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And then another thought slammed into me like a speeding school bus: I’m kissing Finley’s dad.
With a gentle tug, I pulled my mouth from his and let go of his shirt. “Mason,” I rasped. He pressed his forehead against mine, lowering the hand that had just been tugging on my hair to rest on the side of my neck. “We can’t.”
Like me, he was out of breath. “I know,” he said in this sweet, defeated way, like a student who’d just been caught misbehaving. He clamped his eyes shut and cursed under his breath. “I should—I shouldn’t volunteer anymore.”
Logic told me to agree, that having him so close was playing a dangerous game. But I found myself saying, “No, Finley needs you.”
With his head still leaning against mine, both of his hands holding onto my upper arms, Mason snickered and scrunched his nose. “No she doesn’t.”
I giggled right back at him. “Okay, she doesn’t—but the other kids do. And I don’t want you to stop.”
He pulled far enough away that he could look into my eyes, and said nothing.
With a hopeful grin, I said, “‘Friend, good,’ remember?”
He returned the smile and let go of me, twisting his body away from mine so he was facing the gym again. “I’d hate to disappoint… Walter.”
“You can’t let him down,” I joked. “And I think you and I have a good system going. Just, you know...” I looked at his face. “Promise you won’t kiss me again.”
Nothing. No reply, just a smirk.
“Mason!”
“Okay, okay, I promise. I can do that, as long as you promise to stop—" His voice cut off as he studied my face, and his smile gradually faded into a stoic stare.
“Stop what?”
Mason shook his head. “Stop everything. Everything you do drives me wild.”
“Oh.” My cheeks flushed, and I felt a tingle between my legs.
I couldn’t look at him. So I turned away, glancing up at the windows at the top of the wall. It was getting darker by the minute. Just as I opened my mouth to suggest we should probably go, the doors at the other end of the gym opened and Russell, the custodian, walked in with a dust mop. I could feel Mason scooting away as Russell looked our direction. “Hello,” he bellowed, pushing the mop along the gym wall. “Thought I heard voices in here.”
“Sorry, Russell—we’ll get out of your way,” I said, leaning to grab my tote bag. Mason slid off the stage and reached for my hand to help me down. As we walked out of the gym, Russel gave us a casual wave, whistling as he swept the gym floor.
We were silent the entire way to the front double doors. My mind raced with thoughts of a younger Mason trying to grapple with his newfound parenthood while finishing college and the guilt he was now carrying in his heart for not being around when Finley was a baby. If he could see himself from my perspective, he’d know he was the type of father every little girl deserved.
Outside, the air was brisk, a reminder that fall was almost officially here. When we reached the halfway point of the wide sidewalk leading to the parking lot, Mason suddenly stopped, bending over.
It took a moment for me to realize he was picking up acorns from the edge of the mulched landscape. I laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Collecting acorns for Finley,” he said without looking up. He dropped a few of them into the front pocket of his flannel shirt—a gesture so annoyingly cute I had to shake my head.
It almost made me wish I hadn’t just made him promise not to kiss me.
I sighed. “Stop it.”
Mason straightened. “What? Should I not be stealing acorns?” He looked genuinely concerned that he’d just committed a crime. “We just like to paint little faces on them.”
I rolled my eyes with a grin. “Don’t say another adorable fucking word,” I muttered, walking away from him. He let out a deep laugh and jogged to catch up with me at the end of the sidewalk. My car was in the staff parking lot to the right; his, I assumed, was the Jeep to our left. We had no choice but to party\ ways now, but neither of us made an attempt to turn away.
Mason dropped the rest of the acorns in his shirt pocket. After patting the plaid fabric to make sure they were secure, he ran his fingers through his hair and locked eyes with me. Though the corners of his lips lifted in a smile, there was sadness in his eyes as he said, “You being Finley’s teacher is the best thing that could happen for her… and the most devastating thing to ever happen to me.”
My heart ached in agreement.
I felt it, too—the cruel truth of our situation. The knowledge that any sort of romantic involvement between the two of us was impossible. Forbidden. I fought the urge to reach out for some kind of goodbye embrace, his words in the gym echoing in my head: everything you do drives me wild, Kendall. Would he have enough restraint to keep the hug platonic?
Would I?
