Loving a Man Who Forgot Me Novel Chapter 7
Abbi
“Gosh, is that really the time?” Aunt Jax focused intensely on the grandfather clock across the room. “It’s past my bedtime,” she giggled, the wine in her glass nearly sloshing over the side. “And it must be past your bedtime, young lady,” she waggled a finger at me.
“You’re right,” I chuckled.
“Pffft,” my mother scoffed beside me and waved her hand through the air. “It can’t be that late. We just got back.”
“Sweetheart,” my dad who sat on her other side on their sofa put his hand on her leg, “it’s almost midnight. We got home over an hour ago.”
“No,” she gasped and then giggled, looking at the almost empty wine glass in her hand. “How many have I had?”
Aunt Jax, who was sitting across Uncle Ky’s lap in the plush armchair, eyed her own glass. “I think this is our second.”
Uncle Ky chuckled this time and swept her hair, which was escaping the elegant updo, from her flushed face and said with a smile, “Try third. You two finished off the bottle.” And that was just since we’d returned from the donors gala for the hospital where my dad worked. They were already tipsy when we walked in the door.
“Oh.” She wore the look of a guilty child before she and my mother both broke into a fit of giggles. Aunt Jax’s turned to hiccups which only made her laugh harder.
“I think we better get you home to bed,” Uncle Ky said with a smirk.
“Noooo,” she pouted, and my mother echoed the sentiment.
“We’re having fun, right Abbi?”
“Yes, but any more fun and my students aren’t going to like their cranky history teacher in the morning.”
“Oh, just give ‘em a test,” my mother drawled, “that’s what I would do.”
“It’s only the second week of school,” I laughed. “I don’t want my students to hate me yet.”
“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that, Aiden says your everyone’s favorite teacher,” Aunt Jax chimed in.
“It’s true, she was voted best teacher last year, her first year teaching,” my mother bragged, not for the first or even the second time, but it still filled me with a sense of pride. This was only my second year teaching, and not just at any school, but at Darlington Academy, the most prestigious private high school in the state, one of the best on the entire East Coast.
It still felt strange to be walking the halls as an authority figure, when it didn’t feel like all that long ago I’d been wandering them in my skirt and knee-highs just trying not to be late for class. Honestly, the number of times I was late for class, or should I say, the number of times he made me late for class, it was a miracle Darlington wanted me back to teach. I suppose the fact that Mom had been the music instructor until her retirement last year might have helped.
She couldn’t have been any more thrilled that I chose to become a teacher, just as Dad beamed with pride every time he got to brag on Colton, away on the west coast at Veterinarian school, well on his way to becoming the third generation of doctor in our family. He just preferred animals to people.
“Aiden was excited to get your class this year,” Aunt Jax added.