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“Look, Dad! Mr. Sheridan is here!” Fox exclaimed and pointed at Chris.
“So, I see.”
“I’m covering for Micah; he’s taken Daniel out for…” He stared at me, then winked. “… anyway, I was grading papers.”
“Wow.” Fox shuffled closer, as if he was examining something in a zoo—there again, this was his teacher, the one he raved about, out of his natural habitat. “The Shakespeare sonnet one? Did I do okay?”
“I can’t?—”
“You can’t ask that,” I spoke over Chris. Then, nodded at the man. “Come on, Fox, we’ll come back another day.”
“But Daaaad,” Fox whined, which I guess was better than the breakdown earlier—normal service resumed.
“It’s late,” I reminded him.
“It’s okay, are you here for um…” Chris looked around him. “Well not for me obviously, given you didn’t know I was here.”
“Lessons,” I blurted.
He regarded me with an amused smile. “That was going to be my next guess.” He slid the folder of papers into a messenger bag, then flung it over his shoulder. “Come with me,” he said, then wheeled out from behind the desk.
“Do you need help?” I asked, gesturing at the snow and ice. Then, I wished I hadn’t said a thing because he stared up at me, his expression unreadable. Shit. I’ve probably offended the man I was lusting after.
He winked and chuckled instead. “Well, you can get the door, and listen to me bitch about Micah not putting in a disabled access.”
“Sure, sure.” I opened to the gusting wind and falling snow, and he wheeled past, with Fox almost tripping over himself to keep up. Yep, Chris was in line to win all the teacher of the year awards in the entire world if Fox had anything to do with it. I pulled the office door closed.
“Do we need to lock it?” I asked, but Chris was tearing down an incline, Fox hurrying with him, then laughing when Chris did the wheelchair equivalent of a handbrake turn towards the front door to the main house. “Shit. Fox! don’t go in! We don’t need to worry people…” I hustled as fast as I could to reach them, by which time the front door was open and both Chris and Fox went in. “I’m sorry, so sorry, we’ll come back?—”
“Two more for dinner, Scott!” Chris announced.
There was a muffled curse and then, an apology—I assumed from Scott, as I stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind me.
I’d stepped into heaven. A warm, cozy kitchen, the aroma of tomatoes and garlic, and five men all staring up at me. This wasn’t how I wanted to meet Chris’s family, but I recognized Micah and Daniel, they’d been into the diner—Micah had wanted to make sure I had pancakes with real maple syrup on my menu, Daniel wanted granola—and of course, I knew Scott, Chris’s brother. The other two I didn’t know—a cowboy leaning back in his chair and a shorter man sitting on his knee, who was rocking pink hair and smiling up at me.
“Hi.” I waved weakly and shook hands with Micah and Daniel, then Scott, who was in charge of dinner by the looks of it, given he was stirring a pot on the stove. Then, it was just pink-haired dude and the cowboy.
“Hi,” pink hair said. “I’m Quinn, and this is Levi.”
“You’re Quinn?” I blurted, and then, probably went bright red as he regarded me with confusion at the outburst. “I met Connor.”
Quinn rolled his eyes. “What did he do? Examine the number of times you missed deadlines for turning in papers when you were a kid.”
“He uhm… no?”
Quinn rescued me. “I’m not sure how to explain Connor, but he’s security on Team!Quinn.” He added air quotes, and I wondered who Quinn was to warrant security. He was so sweet and unassuming, and I didn’t recognize him from anything in my life—not movies, or music, or anything like that. He reached up to touch my arm. “I apologize for whatever he did. He’s super intense, and watches people’s backs all the time, and mostly, he looks out for me, but if you need him for anything—he’s always there.”
“Okay.”
“Rachel’s night off, so I’m cooking,” Scott interrupted the intense discussion. “Sit, sit.”
I didn’t know who Rachel was, but if she had to cook for all these men in her kitchen, I wasn’t surprised she was having a night off.
“Rachel’s my wife,” Scott explained. “She’s had enough of Maggie and the Spring Rains work, so it’s her big night off—bath and a book—we get to keep the kids entertained, cook dinner, and we mustallkeep the noise down,” Scott added the warning, and Chris saluted, getting a middle finger in return. Ah, so that Rachel was the same Rachel who was married to Scott.
Okay, I’d get this all straight at some point.
“We shouldn’t impose,” I said, but Fox had already chosen his seat and sent a shy glance to Quinn.
