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“No.”
“I want you to say it, Mason.”
“No you don’t,” he assured me with a husky chuckle.
Well, now he was just irking me. “Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want to hear. You don’t—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Mason kicked the trashcan out of the way and grabbed the seat of my chair, spinning it so that I was facing him. In the same motion, he pulled the chair toward him, spreading his legs so that my knees were between both of his. And, with his hands clamped down on either side of me—his forearms pressing into my thighs—he said, “Most teachers don’t make me think about what they look like naked every moment we’re together, either.”
Oh.
I couldn’t breathe. Mason kept his eyes on mine, gauging my reaction. And when I slowly began to grin and he could see I wasn’t pissed, he smiled, too. There was relief in his eyes. I could sense him leaning closer—so subtly, so slowly that concentrating on the shrinking distance between us was making me dizzy. Was my classroom getting smaller, too? Both of his hands slid forward on the seat of the chair, inching toward my butt as he brought his upper body even closer to mine.
It was a good thing the sound of approaching children filled the hallway outside the classroom door, because I felt like I was on the verge of fainting. Mason released me, nudging my chair away from his. I turned back toward my desk and rose to my feet in one fluid motion, readying myself to greet the kids. I held onto the edge of my desk, still feeling the dizzying effect of Mason’s closeness as the kids burst into the room.
For the rest of the morning, I could hardly look at him.
One of two things would soon happen: either Mason would have to stop volunteering in my classroom, or we were going to sleep together.
And I sure as hell didn’t want him to stop volunteering.
chapter twenty
mason
My mom had told me at least half a dozen times to find a back-up baby-sitter. “I have a life, too, you know,” she kept telling me, begging me not to always rely on her and my dad to watch Finley when I made plans. And I repeatedly assured her I’d find someone—but I hadn’t. Not yet, anyway.
So when the company I was interviewing for wanted to talk to me on Friday evening, I found myself in a bit of a tricky situation. It was a video interview, but I knew better than to have Finley under the same roof. For some reason, anytime I said, “be quiet, I’m in a Zoom meeting,” she heard: “ever think about acting out a one-girl circus? Now’s a good time.”
My mom was at the church kitchen making caramel apples, and my dad was bowling that night. Finley wanted to join her grandpa, but he was just going to give her a handful of quarters and send her to the arcade unsupervised—and my mind filled up with several tragic scenarios. Kids had gone missing from Woodvale before, and I wasn’t about to let Finley be the next one.
Traci would have watched her in a heartbeat. But that would mean Finley would be in her house, where pictures of Whitney and other memorabilia relating to her were in every room—and that was another tragic scenario in itself.
And of course I considered asking Kendall. Finley would shit if she got to spend a Friday night with her teacher, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing her, either. But there was no telling where that might lead, and I was coming on a little too strong for someone who promised not to kiss her again. The caramel apple stand was one thing. Accosting her in her desk chair? That was probably out of line.
Though she didn’t seem to mind—which was exactly the problem. The two of us would only continue to tempt each other, so avoiding Kendall outside the classroom as much as possible would probably be for the best.
So that’s how I found myself pulling up behind Owen’s Volvo in his driveway on Friday evening. He and Sarah watched their nieces and nephews all the time, so they were more than happy to take Finley off my hands for a little while. And when Finley heard Owen had actual working robots—she put on her shoes at lightning speed. “I’m going to make a YouTube video about this!”
Owen and Sarah lived in Meadowbrook Heights, a new development on the edge of town. Their modern, gray house with its white shutters stood tall at the end of a cul-de-sac surrounded by other, smaller gray houses with white shutters.
“STEM for the Fucking Win,” I muttered under my breath as Finley and I walked up their driveway hand-in-hand.
Sarah was already standing at the door. “Hey, Finley! Guess what?”
Finley dropped my hand and bounded up the porch steps. “My dad already told me about the robots. Where are they?”
I laughed as I stepped up onto the porch. “She’s a little excited, if you can’t tell.”
“Something even better than robots is going to be here,” Sarah told her, bending down to her level. Her eyes widened. “Your teacher.”
Finley gasped. “Ms. Devin’s coming?”
I had a similar—albeit internal—reaction.
“Uh huh,” Sarah said, holding the door open for both of us to let us into the foyer. I exchanged a nod with Owen, who was standing just behind her at the bottom of their stairwell. “Finley, what would you rather do first—play with Owen’s robots or meet our new puppy?”
This question made Finley pause. It was a tough decision, after all. She looked around their foyer in wonderment, taking it all in as she weighed her options. On the wall above the console table, there was an enormous wooden sign featuring the words better together artfully off-center in a typewriter font—which seemed so very… them. Finley’s eyes zeroed in on the colorful leash and harness hanging from a bone-shaped hook rack, however. “I want to see the puppy first,” she said, so Sarah led her through the kitchen to the back of the house.
