Elizabeth Lennox

His Expectant Lover - Introduction

Male and female couple woman is on male's lap. he's kissing her neck and she's holding his head

Antonio’s story….

The temptation was too great. What was a boy to do? He couldn’t just ignore it! Antonio stared straight ahead at the teacher even while his hands were busy. It was like she was inviting him to annoy her, he thought with relish.

The youngest of five kids, Antonio had been trained well. Any opportunity not taken to annoy a sibling, or a girl, was an opportunity lost.

So when the girl stood up and swung her braid around, the strands flying everywhere now that the band holding it together was gone, he whipped out of his desk and stood in line, eagerly waiting for his third grade teacher to take them out to the playground. He completely ignored Melissa’s huff of outrage now that her strawberry blond locks were no longer neatly braided behind her back.

“Antonio Alfieri!” she hissed. “I’m going to get you back for this!”

“For what?” he asked, looking as innocent as possible even though he was towering over the other kids by at least a head. He wasn’t self-conscious though. All of his brothers were tall, as was his father. It ran in the family, right along with a confidence and intelligence that had some of his teachers stumped on how to handle him.

His best friend Mark, who had witnessed the whole thing, snickered as he nudged Antonio on the shoulder. “Good one,” he whispered after the teacher had walked by.

Out on the playground, Antonio went to the basketball hoops and grabbed the ball first, tossing it over to Mark who immediately dribbled down the asphalt to shoot.

“Antonio! You unbraided Melissa’s hair?” Angela yelled across the basketball court.

Antonio looked over at the girl. He’d snuck a kiss from Angela yesterday behind the school and thought she was pretty. “Yeah?” he asked, ignoring the laughs of the other boys that were gathering to play basketball.

Angela stomped over to Antonio, her eyes narrowed and angry. “If you’re going to untie anyone’s hair, it’s going to be mine,” she told him firmly.

Antonio chuckled. “Deal. Same time this afternoon?” he asked, hoping he could kiss her again. He liked this kissing business. His brothers had talked about it, even his sister thought it was pretty nice. But until this year, he hadn’t cared much about kissing.

Now he knew better.

“As long as you promise not to unbraid anyone else’s hair,” she said, her eyes changing from angry to something different. Antonio instinctively knew what was going through her mind.

Boy, he liked girls. He didn’t understand them, but they sure were pretty interesting. “Can’t guarantee that,” he told her. “Besides, you don’t ever braid your hair.” With that, he tweaked a blond lock and ran off, eager to play basketball. Girls weren’t interesting enough to miss a game, he told himself.

Andie’s Story…

She walked down the hallway, her nose twitching, sensing something was wrong.

“Andie, did you hear the assignment?”

Something was missing and she couldn’t figure it out. The people around her were yelling, trying to distract her.

“Andie!”

Andie jerked upright, looking around as her mind came back to the present. The other students were laughing softly, all of them staring at her. Looking at the teacher, Andie realized that she’d just asked her a question. “I’m sorry?” she said, asking her biology teacher.

“Class dismissed,” she said, obviously irritated. “Ms. Knight, I need to speak with you.”

Andie swallowed painfully, wishing she were anywhere but here. The other students filed out of the classroom while Andie lingered, not eager to talk with the teacher, but knowing she couldn’t completely disregard the teacher’s command for a private discussion.

When they were relatively alone, Andie stood in front of her biology teacher’s desk. “I’m concerned about you, Andie. You seem to always be off in a different world. What’s going on?”

Andie blushed. “I’m sorry. I’ll concentrate more.”

Ms. Segund shook her head. “I think you should talk with your guidance counselor, Ms. Knight.”

Wait, what? A guidance counselor? “Why is that?” she asked.

The teacher sighed. “Because you’ve gone from having an A in my class at the beginning of the year, to barely a B. There’s a test tomorrow and I don’t think you’re even aware of it, are you?”

Andie cringed. She hadn’t realized. “Tomorrow.” Looking down at her planner, she realized that it was already the fifteenth of the month. “Oh no! Tomorrow is the sixteenth, isn’t it?”

The teacher barely blinked. “Yes. And the test is on cellular changes. Are you prepared?”

Andie wasn’t paying attention any longer. “I only have five more days!” she gasped.

Ms. Segund shook her head with a sigh. “No, Ms. Knight, you have one more day. The test is tomorrow.”

Andie shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. The deadline for submissions on the fiction writing contest is the twentieth. And I’m still editing my story!”

Ms. Segund looked at the startlingly beautiful teenager, relieved that there was finally an explanation. “So that’s what’s been occupying your mind so much lately.”

Andie nodded her head, her palm pressing against her forehead. “Yes! This is the biggest competition for high school students. I can’t believe I’m still editing!”

“And studying for your biology test, right?” the teacher prompted.

Andie looked up, her eyes barely focusing. “Oh, yes,” she said, but she wasn’t really going to waste any time on the silly biology test. Andie wanted to be a writer and there was really no reason to spend time trying to figure out how cells divided except…wait! Maybe there was some way she could use the cell division pictures to shift the characters in her story. She could split the….

“Is there anything else?” Andie asked, barely looking up at her biology teacher as she tried heading towards the door. Maybe if she hurried home, she could kill two birds with one stone.

Hey, wait a minute, maybe that would work in her story as well. Two birds, the cells dividing, the poison entering the blood stream.

She was almost running out the door now. “Thanks for the idea, Ms. Segund!” she yelled, practically dropping her notebook as she tried to grab her pen so she could write down the idea. Cells dividing, the birds coming down to…yes, that’s probably good imagery. The judges would love that!

One Month Later…

Andie hesitated before entering the classroom. Her English teacher had the results. Was it a good thing that her English teacher had asked her to stop by her room after school? Or was it a bad thing?

It was probably good, Andie thought. There weren’t that many students from this school who had entered the competition, so the teacher probably didn’t want to take up class time to discuss the news about the winners.

Or maybe her teacher had asked her to stop by after school because she hadn’t even placed. Maybe the judges had read her story and thought she was demented. The cells dividing with the poisons and the ravens…that was pretty gruesome stuff. She shouldn’t have done that. She should have stuck with something less morbid than a mystery story.

Oh goodness, she couldn’t do this! She put a hand to her stomach, feeling sick. She hadn’t been able to eat all day today, too nervous about this meeting.

“Andie, come on in,” her teacher called out, spying her star student pacing in the hallway outside her classroom.

Andie stepped into the room, her mind racing and praying that she could at least get an honorable mention in the competition. That would be amazing, she thought. More than five hundred entries had been submitted from across the country. Maybe an honorable mention was shooting too high. Maybe she should just hope that her teacher liked that she’d submitted something. Extra credit would be pretty cool.

“Relax!” her English teacher laughed.

Her eyes stared up at her teacher, her whole body trembling as she waited for the news. “They hated my story, didn’t they?” Andie asked.

Ms. Leeland’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?” she laughed.

Andie wasn’t sure what that meant. “I went with a mystery. But it was pretty raw. I’m sure that the judges read it and are recommending counseling. It was too gross, wasn’t it? I mean, I knew this was a conservative competition and I shouldn’t have gone down the road with all of that stuff, but I just wrote the things that interest me. My research on the poisons probably put me on the FBI’s watch list. My mom is making me a cake to either celebrate or commiserate and this is what I get for being so stupid as to try and enter a contest like this.”

“You won second place,” her teacher interrupted, smiling with pride at the beautiful young girl who had put herself out there to be judged and had done a fabulous job.

“I should have gone with something less…” Andie stopped pacing. Her teacher’s words sinking in slowly. “Second place?” she whispered with shock and tentative excitement.

“Yes. Second place. Congratulations! And it comes with a one thousand dollar scholarship. That’s not much, but it’s something!”

“Second place?” Andie gasped again. Then she jumped up into the air, her hands clapping as the news really hit her. “Second place!”

Suddenly, her mother and father showed up, a giant chocolate cake in her mother’s hands. Several of the other faculty members were right behind them, along with Jenna and Chloe, her two best friends. All of them were offering congratulations and Andie couldn’t believe that her story had come in second place! Even with all of the horrible, gruesome details!

She was thrilled and her eyes were wide as she thought about her next story, her next plot. Everyone was walking around congratulating her and, in her mind, she was plotting the next murder scene, with everyone’s friends around while it happened.

Oh, she loved this mystery writing stuff!

Learn more about His Expectant Lover, book one of three in The Alfieri Saga

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