I'm Your Baby Tonight - Part One - A New Adult Contemporary Romance Series (I'm Your Baby Tonight Series) (2 page)

“And...seeing anyone?” Her arched eyebrows rose even higher, and she looked hopeful.

“Huh?” she asked, shocked at her forwardness, and she swallowed. “Um...no, still single.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. There’s this guy...”she started, but Sasha cut her off.

“No, no, no blind dates. Thank you. It’s sweet. I’ve got enough going on in my life to keep me busy,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. She had an understanding expression on her face, but she knew that she was going to insist anyway. She looked at her shoes, hoping she would see that Sasha was uninterested.

“No, but this one is different. You two would make the perfect match. He’s actually one of the kid’s fathers. The new kid, Johnny’s.” Sasha smiled.  She could only imagine what Johnny’s father was like. Johnny took up at least fifty percent of her attention during the day, always talking about who was doing what.

“Oh, you know I didn’t get to meet his parents yet, but ... it’s really sweet of you, Virginia, but really, I don’t have time for a relationship.” She looked her in the eyes now, hoping she would accept her answer and not persist. She smiled and met her eyes.  Virginia's eyes were strangely triumphant looking and it made her hold back from fidgeting.

“Parent. He only has a daddy. A single daddy by the way, and anyway, there’s always time for love,” she said, winking at her. “Just think about it.”

Sasha didn’t want to think about it. It had been a little over a year-and-a-half since she’d last been in a relationship, but the memory still hurt. She thought that both of them had been perfectly happy. She was perfectly happy. But apparently her boyfriend was only keeping her around until he found someone more interesting with whom to go out. The embarrassment of finding her man in bed with another woman caused hot flames to burn up her cheeks. Since they had been living together in her boyfriend’s apartment, Sasha had had to leave immediately. She had nowhere to go, and was left on the street until she found Anton.

“Shoot, I have a meeting with the principal. Would you mind just keeping an eye on them for like, ten, fifteen minutes?”

“Sure, no problem,” she said. She watched Sasha as she made her way to the door.

CHAPTER 2

S
he slipped out through the heavy oak door, careful to tiptoe around the kids, and practically sprinted down the abandoned and litter-covered hallway, looking at her watch along the way. Teacher’s open doors lined him on either side. All of them had apparently already convened in the auditorium. If there was one thing Principal Close hated, it was tardiness, and she was about to be three minutes late:  a mortal sin in the eyes of the school’s principal. 

She nearly fell in a puddle of suspicious liquid. The janitor was an old man who was losing his eyesight. A consequence was that sometimes he missed some of the kids' messes. Sasha just prayed that this was a case of spilled water and nothing worse. She wiped the bottom of her shoes on the dingy tile floor and kept running. She was supposed to be going to some mandatory staff meeting for the teachers, and she only hoped she could slip in without being noticed.

The auditorium was on the other side of the school, right near the front entrance. It was a large open room with rows and rows of tidy, small chairs. Every week, a different class was assigned to cleaning the bare concrete floors and straightening the chairs. This week, it was Ms. June, Sasha thought, but she wasn’t sure. She rounded the corner and stood at the double doors. They were painted over with a fading coat of cheap crimson paint. This auditorium hadn’t been renovated in years. It smelled like stale milk and little kid sweat, and probably had for some time. It desperately needed new doors or new curtains across the stage to make it look like one of the more modern school auditoriums. As she cracked open the door, the auditorium was already so full that she was going to have to push her way through the crowd and step around several people to find an open seat. There was no way she could do so unnoticed. She’d take the brunt of Mr. Close’s punishment for sure. 

“Ms. Cox!” the principal quipped loudly, stopping mid-sentence as his booming voice echoed off the walls and ceiling of the school auditorium. All heads turned to her, and Sasha sat down in a child-sized seat. “So glad you could join us. We were just talking about you, actually.” His dark, tired eyes scanned Sasha. He looked like a stressed man, probably worried with the burden of taking care of this school.

“Were you?” Sasha asked, trying to lighten the mood, “What was it this time?” She looked around, smiling at her co-workers' faces. She was friendly with most of them. Everyone giggled. The principal was a tall man, and looked even taller standing up on the stage’s auditorium all by himself with the teachers sitting in the crowd. He was thin and balding, in his fifties, with a mildly friendly face. Sasha pinned him as an older, smaller Bruce Willis. The actor hid his age well, but Mr. Close had not been that lucky.

“Budget cuts, actually. We were talking about the district-wide budget cuts, and how they were affecting our different departments, including yours.” Principal Close wore a sympathetic expression and he looked a little tired. His wrinkles looked deeper than usual.

“Including mine? How so?” Sasha sat up and thought about the lousy half a cracker that she had just fed her students an hour ago.

“Well,” the worried principal said, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he paced the stage back and forth, “it seems that we’ll have to put a hold on the chairs that you ordered, for starters.” He stopped pacing and looked right at Sasha and waited for her expected upset response.

“What? But the ones we have now are falling apart. If one of those kids falls, you’re just asking for a lawsuit.” Sasha already knew that it was no use, but she had to try. She felt like crying and stamping her foot like one of her students, but she put on a determined expression to hide her hurt. She saw her hopes of a raise sail right out those awful double doors. Apparently that hadn’t been what Principal Close had wanted to talk about privately.

“Well, then use duct tape or glue to hold them together for now.  You know it’s your responsibility to keep your kids safe. There’s not a lot more we can do.” Sasha was getting angrier and less hurt by the minute. She stood up and all the other faces in the room followed her movement. The whole auditorium seemed to be holding its breath in outrage and sympathy for her cause.

“And I suppose the school’s peewee football team will be getting new uniforms... again,” Sasha said in angry spite, the words coming out like daggers, more viscous than she might have intended. The principal looked away for a brief moment at the floor and squeezed his fist as if gathering patience for a child. That demeaning stance made Sasha even angrier.

“Well, as you very well know, the school’s peewee football team brings in badly needed revenue and their department supports itself, whereas other departments are more like a leaky faucet, slowly draining us of everything we have.” Principal Close gave her a pointed stare, and Sasha held her tongue. The principal's tone held a finality to it, so Sasha sat down, defeated. She was almost tempted to sulk and pout like little Johnny.

She wanted to tell the principal off.  He was such a stick in the mud who seemed to always blame the school problems on Sasha’s department. Sasha couldn’t help that some people didn’t consider her area very important. Art was good for the mind and soul. And Lord knows, these kids needed a little improvement of both. If left to grow up in this system without some kind of beauty, Sasha knew they were more likely to commit crimes, never get their high school diplomas, and wind up in jail. She just wanted to be the one who lit their spark for a better life.

Rubbing her temples between her thumbs, Sasha couldn’t wait for this day to end so she could just go home. She closed her eyes and pretended that she was already there, with the school miles away from her, and that she was relaxing as she fully intended to do that evening.

CHAPTER 3

O
r maybe not. The moment she walked through the door that night, her obnoxious roommate Anton was down her throat. He spewed a mountain of stressful litany for almost a full minute before Sasha realized that she hadn’t heard a word and should maybe pay attention. She took a deep breath and collected her patience before interrupting Anton.

“Wait-wait-wait,” Sasha said, trying to remain calm, “What now?” She was irritated:  the apartment smelled like cigarettes again and she hated that. Anton had agreed to smoke outside before he invited Sasha to move in, but he always smoked inside when Sasha wasn’t home. Sasha couldn’t say anything, because technically, the apartment was Anton’s, and it was a huge favor Anton was doing her to allow her to stay here.

“I said, the cable bill is still not paid and the internet is three months late. Are you planning on paying them anytime soon? I know you’re about to get that raise, so you need to pay up.” Anton’s voice got more sarcastic with each word. He was angry, maybe rightfully so, with Sasha, and he wasn’t going to let her dodge the questions anymore. Sasha felt her chest turn to ice and her headache worsen.

“Look, I’ll talk to them.  I just need a little more time.” Sasha just wanted to eat, shower, and sleep. She did not want to talk about her chronic money troubles after her day at work, especially not about the raise she had promised Anton last week to get him off her back.

“A little more time my ass. If they cut the cable off and I miss
Game of Thrones
, I swear to God, Sasha...” His voice trailed off under the threat. Anton acted as if missing
Game of Thrones
was the end of the world, and if Sasha caused it, she must die. Sasha tried not to smile:  she was sure it would piss off Anton, and it would surely make her headache worse if Anton were to really start yelling.

“Cool it, Anton. I told you I’ll take care of it, so I will.”

Sasha collapsed on their couch.  She had been Anton's roommate for the last year- and-a-half. That was back when Sasha was even more dirt broke, even more so than now, and she was willing to do anything to get off the streets. Then Anton, an old friend from high school, had resurfaced in her life like a godsend. He had his own place with two rooms, and was looking to split the rent with a roommate. What started out as an ideal situation quickly turned to hell within weeks.  But Sasha needed a place to stay so that she could cut her expenses after her parents cut her off financially; so she wasn’t in a position to complain. 

Sasha wanted to work in the inner city to help the kids in need, and that wasn’t exactly a prize occupation for a Vanderbilt, according to her father, who wanted her to become a part of his law firm. That was the exact opposite of what Sasha wanted. Her dad argued that being a lawyer allowed you to
really
help people, but Sasha wasn’t convinced. She just saw it as one side conning the other, and whoever paid the most, won. She didn’t want any part of that. Her dream was to help the people who really needed it, whether they had good money or not. But Sasha had always been a bit of a rebel:  her parents had seen that early. Now that she was old enough to understand it, she never allowed money to dictate her life, even though she was seeing how much it hurt to be cut off financially.

Either way, she had to make it on her own, because even if she did get over her pride and ask her parents for money, her dad would never agree.

She hadn’t spoken to her parents in over a year, and with the sound of things, they weren’t exactly going to have a happy family reunion anytime soon.

“And furthermore,” Anton said, rambling on, “where the hell is your half of the rent?” Now he stood in front of Sasha in his sexy Adidas track pants that Sasha used to love to see him wear. Sasha wondered when she stopped thinking that Anton was sexy. She would have to pacify Anton for at least one day so she could sleep.

“Look, I’m going to get paid any day now. I just need a little more time. The school is being funny with our money, with budget cuts and everything, you know?” Sasha’s voice almost sounded pleading, as if begging Anton to understand her situation. Her head ached now, and she couldn’t look at her angry roommate, so she looked around the finely furnished but messy apartment.

“What the fuck, Sasha?” Anton’s limited vocabulary was grating across Sasha’s nerves. “If you can’t afford to pay for rent, then I’m going to have to get somebody who is. And I’m serious this time,” Anton threatened.

Sasha knew he wasn’t joking. He’d said it more than once before and the clock was ticking. Sasha knew that she couldn’t afford to push Anton to kick her out. She had nowhere to go, and even if she did, she had no money to get there. She couldn’t live off the streets again:  it was sure to be even worse than the last time. She took a deep breath. She just needed a glass of wine to take edge off; only they’d ran out, and by the loose change left in her pockets and the empty cabinets, there was a good chance they didn’t have any wine left.

“I’m doing the night shift again tonight at the casino, and when I get back in the morning, I'd better see some money in this basket,” Anton said, slamming a basket down on the edge of the coffee table where they normally put their half of the bill money.

Sasha sighed. How was she going to come up with it?  She had no idea.

CHAPTER 4

S
asha just needed to get off.  That’s probably what she needed more than anything to take the stress away. She often touched herself to relieve the tension, and since she couldn’t remember the last time she had a relationship, it was going to be another night with just her and her vibrator. She’d spent most of the night looking through the classified ads online for another job, but everything available was full-time and during her work hours at school.