have a man. A very good man.”
    “You have a boyfriend?” Rachel heard the wonder in her voice and was ashamed, because why
shouldn’t
Bree have a boyfriend? It was just that Bree had
never
indicated it.
    “I’ve only just started to understand how important he is to me. He’s the one who thinks I should have more friends.” Bree gave Rachel a look. “Friends like you.” She patted Rachel’s hand. “So take that”—she gestured toward the condom hidden beneathRachel’s palm—“and have some fun with this new guy you’ve met.”
    “I don’t even know his name,” Rachel repeated.
    “That’s even better.”
    Egad
. The things she was learning about Bree, the woman hidden beneath the quiet facade.
    “Everyone’s a stranger until you get to know them,” Bree said, and there was such a look on her face, soft, as if an inner light had switched on. She glowed. “Then all of a sudden, there’s so much potential you never had a clue was there.”
    “I’m happy for you, that you’ve found someone like that.”
    Bree blinked, came back from whatever blissful place she’d been in. “Maybe one day you’ll suddenly discover how special this man you’ve met is. Like a bolt of lightning.”
    Rachel pressed her lips into a flat line. “Yeah, well, not until the boys are older.” Until they’d gotten over the anger. Things had to settle down. “But Gary has them every other week.” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “So who knows what kind of trouble I might get into on my own?”
    Could she do it? Have a hot, sexy, but casual affair?
    Rachel curled her fingers around the condom, then slid her hand across the table and dropped it down to her purse on the seat.
    Yes. Oh yes. She could.
    OF COURSE, IF RACHEL WAS GOING TO DO IT, SHE HAD TO FIND HIM again, a next-to-impossible feat. The week had come and gone without a single sighting. So here she was at the grocery store early on Saturday