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“Noted. And the pencil is—?”
“Because I’m a teacher.”
“Makes sense.” He dropped the bag of spider rings on the table, taking my wrist in both of his hands so he could look at each and every charm. “And a disco ball.”
“Mirrorball. It’s for Taylor Swift.”
He blinked at me a couple of times. “I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said before moving onto the next charm. “Let’s see. We’ve got mountains…”
I hesitated a moment before explaining that one. I’d had the mountain charm the longest—in fact, it was the only charm I’d never replaced. It wasn’t as shiny as the other charms on my wrist, and the peaks and valleys of the miniature mountain range—once pointy and defined—were now curved and dull. I swallowed. “For the aesthetic.” I hurriedly moved onto the next one, holding it between two fingers. “And this is my zodiac sign. Cancer.”
Something about that made Mason grin. “Cancer, huh? Are you into astrology?”
I yanked my wrist away from his hands. “Maybe. Got a problem with that?” Heath was constantly teasing me about my fascination with astrology, and Owen had been pretty skeptical about it, too—he tended to believe in things that were a little more… concrete.
I was no stranger to men dismissing my interest in astrology.
“No, I don’t.” Mason shook his head, but a hint of a smile remained on his lips when he asked, “What sign do you think I am?”
I stared into his kind, blue eyes and accepted he wasn’t teasing me about this. He seemed genuinely curious to see if I’d be able to nail down his zodiac sign. Pisces would have been my first guess if I hadn’t already known his birthday was in the summer. “Gemini?”
Mason’s smile grew. “You already knew, didn’t you?”
“I swear I didn’t.”
He took a deep breath and picked up the bag of mini bubbles. “I’m a Gemini sun, a Pisces moon and… Scorpio rising, I think?”
I rested a hand on my hip. “Okay. What’s her name?”
Mason turned to me and froze. “Who?”
“The girl who did your birth chart. Who is she?”
Mason’s eyes danced in amusement. He dropped a container of bubbles into one of the treat bags, saying, “Lesley. Her name is Lesley.”
“I knew it,” I said with a laugh. “I knew there had to be a—”
“And she’s my sister.”
I clamped my mouth shut, feeling a little embarrassed as I stared down at the mess of Halloween treat bags on the table in front of me. “Oh.”
Mason scooted closer to me—as near as he could get without touching me—and said in a low whisper, “I think you just got a little jealous there, Ms. Devin.”
His eyes were fixed on mine like he was daring me to be the first to look away. But I wouldn’t. “Do we really want to talk about jealousy right now?” I asked, keeping my tone playful.
He swallowed and looked down. “Ah—no, we probably don’t.”
“Then get back to work, Mr. Reed,” I said, turning away from him. We were about to run out of time. When the kids returned, it would be time for their Halloween party, and we still had a lot to do. As I circled the table distributing slime containers in the rest of the treat bags, I couldn’t help but steal a few glances over my shoulder at Mason—he was still grinning.
It was becoming less and less of a possibility that Mason and I could ever have a normal interaction without flirting with one another. His inquisition about my bracelet was innocent enough, but it felt like it may have just been an excuse to get close to me. To touch me.
I tried my best not to think about it as we finished distributing slime and Skittles and set out the snacks for the party. My classroom was quiet—the calm before the storm. Mason had no idea what he was in for. Halloween parties were second only to the yearly Christmas party for the most chaotic event of the school year, and I had learned the hard way that my usual whatever-goes approach wouldn’t cut it. I had my party management tactics down to a science now, and I was in the middle of explaining some of them to Mason when the kids barged back into the room. Fairies, superheroes, witches, and football players found their spot on the rug, but stealing the spotlight in the center of them all was the cutest jellyfish I’d ever seen—whipping her head around so the tentacles on her costume swung back and forth. One of them whacked Elijah in the face, but he didn’t seem to mind—he merely let out a silent giggle and watched his best friend twist and fling her entire body around until half of the kids were laughing and the other half were scowling at her for hitting them with her flailing tentacles.
“Finley,” Mason said, adjusting the pretend oxygen tank on his back. “If your tentacles were actually poisonous, I’m pretty sure your classmates would be in bad shape right now. Can you not?”
Getting Finley to settle down was just one of our challenges that morning. I asked Mason to read Room on the Broom to the kids in hopes of getting them to calm down, but they were all too antsy about the party to listen—despite Mason’s best efforts to mimic the old witch in the book.
After story time, we moved on to the party games—a mummy-wrapping contest, Halloween bingo, and a pumpkin ring toss. They annihilated their treat bags, and it wasn’t long before Elijah was using one of the witch fingers to pick his nose. I tried not to laugh at the panicked, desperate look in Mason’s wide eyes as he stood at the center of all the chaos. I should have warned him just how out of control kindergarten parties could get, but then again, he might not have shown up at all if I had.
