Ever After Drake

  EVER

  after

  DRAKE

  KEARY TAYLOR

  Copyright © 2014 Keary Taylor

  EVER AFTER DRAKE

  Keary Taylor

  Published by Keary Taylor at Smashwords

  First Edition

  Copyright 2014 Keary Taylor

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and download your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO BY KEARY TAYLOR

  THE McCAIN SAGA

  Moments of Julian

  What I Didn’t Say

  FALL OF ANGELS

  Branded

  Forsaken

  Vindicated

  Afterlife: the novelette companion to Vindicated

  THE EDEN TRILOGY

  The Bane

  The Human

  The Eve

  The Raid: an Eden short story

  The Ashes: an Eden prequel

  CONNECT WITH KEARY ONLINE AT

  FACEBOOK

  TWITTER

  KEARYTAYLOR.COM

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Also by Keary Taylor

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About Keary Taylor

  CHAPTER ONE

  I believe in fairy tales. I believe in happily ever after and having a true love’s first kiss after knowing someone for only three days.

  Life is depressing and boring if you can’t open up your heart and fall fast and hard. If you can’t love furiously, what’s the point of living? You might as well slowly freeze to death.

  Princesses never get their hearts broken. They get the beautiful gown and the cake as big as they are. They get glitter and sparkly shoes. But in the end, none of that stuff matters, because they’re marrying the love of their life.

  All my life I’ve wanted to be a princess. I’ve fallen, I’ve loved, I’ve laughed.

  This just isn’t working out. I think we should break up. Sorry, babe.

  But in the end, I always wind up with this dead, black hole in the pit of my stomach.

  This is the first time it’s come in the form of a text message though.

  My fingers hover over my phone and a million nasty words are racing through my head. Words like telling him what he ought to do go to himself. Things like “what the bleepety bleep is wrong with you?!” are on the tips of my fingers.

  But I can’t make those vile things come out of my head and onto the screen.

  Have a nice life, is what I reply.

  It’s my curse. I’m always too nice. And sometimes I hate myself for that.

  Because Alan deserves far worse for breaking up with me. Via text. After being together for four weeks. After I took him on that fantastic vacation to the coast.

  After dropping this on me the morning of my first day at my new job.

  “Crap!” I hiss, looking over at the clock and realizing I’ve got exactly forty-one minutes until my first class starts.

  I scramble for the edge of my bed, only to have the sheets tangle around my feet. This is unfortunate since I’m trying to stand up and cross the room. My upper half leaves the comfort of my bed, and my lower stays put.

  I crash to the ground and the wood floor gives the back of my head a wicked good-freaking-morning.

  “Ow,” I wince, tears springing to my eyes.

  I try very hard to convince myself that the tears are only because my head hurts. They have nothing to do with Alan.

  No time for a shower, I slap some deodorant on, spritz myself with some citrus body spray, and pull on some fresh underwear. Thankfully, I set my clothes out the previous night and pull on some dress pants and a summery sleeveless shirt. I squint at myself in the mirror for a minute, pulling a brush through my blond hair, wishing I had time to do something more with it than just let it fall in soft waves. I dab on a fresh coat of mascara; and that is all I have time for.

  It is exactly seven paces from my bathroom to the few cupboards and sink that make up my kitchen. The studio apartment I moved into two weeks ago is tiny, but it’s all I can afford for the moment. I grab a bagel from the fridge, wedge a tube of cream cheese in it, and grab the box of stuff I put by the front door last night.

  I feel frazzled and exhausted and slightly emotional, but at least I am out the door.

  Grace, however, is not my middle name, and I nearly trip and stumble down the two flights of stairs and finally make it out the front doors.

  I scored the best parking spot last night and my aged red Mini Cooper is right in front of the door. At least one thing is going right.

  And leaning against my car is the one man in the world I know will never break my heart or disappoint me.

  “Something told me this morning that you were going to have a rough start,” Armando Riche says with a smile. He opens the back hatch for me and I trip as I step off the curb and the box tumbles into the back of the car.

  “You are an angel,” I say as I right myself and accept the coffee he’s holding out. I kiss his cheek as he does mine and he hugs me briefly. “It’s been…an unfair morning.”

  “What happened?” he asks. His eyes seem so bright and alert on this cursed morning compared to his dark skin. Flawless skin that looks like the smooth side of a Hershey bar. “You seem upset.”

  “Alan broke up with me,” I say with a sigh as I open the passenger door and fling my purse inside. I then turn back to Armando and cross my arms over my chest. “Via text.”

  “No,” Armando says in horror. His eyes grow wide and his mouth opens in a gigantic O of disbelief. Classic drama queen. “That repulsive hetero scumbag.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say, my eyes stinging again. My throat feels tight and my insides quiver. “Ah, crap. You’ve made me cry Armie!” I wipe at my eyes just as one tear works its way onto my cheek. “I’ve been doing so good up to this point.”

  “You’re only crying because you know I care,” he says as he pulls me into a hug. He puts a hand on the back of my head and holds me close into his chest. As always, he smells amazing.

  Armando not only smells nice, he dresses fantastically, has money, a pretty nice car. He is the well paid assistant to some state senator I can never remember the name of. His work keeps him crazy busy, but the times that I really need him, he’s there. He listens, is always on time, never forgets my birthday, and always offers to pay for dinner.

  He’d be perfect prince material if he wasn’t gay.

  “I know,” I huff. He releases me and I wipe at my cheeks again. “K, I am seriously going to be late if I don’t leave now. Thanks for this,” I say as I lift the coffee.
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  “You’re welcome,” he says with a smile, flashing blinding white teeth. “Now, go knock some annoying teenagers dead. Or smart. Cause what I just said sounded pretty terrible.”

  I give something that sounds like both a sob and a laugh and walk around to the driver’s side. “Thanks again. I love you, Armie.”

  “Love you too, Ray of Kaylee.” He winks at me as I slip into the driver’s seat and start the car.

  I blow him a kiss and pull out onto the road.

  My name is Kaylee Ray. I’m twenty-three, a recent graduate of Western Washington University, and am scared to death for my first day as a high school history teacher.

  It’s not a good sign that the halls are already crowded and crazy when I get to the school. Students eager and anxious for the first day of school? What are they? Over achievers?

  I have to push and shove my way through the crowd to get to my classroom. This isn’t easy to do when you’re only one inch taller than five feet and look like you could pass for a freshman, not a teacher.

  Thankfully with the three weeks from the time they hired me to when school started, I had enough days to get my room set up. I got out of my apartment in Bellingham, moved down, and started getting familiar with Woodinville High School. Unfortunately, my room is at the far back of the building, in the part that has yet to be remodeled.

  I finally break through the crowd of students into my classroom and nearly stumble through the door.

  I’ll be lucky if I make it through this day alive.

  There are thirty desks in my room, all perfectly lined up in neat rows, just as I left them last night. My ancient metal desk sits to one side of the front of the room, all my things neatly lined up and in their places. Ancient green and white cabinets line the back wall, their linoleum peeling and flaking. And at the front of the classroom is a thankfully fairly new whiteboard.

  Unthankfully, it is so high on the wall I can only reach the lower two-thirds of the board.

  Short people problems.

  My heart breaks into a full on panic sprint when the five minute warning bell sounds.

  I scurry across the room and set my box on the floor behind my desk and pull out its contents. A stack of syllabi a mile high.

  It’s something that I always remember my teachers doing in high school, so I start writing my name out on the board.

  Miss Ray.

  It’s one thing to be a student teacher. Not that that hadn’t been terrifying. But this is all on me. There isn’t someone more experienced that can come swoop in and save me from destruction and humiliation at any moment.

  There isn’t anyone coming to my rescue.

  I set the marker down and turn around as the first two students drift through the door.

  I know I’m really freaking out when I notice some kind of crumb on the floor toward the back of the room and it starts driving me so crazy I have to pick it up.

  I only obsessively clean when I’m nervous or stressed. And right now I am both.

  I give the two girls who just walked in a smile as I walk past them to that nuisance of a crumb. I grab it and turn to head back to the front of the classroom.

  And nearly walk right into someone.

  “Hey,” he says with a cocky smile. He’s tall, well over six feet, so he towers over me. Then again, so does pretty much everyone else. “I don’t remember you from last year. You must be new.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I stutter as I awkwardly try to get around the big student who has to be a football player with his lumbering size and cocky attitude that just rolls off of him.

  “If you’re feeling a bit lost, I’d be happy to show you around the school sometime,” he says, staying put at the back of the classroom as I dump the offending piece of what I suspect is ceiling tile in the trash. I step out of the way as a flood of a dozen or so students spill into the room.

  “I, uh, I think I’m okay. Thanks,” I say, once again feeling beyond awkward.

  He gives me a wink as he settles into one of the seats.

  Everyone else shifts to one desk or another and I swallow hard.

  The tardy bell sounds and for some reason I expect all eyes to automatically turn to me. But they don’t. Everyone just talks to each other, quietly but excitedly.

  I cross to the desk and grab the attendance list. I lean back on the front of my desk. No one in the class is really paying much attention to me.

  Then a horrifying realization hits me.

  None of them realize I am the teacher.

  And that cocky kid was flirting with me.

  I have to resist the urge to let my mouth form into an O and keep away the look of disgust from my face.

  “Okay!” I say a little more loudly than I need to. One nervous looking girl in the front row actually jumps. “Welcome to Ancient World History. My name is Miss Ray and I hope you’re all excited to learn about some dead Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.”

  Half the class is looking at me like they don’t quite believe that I am the authority figure in this room. But that boy at the back of the class has a look of slight horrification.

  It doesn’t last long. When I meet his eyes, it slowly curls into a smug smile.

  “Let’s do attendance, shall we?” I say and don’t wait a second before I start reading off names.

  Half way down the list I read, “Lake McCain?”

  “Here,” the smug smile crosses his face when I look up at the kid who had just been hitting on me. “And my offer to show you around the school still stands.”

  The entire room bursts into laughter.

  And I’m too humiliated to come back with anything.

  First and second period I teach Ancient World History. Third period will be my break period. Then there’s lunch. Fourth period I will teach the freshmen World History class. That’s A days. B days consist of first period World History, second period Historical Literature, third break, lunch, and fourth period once again World History.

  I’m lucky to get such a full-time schedule my first year. Especially since there is another history teacher here at Woodinville high school.

  First and second period go as expected. I sound like a nervous, blubbering fool for the rest of first period while we go over the boring class starter stuff and hand out textbooks. Second period was exactly the same, thankfully without the humiliation of a student thinking I was another student and flirting with me.

  When third period rolls around, I close and lock my classroom door and sink to the floor behind my desk.

  I always had a plan growing up. I’d become a teacher because it was the perfect job until step two came. Meet someone amazing, get married, and think about having a family.

  So I stuck to that plan. I made my way through college, did my student teaching, graduated, got a few interviews, and took the first position that was offered to me.

  But when Alan came into the picture, I started making plans for step two. He was cute and oftentimes charming. We’d see movies and we’d go out to dinner.

  And then I wake up this morning to find that text from him.

  What kind of jerk breaks up with a girl through a text?

  I grab my phone from my desk, ready for the torture of scrolling through our old texts, looking for any signs of the bomb he’d dropped on me this morning.

  Always saving my life, I find a text from Armando instead.

  Armando: How’s the first day going?

  With a little time, it’ll be a bit easier to find the humor in this morning’s situation.

  Kaylee: Some senior hit on me.

  Armando: Was he cute?

  Kaylee: Gross.

  Armando: Sorry. You know I can’t help it.

  Kaylee: Gross again. I chuckle as I type. You know he’s probably still seventeen, even if he is a senior.

  Armando: Agreed, gross. Bad Armando.

  Kaylee: You’ll be forgiven if you take me out for Chinese tonight.

  Armando: Pick you up at six-thirty?

  Kayl
ee: Don’t be late.

  A knock cuts through the dark silence and I nearly jump two feet off the ground.

  There’s the sound keys jingling and I scramble to get to my feet.

  The door opens and someone steps inside just a half second before I pop up behind my desk.

  “Uh, hi,” a man says. His eyes are wide and it’s obvious I scared him, and this is automatically weird. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were around and I really needed to grab a book from that cupboard.” He points somewhere toward the back of the classroom.

  “H…hi,” I stutter awkwardly as I take him in.

  He’s young looking, but not nearly young enough to be mistaken for a student. His soft brown hair is short and spiky. He’s wearing a tighter fitting pair of black jeans, Chucks, a grey button up shirt rolled to his elbows, and a black vest. The barest hints of facial hair hug a chiseled chin that betrays his slightly boyish face.

  “I’m, uh, Drake,” he says awkwardly, and I realize that I’m just standing here in the dark, staring at him. “You must be the new history teacher?”

  “Yes!” I suddenly say, far too loud and startled sounding. “Yes, I’m Kaylee Ray.” I step from behind the desk and cross the room toward him. He takes three steps toward me, and the door swings closed behind him.

  He holds out his hand and I shake it. I’m proud that my hands aren’t shaking.

  “Nice to meet you,” he says with a lopsided smile that is completely adorable. “I’m, uh, the other history teacher. I teach US and AP. This was my classroom last year.”

  “Oh,” I say, my eyes widening a bit. “Uh, yeah, I’ve got a box of your stuff, I think.” I start to turn away from him, but my eyes stay locked on him.

  He gives a chuckle and his eyes drop away from me for a moment. He looks embarrassed.

  I am totally staring and checking him out.