Teacher of the Year

Copyright © 2023 by M.A. Wardell All rights reserved. Please visit my website at www.mawardell.com Design and cover illustration: Myriam Strasbourg Editor: Manda Waller No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. M.A Wardell is not associated with any product or vendor in this book. To request permissions, contact the publisher at [email protected] Paperback: 979-8-9877875-1-9 Ebook: 979-8-9877875-0-2 TEACHER OF THE YEAR Teachers in Love: Book One M.A. WARDELL For Maggie, you encouraged me to write, and I’m eternally grateful. Contents Author’s Note and Content Guidance Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 EPILOGUE - Three Months Later Acknowledgments About the Author Coming Soon from M.A. Wardell Author’s Note and Content Guidance Dear Reader, While Teacher of the Year may be about a kindergarten teacher, it is an open-door romance intended for mature audiences. Hey, kindergarten teachers deserve love too. The characters in the story are consenting adults, and there is explicit, on-page sexual content. It also contains explicit language and adult situations. While I hope to present an uplifting, sweet, and hilarious story about the healing power of love, it’s a journey. Along our way, the characters deal with alcohol recovery, traumatic memories of an alcoholic parent, severe anxiety, panic attacks, infidelity (not by main characters), and a pregnancy scare. The topic of recovery looms large in Teacher of the Year. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, there are ways to get help. Peace and love, M.A. Wardell Alcoholics Anonymous - https://www.aa.org/ Adult Children of Alcoholics - https://adultchildren.org/ Al-Anon - https://al-anon.org/ Narcotics Anonymous - https://na.org/ Chapter 1 Dear Families, Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful break filled with cozy family time, hot cocoa, playing in the snow, and lots of good books! Your child is undoubtedly as excited to return to school as I am to see them. Our first day or two will be spent reviewing routines and procedures and thinking about our New Year’s resolutions for school. We also have a new student joining our kindergarten community, and I know everyone will welcome her with open arms. As always, I’m grateful for the opportunity to teach your children. Warmly, Marvin Block * * * “Nice of you to show up,” Jill quips. “My damn gas light came on. Again. Hence my post-crack-of-dawn arrival.” “Marvin Block, you had the entire break to get gas. Why do you always risk one more drive when there’s a serious chance of being stranded?” “I honestly forget. And panic. Plus, I like to think of each trip with barely any gas as a Chanukah miracle. Not enough oil but look, made it anyway!” Jill delights in teasing me. She may be the embodiment of petite, but Jill Kim commands a room like a boss. Technically, she stands at four eleven and a half, but I round up the extra half-inch when describing her because we all deserve a friend who embellishes. Jill and I joke that we both have two minority tallies (her: Korean and tiny, me: Jewish and gay). We’ve bonded over being outsiders, particularly at our school, where the staff resembles a nineteen-fifties housewife’s Tupperware party (white, straight, Christian, relatively tall, and female). We were drawn to each other from the moment we met at my interview nine years ago, when we locked eyes across the conference room table, she winked at me, and I knew our friendship was destined. She’s like the bratty older sister I never had, and I adore her to bits. “Well, Baruch ata Adonai, I’m blessed you’re here,” she delivers in surprisingly accurate Hebrew. “Yeah, I figured I better come in and do your job for you.” She turns toward me and swishes her shoulder-length jet-black hair. “Be my guest. I’ll gladly send my entire class over to you and go shopping.” Our banter is routine, playful, and expected. As Jill whips around preparing her classroom for the day, her ankle-length flannel dress appears caught in a flurry. “I mean, you are a contender for Teacher of the Year.” Jill loves to mock me about the nomination. Heck, she likes to tease me, period. “Listen, if it wasn’t the first day after vacation and I didn’t have a new student starting, sure, I’d gladly take them all,” I say. This reminder shifts her demeanor, and her eyebrows gather. “Right. What do we know about them?” “Not much, just her name. A single dad, I think. I’m not actually sure. The mother’s phone number is out of state, and ‘lives with dad’ is scribbled on my paperwork, so who knows?” “Oh, a single dad. Maybe he’s cute.” Jill loves to bait me. She’s trying to spruce up my desolate dating life, and thinks that any single man with a pulse could be my Mr. Right. “Ah yes, just what I’m looking for, a straight father whose child is in my class. Sounds like a match made in heaven.” As she scribbles her morning message, the marker squeaks against the whiteboard. She sets it down and wraps her fingers around her hip. “You