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Chapter 2
Zander
Zander Riley could say yes to just about anything. He’d said yes to skydiving last summer with his best friend Brad, and he’d said yes when his neighbor lady had asked him to watch her beagle and four cats this summer while she went out of town for a week. Zander had said yes to an extra shot of espresso in his coffee this morning, and he’d said yes when the school had called him last second to beg him to chaperone that afternoon’s trip.
It hadn’t been difficult yes to say, in truth, as he was a fan of Broadway—even though it stung a little every time he was watching other people up on the stage he once thought would belong to him.
Zander Riley was, to his chagrin sometimes, a yes kind of guy. That got him into trouble quite frequently, like when he’d said yes to Brad’s idiotic plan two years ago to try a ridiculous skateboard trick for a YouTube video so they could get more subscribers on Brad’s channel. It sometimes got him into trouble when he said yes to food trucks in the city he knew he should say no to. And most of all, it got him into trouble when he said yes to Sheila Carlisle when she’d asked him to skip New York City in favor of the school in Ohio too many years ago to count.
Zander was learning that especially when it came to the heart, yes wasn’t always the right answer.
Still, he was recovering, patching up his heart, and trying to heal. He wasn’t ready to say yes again—but he was starting to feel like a maybe was coming on soon. A man could only be alone for so many years, after all, and he was at the stage in his life when maybe settling down wouldn’t be such a terrible idea. A bachelor pad could only be so entertaining for so long. Still, there was anxiety coursing through his veins when he thought about falling in love again. Letting a woman into his life might seem like a good plan on paper, but in reality, Zander was terrified that love simply spelled disaster for him. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for it, or maybe Sheila Carlisle had been his one chance to get it right.
And he had unabashedly, undeniably gotten it all wrong. Maybe he should just accept the fact that love wasn’t in the cards for him.
He’d been thinking about all of that when he’d taken a seat by his man, Rocky, one of his favorite students at the school. Rocky was talking to Zander about his cat, as he always did in the mornings, when Zander knew he needed to start getting his “no” ready and working.
One look at Rachel Winters told Zander all he needed to know—from the way she carried herself to her gorgeous black hair to her killer smile, Zander knew she was definitely going to be trouble if he said yes.
She had flown through the door, clearly stressed about running late. The first thing he’d noticed, of course, had been her eyes. He was a fool for a woman with dark eyes, and this woman’s eyes were only accentuated by her long, black braids. She had an eclectic fashion sense about her, but it worked for her, a mix of classic and a bit hippie-trippy, if he had to describe it—not that he was a fashion expert by any means.
When he’d heard her name for the first time, Zander felt something in him jolt. Rachel Winters. The name settled deep within his chest, stirring him and perhaps even his heart awake.
And in truth, it terrified him. It was like the urge to look at a terrible accident when you drove by, though—he wanted to look away from the woman with the velvet voice telling the kids about her struggle to get to Broadway.
But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
Something about Rachel Winters made his “maybe” flirt with the possibility of being a yes.
Which was ridiculous, he knew. He’d already tried at love and failed. And more than that, he hadn’t even talked to this woman. Who did he think he was presuming she would be interested in a guy like him? She was on Broadway and, for all intents and purposes, he was a small nobody, not even a blip on the radar when it came to fame. He was a teacher, and a dang good one—he took pride in his job—but he wasn’t famous or rich or on his way to becoming a star.
He was Zander Riley, a heck of a good special education teacher, but a guy who spent his weekends watching shows on the History Channel and eating Ramen noodles by himself. He wasn’t someone a woman like Rachel Winters would ever give the time of day to.
Still, as she talked, he could feel her watching him, studying him. And maybe it was just the extra jolt of espresso in his latte this morning or maybe it was just that it had been so long since he’d been with a woman, but he thought he sensed something in the way she looked at him.
Something mesmerizing, something different, and something frighteningly familiar.
“Mr. Riley, she’s pretty, isn’t she?” Rocky said to him as they followed her and the rest of the group to the stage area. Zander snapped out of his thoughts, grinning at the boy’s comment.
Hands in his pockets, Zander looked at Rocky and gave him a wink coupled with a noncommittal mumble, which made the boy chuckle.
“Our secret then?” Rocky asked.
Zander just smiled, following the group to the stage area. With Rocky’s tendency to talk way too loudly, he was pretty sure the fact he thought Rachel was pretty wasn’t really a secret.
Then again, Zander wasn’t sure if the fact Rachel Winters was pretty had ever really been a secret in the first place.
* * *
“The balcony!Do lines from the balcony!” Katie exclaimed. She was one of their most outgoing students and had a heart for theater, so Zander wasn’t surprised when she was the first to answer Rachel’s question about what to see first.
“All right, then. Sounds great. Let me just climb on up here and give you all a demo, and then we’ll talk about the technicalities of balcony scenes. Sound good?” Rachel announced as she climbed up the steps on the balcony set.
In truth, Rachel could deliver lines from the phone book or simply stand and stare at them for all Zander cared—he couldn’t deny that he was mesmerized.
Rachel skipped up the steps, her short skirt sashaying as she did.
“Okay, so the balcony scene can be tricky. You have to be very careful because there’s not a whole lot of space up here. And when you’re in the hot lights with the audience looking at you, it can be easy to forget that a single misstep and boom. You’re down. Like see what I’m doing here?” Rachel began from the top of the balcony, calling the students over to get a good look from behind the set. “See how there is barely any room here?”
