Fic: "Sparks Fly"
Dec. 27th, 2010 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
circ_bambooSummary: McCoy/Chapel librarian AU: McCoy is a librarian and media specialist, and Chapel is the interim principal.
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, hints of Kirk/Rand
Rating: NC-17
Content Advisory: Nothing not inherent in the rating.
Word Count: 9400
Notes: The SF United School District exists, but anything I say about it is fiction. Sparks High School and Allen Junior High don't exist, although Feinstein Elementary does. This is for the McCoy/Chapel Holiday Exchange, as a gift for sleepygoof8784. Hope you enjoy! Also available here at AO3.
An explosion happened at Sparks High School over the summer of 2011. No, not the kind of explosion that resulted in injuries and wreckage, but when the metaphorical dust cleared, Christine L. Chapel, age thirty, found herself in the unenviable position of being the principal of a high school in the financially-strapped San Francisco Unified School District. Before, she’d been the lower-ranking of the two vice-principals at Allen Junior High, but somehow the board decided it was in everyone’s best interest to give her the job, at least temporarily. And since a temporary principal was cheaper than going through an actual search, Christine sighed, pushed up her sleeves, and started digging. Metaphorically, of course.
It was the board and the superintendent’s job to make budget cuts, but two weeks before school started, she’d gotten a phone call requesting that she make recommendations—unofficially, of course—as to where the school could save some money. Way to make me the bad guy before they even know who I am, she’d thought at the time. Now, it was a week into school; they’d be expecting the first set of recommendations at the end of the month, and she hadn’t even started. Reluctantly, she opened up a new spreadsheet on her personal laptop.
She’d started filling in various fields when she heard some sort of disturbance outside. A moment later, the door to her office flew open and someone she didn’t quite recognize—a man, dark-haired, tall, broad-shouldered, probably in his early to mid-thirties, probably good-looking when he wasn’t furious—burst in. “Phil, what the hell—who are you?” His eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” Christine snapped. “I’m the one sitting in the office marked ‘Principal,’ and I’m due at least a modicum of respect.” She stood, glad she’d worn three-inch heels and a navy skirt suit, as well as having her hair skinned back into its usual severe bun. “Out.”
“Out?” The dark-haired man—wearing a shirt and tie, like almost all the male teachers—frowned even harder.
“Out,” she repeated, and pointed. “You can ask my assistant if I have any free time and make an appointment like everyone else.”
He snorted. “You don’t even know who I am.” Inexplicably, he had a Southern accent, but she just filed that fact away for future consideration.
“Well, we’re even.” She pointed again. “Go.”
He did, which seemed to confuse him, and she heard him, polite words laden with sarcasm, make an appointment with Janice. Janice, of course, was bright enough to realize that she should put him off for as long as possible, and sure enough, a few moments later she heard heavy footsteps leave the outer office and the new appointment noise binged on her Google calendar. Christine waited a few more minutes before pressing the intercom button and saying, “Janice, could you come here, please.”
“Right there, Ms. Chapel.”
Janice walked in a moment later, closing the door behind her. “What do you need?”
“Who on earth was that?” Christine asked.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Christine.” Janice had actually been her admin at Allen, and they’d known each other for years. “Tina warned me about him. Grumpy bastard.”
“I got that much, Jan,” she said, amused. “But what’s his name and what does he do around here?”
“Leonard McCoy, librarian and media specialist,” Janice said promptly. “I guess he and the previous principal had some sort of casual yet mutually-antagonistic relationship going on where McCoy bursting into his office unannounced was acceptable.”
“He’s a librarian?” Her brain was stuck back on that fact.
“Yeah,” Jan said. “I guess his dad was a big muckety-muck around here? Died when he was—no, wait, that’s the new AP Euro teacher. Uh. McCoy. Divorced, originally from Atlanta; he’s got custody of a daughter who goes to Feinstein.” Feinstein was an elementary school in the district; it didn’t feed into Sparks, but Christine knew where it was. “I guess he went to UIUC or something.”
“Wow.” Christine was impressed; she’d looked into library science briefly before deciding to continue on the principal track, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was a very highly-ranked school. “So what’s he doing here?”
Janice shrugged. “Stability, I guess.”
“Okay,” Christine said. “So when’s he coming back? And why did he want to meet with me?”
“Tomorrow,” Jan said, “and he didn’t say, but I’m guessing he’s going to complain about the budget for the library this year.”
“Oh, God,” Christine said with a groan. “I didn’t do it.”
“I know,” Janice said, “but I don’t think he cares.”
Christine sighed. “Great.”
Thump, thump, thump.
Well, one thing she had to say about Leonard McCoy—he was punctual. She could hear his footsteps even through the closed door, and when the intercom crackled to life with, “Ms. Chapel, your 12:30 appointment is here,” she’d already saved the letter she’d been editing and turned to face the door. Pushing a button, she said, “He can come in, Janice.”
Which he did, still blazing fury, even though he’d had an entire day to cool down. Part of her mind was amazed that he managed to fill her entire office with his presence, even though he was only perhaps an inch or two over six feet tall, and librarians weren’t often known for commanding presences. The rest of her brain was cataloguing points in her favor about the budget for the year. She’d spent most of the previous evening going over his requests for the last couple years, versus what he’d actually gotten.
“Principal Chapel,” he said, his voice reasonably under control, although his vowels twanged.
“Mr. McCoy,” she said, standing, and held out a hand. “How can I help you?”
He shook her hand, one quick downward shake in the method of professional men, and an equally-quick release. His hands were large and almost impossibly long-fingered, in a way that made her think surgeon or concert pianist, although of course he was neither. “I want to apologize for my rudeness last time,” he said, and she heard a note of reluctance in his voice. “I had no idea that Principal Boyce had taken early retirement over the summer.”
She raised both eyebrows. “Didn’t you get the memo?” She gestured to the chair next to him. “Please, have a seat.”
He sat, but not until she’d reseated herself. Scratching behind one ear in what looked like a nervous habit, he said, “I, ah, may have gotten the memo, but I didn’t necessarily remember.”
“In other words, you used it to line the bird cage. I get it, Mr. McCoy.” She smiled. “I’m Christine Chapel; three months ago, I was one of the vice-principals at Allen Junior High.”
“Oh, great, a junior-high vice principal,” he muttered under his breath. Christine frowned, but pretended not to hear him. “We need to discuss the library and media center’s budget for this year.”
“It’s not significantly deviated from your budget for the last five years,” she said.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “We’re still using computers purchased eight years ago. I put in two years ago to buy computers that were, oh, capable of running something like the current generation of OSes and I got put off until next year; same thing happened last year, and apparently Phil was going to tell me the same thing this year.” He leaned forward, putting his hands on the edge of her desk. “Our children are at a serious disadvantage, Miz Chapel.”
“They’re also at a serious disadvantage by not having teachers or schoolbooks,” she said, leaning back in her seat. “You aren’t the only department coming in here and telling me that you desperately need something. I’ve been getting daily emails from the AP Euro teacher, who is offended that the book he’s expected to use for the class seems to think that Germany is split into West and East. The AP Government teacher is similarly offended by the fact that her textbook doesn’t realize that the president is no longer George Bush—George H. W. Bush. Believe me when I tell you that outdated computers in the lab is towards the bottom of my list of worries.”
“That’s absurd,” he snapped. “Outdated textbooks can be supplemented by proper teaching. There’s no possible way I can teach students how to use Microsoft Office 2007 or Windows Vista—both years out of date, by the way—when the licenses have expired for the Windows XP systems we’re using. That’s not even mentioning the cataloguing system we’re supposedly using—and I’m pretty sure I have more books of my own than our actual library.”
“Well, if we don’t have that many books, I don’t see why you’d need more sophisticated cataloguing software,” Christine said. Some part of her brain was aware that he had a point, and that she’d attacked something irrelevant, but the rest of her brain simply didn’t care.
“It’s a symptom, not a cause,” he said, obviously furious. “Look—”
She cut him off with a gesture. “The budget for the year was made months before I got the job and approved two weeks before I started. I can’t magically make money appear out of thin air, and even if I could, I don’t know that new computers that the majority of the students won’t ever see are on the top of the list.”
“That’s the point,” he said, and his voice actually got quieter and much more dangerous. “The students who come in and use the computers in the library are the ones who don’t have computers at home. They’re already at a disadvantage.”
Oh. “I still can’t make money appear out of thin air,” she said, and stood. “If you’ve got nothing other than berating me for something that was not under my control, this meeting is at an end.”
He stood, stared at her for a moment, and said, “Louisiana?”
“Pardon?”
“You have an accent,” he said. “It’s faint, but it comes out more when you’re mad. You’re also a Southerner, aren’t you?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not a Southerner. I’m from New Orleans originally, but I’ve lived in California for more than ten years now.”
He snorted. “Can’t get rid of it that quickly.”
“Mr. McCoy, we’re done.” She walked out from behind the desk and held the door open for him.
He turned, frowning, and left, throwing a, “Thank you for your time, ma’am,” over his shoulder.
Christine closed her door with a sound that most certainly wasn’t a slam, although it may have been a touch more forceful than necessary, and threw herself back into her desk chair.
Janice came in a moment or two later. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Jan, what the hell am I going to do with that man?”
“I can think of a thing or two to do with him but I can’t say them out loud,” Janice said, a speculative tone to her voice, and then clapped her hand over mouth. “Um. Principal Chapel.”
Christine stared at her for a moment, aghast, and then burst into laughter. If it had an edge of hysteria to it, neither of them said anything.
A month later, Christine found herself wandering the hallways during a Janice-imposed half-hour break. “Go,” Janice had said. “The school needs to know that you’re not just a random name on the door.” Christine had protested, but she found herself outside the office a moment later, and she couldn’t exactly walk back in, could she?
Down the hall to the right was the gymnasium; she looked in and saw a handful of mixed-gender teams playing basketball while another handful of students flailed around with badminton racquets. Through the open doors at the back of the gym, she saw clumps of students walking around the track and texting furiously on the phones that weren’t actually allowed in the school, as well as one lone boy running laps at what seemed to be a ridiculous pace.
The string orchestra was practicing on the stage in the auditorium; she faintly recognized the song from her own high school orchestra days. Britten’s “Simple Symphony,” isn’t it? She listened to them play for a few minutes, and then bowed out.
She poked her head into the cafeteria and then out immediately; it was a cacophony of smells and sounds that she hadn’t forgotten from cafeteria duty at Allen, and if she didn’t have to go in there, she wouldn’t. She said hello to the school nurse, who she had only met briefly, and then found herself standing outside the school library.
Well. It certainly wouldn’t do to avoid the library just because she . . . Shying away from any of a long list of reasons as to why she may or may not want to avoid the library, she squared her shoulders and pulled the door open.
Inside it was clean, and bright, like most rooms in a high school, but there were several small clusters of tables around pillars towards the center of the main room, supporting computers. Large, clunky computers with fourteen-inch CRT monitors; even Christine could recognize them as hideously out of date, and she felt a stab of guilt in her midsection. Mr. McCoy stood by one of the tables on the outer wall, leaning over a computer keyboard typing, his gray dress pants tight across his rear end, and she found herself staring for a moment before she blinked and looked away. Damn, damn, damn.
“Is there something I can help you with, Principal Chapel?”
Christine turned to the speaker, who turned out to be Geoffrey M’Benga, the other librarian and media specialist. “Oh, no, Geoff. Just . . . wandering.”
He nodded. “All right. Well, Leonard will probably be done with helping Allison in a few minutes, if you wanted to speak with him.”
“Oh, no. I mean, not in particular. I meant it when I said I was wandering.” She smiled at him, knowing she sounded like a fool but not knowing what to say to fix it.
Geoff returned her smile and went back behind the counter. Christine flicked her glance to the left—McCoy was still helping the student, gesturing at the monitor—and strode, purposefully, to the stacks on the right side of the room. She slipped between two of them and ran a finger along the spines of the books, attempting to settle her brain with the soothing smell of books and paper.
She’d only run into Mr. McCoy a few times in the last month, mostly at meetings for various committees around the school. He hadn’t tried to schedule another appointment, hadn’t tried to accost her in the hallway, nothing other than the politely icy nods they exchanged. It was—strange. She knew that in her position—especially because she was between ten and thirty years too young to be even an interim principal—she definitely had to keep an authoritative distance from the rest of the staff and faculty. However, she at least tried to be on good terms with everyone from the crotchety old Latin teacher, Cartwright, all the way down to the flashily-gorgeous, newly-hired, redheaded math teacher, who let the students call her “Miss Gaila.” She wasn’t really sure about this battle of wills with the librarian.
Movement in the middle of the room startled her, and she turned to see Geoff walking over to McCoy, holding what looked like a cell phone. “Leonard, your phone’s ringing.”
“Who on earth is calling me?” McCoy asked, meeting him partway. He looked at the display on the phone, frowned, and pushed a button to answer it. “Hello?”
Christine tried very hard not to eavesdrop on the conversation and generally succeeded, but she did catch a few words here and there. “…yes. A hundred and three? . . . right there.” He strode back behind the desk, to the office, but stopped halfway, turned, and said, “Allison, I’m sorry, but m’daughter’s sick and I have to go pick her up. Mr. M’Benga can finish helping you if you still need it.”
Allison, a tiny blonde thing who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, shook her head and turned back to the computer, typing furiously.
As he disappeared into the office, Christine heard McCoy say, “Geoff, can you deliver a message to the main office, or have one of the kids do it?”
“No need,” Geoff said. “Principal Chapel is currently hiding in the stacks over there. I’m sure she’d be willing to deliver a message if you asked her.”
“You don’t even need to ask,” Christine called, stepping out into the main part of the library.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you back there,” McCoy said stiffly as he emerged from the back room, carrying a laptop bag on one shoulder.
She nodded vaguely. “Your daughter is sick?”
“Fever of 103, says she has a headache and sore throat. I’ll be back tomorrow, most likely.”
“However it works out, I’ll have Janice fill out the paperwork and leave it on your desk.”
“Thanks,” McCoy said, still stiff, and when she nodded, turned and left.
McCoy was out for a couple days; his daughter was actually quite sick, and the next time Christine saw him was a teacher workday just after Halloween. Not being an actual teacher, he only had to come in for half a day, and she wouldn’t even have seen him at all under normal circumstances.
It was lunchtime, and Christine was about to head to the refrigerator down the back hallway when she heard someone unexpected speaking in the main part of the office. Sparks was a high school, of course, and there just weren’t any students who sounded like little kids in the building. But she clearly heard a young girl speaking in the outer room, not a teenager. What in the— She pushed her door open and there, chattering away happily to Jan, was an adorable brunette girl, perhaps ten at the most, her hair in a messy ponytail on the back of her head.
She turned when the door opened and said, “Oh!”
Janice said, “Joanna, this is Principal Chapel, your father’s boss. Ms. Chapel, meet Joanna McCoy.”
Joanna McCoy. Mr. McCoy’s daughter. What was she doing in the office here?
And, speaking of the devil himself, Mr. McCoy came in before either Christine or Joanna could say anything, his heavy footsteps echoing faintly in the office itself. “Joanna—Principal Chapel,” he said, noticing her presence. “The babysitter cancelled out on us. Is it okay if Joanna sits in the library and does her homework for the afternoon?”
“Of course,” Christine said, surprised and not entirely sure why. “Nice to meet you, Joanna.”
“Pleased to meet you as well, Principal Chapel,” Joanna said. The Southern accent was much fainter in her voice, but then again, she’d lived in San Francisco for a significantly-larger percentage of her life than her father. “Thank you for letting me stay.”
“Yes, thank you,” Mr. McCoy echoed.
“You’re welcome,” Christine said.
Joanna looked at her father and smiled, an expression full of sweetness and love and trust. McCoy smiled back at his daughter, his face mirroring hers.
Christine felt another wave of surprise welling up in her. She knew he had a daughter, and she knew he had custody of her, and she knew he liked children, but it was such a different side of him than the admittedly very little she’d seen so far. It was . . . strange.
“C’mon, Jo-jo, let’s go,” he said, and held out his hand.
“Bye, Ms. Rand. Bye, Principal Chapel. Thank you again!” Joanna beamed at Janice and Christine and followed her father out of the room.
“Well, she’s a sweetie,” Jan observed, a minute later.
“Yeah,” Christine said. “Must be her mother’s genes.”
Jan laughed.
“And today you have a meeting with the student council at lunch,” Janice reminded her, a week later.
“Oh?” Christine said and winced. “I forgot about that.”
“I figured,” Jan said. “Don’t worry; I ordered lunch for the five of you. The meeting is in the library.”
“We can’t eat in the library,” Christine said, not sure if she was actually shocked or just pretending to be so.
“You’re the principal,” Jan said. “You can eat wherever you like.”
“Yeah, I suppose I can.”
The meeting with the student leaders went well; she was surprised at how well-organized they were, and also how quickly they managed to inhale the deli sandwiches—both the boys and the girls. To be fair, the student-body president was also the star of the girls’ track and cross country teams, but the speed was still impressive.
She was still munching on her chips when they finished the meeting, and the kids squirmed in their seats until she dismissed them to go spend the rest of their lunch period with their friends. After they left, she abruptly realized how loud her crunching was in the sudden silence, and let out a delicate snort.
No, eating in the library still felt like she was getting away with something. She crumpled up her bag—also ridiculously loud—and took it over to the trash can by the door and hesitated. There was still some pieces of food—some stray lettuce, a bit of bread, and some mustard—in the bag, and she didn’t want it to smell.
As she stood over the trash, the door opened, and Mr. McCoy entered. He stopped abruptly about six inches away from her and, a very long moment later, took a step back. “Principal Chapel,” he said, her title twanging more than usual.
“Mr. McCoy,” she said; her first instinct was to flatten along the wall and let him walk by, but then she realized that she was the principal of a high school and his boss, and stood her ground. “Thank you for letting us meet in the library.”
“No problem,” he said, and, another long moment later, stepped aside to let her leave.
She gave him a bright, plastic smile, and left the library. Her sleeve brushed up against his arm as she left, and she repressed a shiver.
As much as she told herself it was because of the vent by the door, it wasn’t.
November rolled along in its rainy way, but the temperature hit eighty a week before Thanksgiving, and Christine cracked the window in her office and left her jacket on the back of her chair for most of the day. Janice came in, after the school day had ended, and handed her an iced coffee.
“Oh, thank you so much,” Christine said, taking a slurp. Blessed, blessed, cold caffeine. She’d never had anything taste quite that wonderful in her life.
“You’re welcome,” Jan said, grinning, and sat in the spare chair. “How is everything going?”
Christine groaned. “I have—well, you know exactly what my schedule looks like. I had to cancel my meeting with the Scholar-Athlete Commission, and I’m not going to be able to make it out to my parents’ for Thanksgiving this year, just so I can get these evaluations in.”
“I hear you,” Jan said. “I’ve still got teachers messing up the new grading software, and only one of the other admins has any clue how to fix it.”
“I’m so sorry, Jan,” Christine said. “I don’t even know what I thought this job was going to be like when I said yes.”
“I know,” Janice said. “But at least you have me to keep your calendar straight.”
“It’s true.” Christine sighed. “I don’t get to see students anymore. I go home and I’m seeing spreadsheets and columns of numbers, and I’m thinking about staffing issues, and the budget, dear God, the budget.”
“When’s the last time you saw a movie?” Jan asked.
“I don’t even know,” Christine said. “I think I saw the Coen Brothers’ True Grit in the theater?”
Jan blinked. “Sweetie, that came out almost a year ago. And you went to that with Roger, didn’t you?”
Christine groaned again. “Oh, God, don’t remind me of him.”
“He still dating that—”
“Yeah. It’s like he wanted me, or at least a leggy blonde, but the animatronic version. Opinions not necessary.”
“Oh, whatever,” Jan said. “Totally not good enough for you.”
“I know.” Christine took another long slurp of her coffee and held it in her mouth a moment, savoring it like fine wine. “Damn. I could really stand to go on a date.”
“Yeah, you could,” Jan said. “Speaking of, I may or may not have one this weekend.”
“Oh?”
“In that way where I think you should maintain plausible deniability.”
In other words, it was with one of the teachers. “So what was your favorite subject in high school?” Christine asked, seemingly out of nowhere.
“AP Euro,” Jan replied promptly.
AP Euro, AP Euro. There were two AP Euro teachers, but Jan probably didn’t mean Mr. Croyer, who also ran the karate club—with his wife, who was a full-time karate instructor. That left Mr. Kirk. Christine narrowed her eyes. “How old is he?”
Jan raised an eyebrow. “Old enough,” she said, and then relented. “Twenty-seven. That’s two years older than I am!”
Christine often forgot that Jan was so young, as she’d been her admin for three years now and had always been remarkably mature. “Well, be smart and have fun,” she said.
“What about you?”
“What about me?” Christine asked.
“Got any favorite subjects?”
She twisted her lips. “Not in high school.”
“No? Huh. I could have sworn that you really liked, say, media studies.”
Media studies? What did she—oh. “No,” she replied, a little too quickly, and definitely too defensively.
Jan just looked at her. It took a full minute, but eventually it worked.
“Well, maybe,” she admitted. “I mean, how could I not?” She actually hated the fact that McCoy was startlingly attractive, mostly for the ‘startling’ part. “But—no.” She was his boss.
“I know,” Jan said, and sighed.
Christine spent Thanksgiving home alone, with a turkey sandwich and football. She fell asleep long before she wanted to, and as a result, woke early and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. She’d get out that evening, she decided. Even if it was just for dinner.
Five-thirty rolled around, and she found a little coffee shop called Sweet Melissa’s with sandwiches and free wifi a neighborhood over. She got another turkey sandwich—it was the season, after all, and she did like turkey—and buried herself in a spreadsheet that she wanted to finish by Monday.
Somewhere between five and fifty minutes later—she’d lost track of time—a voice sounded behind her, drawling. “Are you really doin’ work in a coffee shop the day after Thanksgivin’?”
She jumped about a foot in the air and turned. Of course it was McCoy, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, a windbreaker over his arm. “Mr. McCoy,” she said, trying to convince her heart to return to its normal speed. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Thanks; you too,” he said. “Really, though. Work?”
“I have to do it sometime this weekend,” she said, defensive. “How’s Joanna?”
“She’s with her mother this weekend,” he said, shrugging. “I’m sure she’s fine, though. I talked to her yesterday, and I’ll hear from her again this evening.”
Christine nodded. “How long have you been out here?”
“Almost three years,” he said. “Jocelyn—that’s my ex—got a job with a firm out here, and I could either move across the country or Joanna would only get to see her mother twice a year.”
“Wow, that sucks,” Christine said, and clapped her hand over her mouth, rather like Joanna had. “I mean. Um.”
McCoy laughed, which transformed his face into—oh, sooo not fair, Christine thought. He was handsome enough sporting a scowl, as he always seemed to be around her. The black t-shirt and jeans did at least as much for him as the dress pants and shirts he wore to work, and perhaps a little more for her libido, if she was being honest with herself. But the laughter gave him an echo of how he’d looked around his daughter, and now he was frighteningly attractive.
Without thinking about it too hard, Christine saved her spreadsheet, closed her laptop, and pushed the other chair at her table out with a foot. “Sit down,” she said. “Keep me from working for a few minutes. What brings you out here, anyway?”
“I live around the corner,” he said, hooking the chair with one foot and sitting down. “What brings you out here?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I wanted to go somewhere new, and they had a sign in the window saying they had wifi. I live over that way,” she said, gesturing vaguely east.
McCoy nodded. “How was your Thanksgiving?” he asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “Parade, turkey sandwich, football, spreadsheets.”
“Were you a math teacher before you became a principal?” he asked. “You seem to like spreadsheets a lot.”
“No, biology,” she said. “Spreadsheets are . . . convenient.”
He snorted at that.
It was strange, talking with him in a non-school environment. And—dare she say—pleasant. An hour later, he got a phone call from Joanna, snapping Christine back into reality. As he went to stand in the vestibule to talk, she packed up her computer, took her dishes back to the counter, and waved at him as she escaped—no, left. She was leaving.
He raised one hand as she walked by, looking a little confused. She did not look back.
The staff and faculty Holiday Party was held on the last day of school before break, December 22nd, which was a Thursday that year. Despite the fact that they’d had to hold it in the cafeteria to cut costs, the food was tasty, the alcohol at least present, and everyone appeared to have a good time. Christine stayed until the very end, allowing Janice to sneak out early with Jim Kirk (awfully smart but unconventional, Christine had discovered).
It was quiet, other than the faint hum of the refrigeration units in the back. She turned around to make sure that everyone in the room was gone, and was surprised to discover that she wasn’t alone. Mr. McCoy was picking up streamers from the perimeter of the room. “McCoy,” she said.
“Principal Chapel,” he said. “Just helping clean.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You can leave.”
He snorted. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
She frowned at him. “I’m perfectly capable of locking up and letting myself out. The building super is right outside.”
He just raised an eyebrow at her.
She blew out a breath. “Oh, all right.”
He was, of course, a perfect gentleman as he hovered behind her as she finished up, and he insisted on walking her to her car. Christine couldn’t help but be aware of the . . . . the physicality of him, next to her as they walked to the staff parking lot. Her gaze flicked to him once, twice, three times, and then they were at her car.
He turned to her. “Well. I’m off.”
Christine tried to force a smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “Have a good holiday.”
“You too,” he said, but frowned at her. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. It—yeah.”
“All right,” he said, still frowning.
She took a deep breath, and blurted out, “I really want to kiss you.”
His eyebrow shot up so fast she thought it might fly clean off his head. “Then why the hell don’t you?”
“Because I’m your boss,” she said, “and it’s just—I can’t.” She turned to her car and fumbled to get her keys out of her pocket.
“Ms. Chapel. Christine.” McCoy placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Please don’t,” she said, and his hand dropped immediately.
“Christine,” he said again, and she turned barely enough to look at him. “I understand. I won’t say anything again, because it’s unfair to put you in this kind of situation. I do want you to know that—” He paused. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s very likely that it’s mutual.”
She swallowed, and turned to face him a little more. His face was serious, as much of it as she could see in the streetlight. She tried to speak, but couldn’t, so she just nodded at him, got in her car, and left.
This time, she watched him in her rearview mirror as long as she could.
A week and a half with her parents and extended family and she thought she was, perhaps, ready to see him again. Maybe.
She certainly wasn’t ready to find him waiting for her in her outer office first thing in the morning, waving a piece of paper. “I’ve got it!” he said. “I’ve got the solution.”
“The solution to what?” She was holding a cup of coffee but she actually hadn’t taken more than a sip or two of it yet.
He gave her a strange look. “Our computer problem, of course.” He held out the paper, which turned out to be drafted on some sort of official letterhead from—oh, wow, that was a big name in Silicon Valley. The company was offering to donate twelve—twelve! brand-new computers, as well as all the software and licenses to run on them, to Sparks High School, in honor of the accomplishments of the student council.
“The student council?” she asked.
“It was the first group I could think of,” he said.
“How did you—”
“Clay Treadway is Joanna’s new stepfather,” he said, tapping one of the signatures. “Jocelyn asked Joanna how I was doing and somehow they got to talking about it. I suspect alcohol was involved, and sooner or later my ten-year-old daughter managed to talk him into donating twelve computers. And he certainly couldn’t go back on what he promised his brand-new stepkid, now, could he?”
“I—that’s amazing. It really is.” Christine took a deep breath. “Thank you so much, Mr. McCoy. Can I keep the letter? I need to talk to the superintendent about this.”
“Oh, of course,” he said. “I have to get to the library—Geoff isn’t going to be in until lunchtime. I wanted to let you know right away, though.”
“Thank you again,” she said, and he nodded and left.
Christine walked into her office, still somewhat stunned.
Four hours, six cups of coffee, and more phone calls than she wanted to count later, she’d managed to get the school board and associated lawyers to sign off on the donation. The computers would be delivered later that week.
It was very difficult to resist calling it a Christmas Miracle, but at least she didn’t have to worry about Mr. McCoy bursting in to complain about funding anymore.
She met Clay and Jocelyn Treadway a couple weeks later when they came in to see the computers and the shiny new plaque on the wall commemorating the donation. Everyone was very polite, but she still had to marvel at Joanna’s skills. Maybe the district could hire her to negotiate all their contracts, Christine thought.
Of course, just because she didn’t worry about him complaining about funding, it didn’t mean she didn’t think about him more than she should. She still had to sign off on a lot of his paperwork, and she did occasionally end up in the library for various reasons. They saw each other at staff meetings, and once in a while, she’d see him in the hallway or the parking lot.
He had other ways of making his presence known, too.
On the fourteenth of March, Christine barely got into her office before Jan came up to her with a mint mocha—she could smell it clearly—in one hand and a balloon in the other. “Oh, awesome.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Jan said, when she tried to take the coffee. “You don’t get it until we get to sing to you.”
“What,” Christine said. “It’s too early for this.” She made to grab for the mocha again, but Janice held it behind her. “Oh, all right.”
One of the janitors hummed a note, and the admins, vice principals, cleaning crew, and a couple counselors sang a credible rendition of “Happy Birthday” for her.
She smiled. “Thank you very much,” she said. It was really sweet that they put that together, but they were holding her caffeine hostage. “Now can I have my coffee?”
“Hah, yes,” Jan said.
Christine snatched it out of her hand before she could change her mind, stuck her nose right up to the opening in the lid, and inhaled. Ohhhh. She’d put up with a lot worse than a birthday song for deliveries like this.
They finally let her into her office a few minutes later, and there was a bouquet of flowers, lilies and carnations, on her desk. She checked the card, and it was from the superintendent’s office. Nice. Dr. Pike’s admin, Mia, had always been frighteningly organized.
She pulled out her chair, and was about to sit down when she noticed something on the seat. It was wrapped in striped paper, about six inches by nine inches, with a tag on it. Huh.
Happy birthday, the tag said. -L.H.M.
LHM? She looked at the faculty and staff directory for approximately five seconds before she realized that it was Leonard H. McCoy. Of course. She sighed. She really shouldn’t accept the gift, but . . . Tearing off the wrapping paper, she discovered a trade-paperback book—The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
Of course. A book from a librarian. On the other hand, he’d gotten her a book about biology—stem cells, to be precise, as she discovered when she turned the book over and read the back. She’d heard about the book when it came out a couple years before, but had never gotten around to buying it. Awesome. Flipping to the first page, she started reading.
… and looked up guiltily when her Google calendar binged, almost an hour later. Oh, shit. She put a bookmark in the book and locked it in her desk. She’d thank him the next time she saw him, especially if no one else was around.
On April 15th, she got an email from Mia Colt, the superintendent’s admin, informing her that the permanent position as a principal at Sparks High School would be posted on May 1st, and that they were looking forward to reviewing her resume.
Huh.
At three in the morning on May 30, she deleted the draft email containing her resume, cover letter, and references. She fell asleep immediately thereafter, for the first night in weeks.
June 1st came and went, and on June 3rd at eight in the morning, ten minutes after she got in, Jan called her over the intercom. “Principal Chapel, you have a visitor.”
“Send them in, Ms. Rand.”
Christine wasn’t paying too much attention as she stood, scribbling something on a notepad, and when she looked up, there was no one there. A moment later, someone cleared his throat, and she looked down, feeling remarkably stupid. “Hello, Dr. Pike,” she said, to the man in the wheelchair sitting in front of her desk.
“Christine,” he said with a smile. Christopher Pike had been superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District for about five years and in a wheelchair for one; naturally, it hadn’t affected a damn thing. “How are you?”
“Oh, not quite awake,” she said. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Janice should be bringing me coffee,” he said, and indeed, Jan entered a moment later and set a mug of coffee on Christine’s desk. Once she’d left, he’d apparently had enough small talk, and said, “I didn’t get your resume last month.”
“Ah, no,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“I’d still be willing to accept it,” he said, face pleasantly neutral. He picked up the mug of coffee and moved it to the other side of the desk.
“I don’t think I’ll be submitting it,” she said, watching him carefully.
“Oh?” The single syllable was not accompanied by a raised eyebrow; he did not need to do anything that obvious or déclassé.
She sighed. “I miss working with students,” she said. “Maybe someday I’ll be willing to be a principal, but at the moment, I think I should emulate Cincinnatus and step down.” The history reference was entirely gratuitous; Pike had been a history teacher some twenty-odd years ago, before he’d climbed the ladder to principal and then superintendent.
He shook his head briefly. “Is there anything I can do to convince you otherwise?”
“I don’t think so, Dr. Pike,” she said. It was mostly true; the only reason she was even in this temporary position was because he’d talked her into it, with high-flown rhetoric about the good she could do for the students and the world.
He sighed. “I’ve lost my touch.”
She laughed. “You haven’t,” she reassured him. “Try again in five or ten years.”
“In five or ten years,” he said, groaning, “I’m going to retire somewhere with less fog. Hopefully then I won’t have to leave my house to go try to talk absolutely brilliant people into remaining principals for my district before seven in the morning.”
Christine turned red at the compliment. “I can go back to Allen,” she said. “I’ll still be a principal of some sort.”
“Yes,” he said. “Seriously, though, Christine, you’ve done an amazing job over here, and I was hoping to keep you in the position.”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Pike,” she said. “I am definitely grateful for the opportunity.”
“You all are,” he said, shaking his head.
After he left, Jan came in and shut the door behind her. “You’re going back to Allen?” she said, moving the chair to the middle of the desk and sitting in it.
“I am,” Christine said. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. I understand if you like the perks here better.”
Janice snorted. “Hell, no. I get to keep my raise even if I go back to being a VP’s assistant, rather than a principal. I’ll stay with you.”
“Thank you,” Christine said. Before she could say anything else, her throat closed up, and she blinked rapidly for a few moments, looking away.
Jan waited patiently, and when Christine looked back at her and smiled, she asked, “Why not?”
“It’s not the responsibility,” Christine said. “I don’t mind that. I’m just . . . not done working with kids, yet, and I’d like to get back to that.”
“You haven’t been in a classroom in years,” Jan pointed out.
“I know,” she said, “but I saw students every single day at Allen—you remember. I want to go back to that. I’d like to remember why I got a degree in education in the first place.”
Janice nodded. “Okay. I’ll start packing soon.”
“Not too soon,” Christine said. “I’m here till the end of the month.”
The news was all over the school approximately two hours later, even though the only person who actually knew was Janice. A surprising number of emails poured into her inbox, expressing their dismay at losing her.
She did not get one from Mr. McCoy, but when she went out to her car at lunchtime, there was a piece of notebook paper, folded, under her windshield wiper.
So on July 1, you’ll no longer be principal of Sparks High School?
There was no signature, but she knew who had written it. In the blank space at the bottom of the note, she wrote, Yes, that’s correct.
Mr. McCoy drove a Subaru station wagon, and she slipped the note under his windshield wiper. When she came out to her car at the end of the day, the note was back on her car.
If you’d like to celebrate Canada Day, my phone number is 415-555-6162.
The ball was apparently in her court.
As if she would say no.
June 30 was a Saturday, so on June 29th, she finished packing the last of her personal items, ate cake with most of the faculty and staff, and left for home.
Somehow she made it through the next day and a half, but by lunchtime on July 1, she couldn’t take it anymore. She went to the coffee shop from Thanksgiving weekend—she hadn’t been back there since—got herself a pastry, picked at it, and generally dithered around until finally she sent a text message to McCoy. It’s Christine. I’m at Sweet Melissa’s.
Perhaps thirty nerve-wracking seconds later she got a reply. I’ll be there in a minute.
She counted seconds until he got there, and it was sixty-three before she heard the bell over the door ring. Turning, she saw him, hair damp, shoulders heaving as if he’d run all the way over. She couldn’t help herself—she smiled and stood.
“You got here quickly,” she said.
“I was afraid you’d change your mind,” he admitted. “Come with me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He took her hand as they walked over to his place, and she savored the feeling of skin on skin, even as innocent as it was. “Is Joanna at her mother’s?” she asked, just before they got to his building.
“No; Joss and Clay are out of town. She’s at a friend’s until tomorrow sometime.” He looked over at her, eyes dark.
McCoy lived on the second floor of a converted Victorian; the first thing she noticed when she got through the door was books. The second thing she noticed, also books. Every spare inch of wall was covered in bookshelves, and they were all full. “Wow,” she breathed.
He shrugged. “I’m a librarian. I like books.”
“I like books, too,” she said with a grin.
“I like you,” he said, putting a hand on her waist.
“I like you too,” she said, leaning into his touch. “Now do I get the grand tour?”
He showed her the living room (full of books), the dining room (books stacked on most of the table), the kitchen (spotlessly clean, with a double shelf of cookbooks), the bathroom (yes, books in there as well), and the door to Joanna’s room before stopping with his hand on the doorknob of his own bedroom. “We could go in there,” he said, “but I had plans for dinner, and talking, and maybe even a movie first.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m not hungry yet, and we can do the movie and talking afterward.” She looked up at him hopefully.
“Now how am I supposed to say no to that?” He turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Inside was a queen-sized bed with a dark blue comforter and, surprise surprise, more books. Christine took a quick look around before she grabbed the front of McCoy’s t-shirt—dark blue this time—and pulled him into a kiss.
As kisses went, it was nothing special—he was caught a bit off guard and she was out of practice—but as first contacts overall went, it was explosive. Christine thought she saw sparks behind her eyelids as her lips met his. Finally, finally, finally. She speared her fingers into his hair as his hands found her hips and pulled their bodies together.
After a moment or two, he kicked the door shut and broke the kiss to say, “We do need to talk some.”
“Yes,” she agreed, but couldn’t think about what.
“Birth control, STIs,” he said, backing up a few inches to look at her. “I’ve got condoms and the doctor says I’m clean.”
“Uh,” Christine said, trying to force her brain back online. “I’m on the Pill, but I’d rather double up. I’m clean, too.” No one since Roger, but she didn’t say that.
“Good,” he said, hooked his fingers in her belt loops, and dragged her back into him.
Their second kiss was much better; McCoy tipped his head to one side and dragged his tongue over her lips until she parted them. Even as they kissed, he slipped his fingers under the band of her cardigan and pushed it off her shoulders, stroking the exposed skin of her arms and back. She dropped her hands to his waist and slid under his t-shirt to find warm skin. Oh, she’d wanted this for so long.
His mouth was warm against her skin as he moved from her lips to her cheekbone to her ear. She let out a long sigh, and shook her cardigan to the floor. He chuckled against the side of her neck, and stood up long enough to strip off her tank top. Taking advantage of the moment, she went for his shirt.
“Whoa,” she said a moment later. “How’d you get this built? Hauling around books all day?”
“Something like,” he said, tracing the top edge of one bra cup. “You know, high school principals are supposed to be much less beautiful than you.”
She looked down, felt her face grow hot. “Yeah, well, I’m not a high school principal anymore.”
“Why did you leave?” he asked.
“I’d rather work with kids than committees,” she said, looking up at him. “Trite, but true.”
“I don’t think it’s trite at all,” he said, and kissed her temple. He pulled her against him, bare chest to mostly-bare chest, and she sighed.
In between leisurely kisses, he undid her belt, unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, pushed them over her hips, and helped her out of them, leaving her standing in her underwear. She looked down at herself as he draped her jeans over a chair and realized, belatedly, that she probably should have worn a matching set, but the look on McCoy’s face as he turned back to her made her forget entirely that she hadn’t.
Suddenly, she couldn’t wait a minute longer to see him naked. Reaching out, she stuck her fingers in the waistband of his jeans, and dealt with his belt, buttons, and zipper in short order. She pushed them over his hips; he kicked them away, along with his shoes and socks.
He wore knit boxers underneath, and his erection was clearly outlined by the thin fabric. She reached out, dragged a careful fingertip up the length of him, and watched him suck in an unsteady breath. Before she could grasp him fully in her hand, he pulled her in with one hand on her waist and reached with the other one to unhook her bra. It released, and she wriggled out of the straps and dropped it to the floor.
Pulling the waistband of his underwear out in the front, she eased the elastic down over his hips and let it drop to the floor. He stripped her of her underwear as well, and finally, finally he pulled her full-length against him, no fabric between them.
“Oh, yes,” he breathed in her ear, and she nodded against his shoulder. It felt amazing.
He held her against him even as he extended on arm to turn down the covers on the bed and only let her go to help her lie down on the mattress. She held out her arms, and he joined her quickly. He lowered his body against hers, keeping most of his weight on his arms and knees, and kissed her lips for long moments before making his way down her body, his goal clear. He got sidetracked by her breasts, though, and licked and sucked on the peaks until she gasped and dug her nails into his shoulders.
She gasped again when he kissed the inside of her thighs, and yet again, her head shooting off the bed, when his tongue touched her clit, his lips following. “Ohhh,” she moaned, fingers scrabbling against the sheet until she found an edge of the blanket to clench in one hand.
He could read her body like one of his beloved books, and it was only a matter of minutes before he managed to send her over the peak, crying out with pleasure. She panted for a few moments, and he watched her, his head pillowed on one thigh. “Good?” he asked.
She nodded vigorously, and dragged him up to kiss her. “You now,” she said.
“Well, if you insist,” he said, and took one of her hands to place it on his erection, still full and thick. She stroked it for a moment or two before cupping his balls in her hand and rolling them gently. He groaned. “Oh, Christine, darlin’, not too much of that or this’ll be over too soon.”
“We’ve got all afternoon, all evening, and all night,” she pointed out, but moved back to stroke up the shaft more gently.
“We do,” he said, “but even this first time, I’m goin’ to do it right.”
Apparently his accent deepened when he was in an amorous mood. She was perfectly fine with that.
He pulled himself out of her hand a couple minutes later and rolled over. She heard the bedside drawer open, and he rolled back to her, holding a strip of condoms. Tearing the first package open, he pulled one out and put it on.
Her breath sped up a little bit in anticipation. They were going to do this.
Stroking gently between her legs, he worked a finger inside her briefly. “Are you ready?” he asked, and she nodded. “Okay. Ah, it’s been a while,” he said, oddly hesitant. “This may not . . . last as long as you might like.”
“I already came once,” she said with a shrug. His look turned smug, and she leaned up to kiss him.
He broke away a minute or so later, lined himself up, and pressed inside her, one slow, delicious inch at a time, and she locked her ankles behind his back and moaned. “Oh, McCoy.”
He looked down at her and blinked, and she tried again. “Leonard?”
“Leonard’s fine. McCoy’s fine, too. I’ve just never heard you call me anythin’ but Mr. McCoy.”
“I could—ah!—call you that if you like,” she said, wriggling under him.
“It’s only hot because it’s you,” he said, and slid the last inch home, his hips tucked against hers. “Oh, Christine.”
“Yes,” she said, and he withdrew slowly, re-entering only slightly faster. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Despite his earlier disclaimer, his stamina was remarkably impressive, and he managed to bring her to orgasm a second time just with the movement of his body within hers before he slammed into her with a low groan and shuddered out his own climax. All too soon he had to leave her a final time, because of the condom, and tie it off and throw it away before coming back to bed and curling up around her.
“Oh, Christine,” he said again. “Christine, Christine.”
“Mmm, Leonard,” she said, eyelids drooping. “You’re amazing.”
“Not half bad yourself,” he said, words slurring together, and she chuckled, pulled the edge of the sheet over them halfheartedly, and succumbed to sleep.
Christine woke up a couple hours later, her leg cold where it was covered neither by a bedmate nor a blanket, and tried to straighten out the sheet for a moment before giving up. Leonard’s fingertip entered her range of vision, and then darted under the sheet to trace a circle around her nipple, and she giggled and grabbed his hand.
“How are you doing?” he asked, voice still thick with sleep and sex.
She shivered at his tone. “Fine. Wonderful, even.”
“Mmmm,” he said. “Good. I have a question for you.”
“Shoot,” she said.
“Would you like to have lunch with Joanna and me tomorrow?”
She blinked at that, but the answer sprang to her lips instantly. “Yes. I’d be honored.”
Christine was almost late to their lunch date—he’d joined her in the shower and one thing definitely led to another, necessitating a second shower—and regretted her decision not just to rewear the clothes Joanna hadn’t even seen yesterday. She made it there just in time, though, and joined them at the table at Sweet Melissa’s. “Hi, Joanna,” she said, a zing of nervous energy racing down her spine.
“Hi, Christine,” Joanna chirped. She was grinning from ear to ear. “Can I call you that? I mean, since you’re going to be around for a while. Right?”
“Right,” Christine said. Leonard’s hand settled over hers, and she smiled at him. “Yes, of course you can call me Christine.”
The look on his face was worth the entire last year.
