Between the Sheets Read Free Page B

Doesn’t-Look-Old-Enough-For-College Sue, and Pregnant Sue were arrayed around Jessica like ladies-in-waiting. If she was the princess, then I was Cinderella’s jock cousin.
    And Krista was Loki and Anansi and Coyote all rolled into one.
    “Maggie Schafer, Maggie Schafer, Maggie Schafer,” Kirk drawled, his gaze traveling from my eyes to my mouth to parts further south. “I haven’t seen you since the last time this fine group congregated.”
    I straightened my shoulders and cleared my throat. Just because I was dressed like a girl didn’t mean I couldn’t still kick his ass all over the softball field, and I’d be a born-again virgin before I gave it up to P. Kirk Ringdahl. He might be single and straight, but he was still a dweeb.
    “Different schools, different school districts, you know.” I funneled as much back-off-Jack into my voice as possible.
    “If you had a seat on the council, we’d see each other at the meetings.” He patted my hand and winked. “There’s usually a chance for socializing after the business is done.”
    And I’d rather eat a rodent.
“I’m pretty busy.”
    “I bet we could work something out.”
    Kirk fawned and Jessica sniffed and I had to sit on my hands to keep from popping him one. I gulped wine instead, then almost spewed it when Krista’s pointy heel stabbed the top of my foot.
    Amid a chorus of choking and laughter, one of the Sues tossed me a napkin and Krista managed to direct my attention to the doorway. My heart stilled. Stopped. Which was fine, because all the blood in my body rushed to my cheeks.
    Except for the boiling puddle lower down.
    All this because a certain Ginger God in faded jeans and a green T-shirt happened to be strolling into the room.

Chapter 5
    While we’d been busy socializing, a buffet table had joined the bar, and servers began surreptitiously setting the tables for dinner. The room filled, the lights dimmed, and the smell of roasted garlic drowned out the old fish ocean smell. Kirk progressed from patting my hand to brushing my elbow to draping his arm in the general vicinity of my shoulders, and in self-defense, I went from clasping my hands to crossing my arms to sitting so straight I redefined perpendicular.
    The man had an overdeveloped sense of his own animal magnetism, made worse by the presence of the Ginger God, who reduced Kirk’s attractiveness to absolute zero.
    The evening’s guest speaker took the empty seat at our table. Professor Baumgartner had headed the music program at the University of Washington for years. His after-dinner talk would compare world music pedagogy with older methods of teaching.
Yawn.
He greeted each of us, then honed in on Jessica, whose girls’ choir had received an honorable mention at State.
    She glowed under his attention, giving me the chance to wonder why Kirk bothered with me when he could have someone like her. Her looks said sorority sister and Nordstrom shopper, while mine said too much softball. All the girly clothes in the world wouldn’t hide the fact that I had the body of a muscular twelve-year-old boy.
    Jessica punctuated each obsequious smile for the professor with a flirtatious smirk in Kirk’s direction.
    Or a pointed glare at me.
    When the professor finished blowing smoke at Jessica, Pregnant Sue dragged me into the ring. “What about you, Maggie? Where do you teach?”
    Too bad public school events couldn’t serve hard liquor. I could have used a shot to take the sting away from her pseudo-friendly tone. “Lakewood Elementary.”
    “Oh, the littles? How cute.” All the Sues sent up a chorus of squeals. “They’re just so … enthusiastic.”
    “Yeah.” And honest, and funny, and a whole lotta things grown-ups have forgotten how to be.
    Servers lifted the tops off the hot dishes on the buffet line, and teachers from some of the other tables had started moving in the direction of food. Kirk put his hand over mine and leaned over in the direction of my ear, his voice low and