After greeting a few of his students and taking several photos—notably, of an island-themed menorah—he finally edged his way through the crowd surrounding the dunk tank. Only to discover a waterlogged, laughing mermaid inside that tank, her red-and-green tail impeding her progress up the ladder to her little wooden seat.
He didn’t even recognize her at first. Not with her face devoid of noticeable makeup and her hair plastered to her cheeks and along her neck. Not wearing what appeared to be the top of a short-sleeved wetsuit and a long, fishy tail, both clinging to the generous curves of her body.
Rose. But not the same Rose he’d seen to that point.
“C’mon, Bianca.” She finally managed to plop herself back onto the wooden platform. “Take your best shot.”
The apparent ringleader of the girls had dyed her curly hair a shade of black that absorbed all light. Her eye makeup did the same, and what he’d guess was naturally golden skin had been powdered to a deathly ivory. A goth, just like all the young women arrayed around her.
Queen of the goths, he amended, as she gestured peremptorily for another softball.
“Give the guy more money,” the girl ordered one of her minions. “Ten balls.”
The shorter girl dug through an odd-looking wallet—was that black duct tape?—and went to talk to the amused-looking parent manning the outside of the booth.
Rose shrugged. “Hey, I’m here no matter what. My shift doesn’t end for another hour.” Her nose crinkled in a teasing smile. “Hey, Bianca, did anyone ever tell you your name is kind of ironic? You know, given your wardrobe choices?”
“Like you can judge, Elvira.” A fleeting curve of the girl’s lips was quickly buried under a forced-looking scowl. “And no, you’re totally the first. What an original observation.”
“Thank you. What a sincere compliment.” Rose peeled a wet strand of hair from in front of her eyes. “Question: Have you considered using your superior softball skills for good, rather than evil?”
Bianca considered that for a moment, tapping a long, shiny black nail against her chin. “No.”
Rose laughed. “Fair enough. Although maybe, if you practiced enough, your team could be state champions. Just saying.”
“We’ve been state champions all three years I’ve been captain, and you know it.” Bianca’s eyes had narrowed in trumped-up outrage, until all he could see were two black blots in their vicinity. “Get ready to get wet. Again. And when I run out of money, my shortstop is up.”
Martin blinked.
Wait. The school’s state-champion girls’ softball team consisted entirely of goths? Ones who, if he recalled Keisha’s offhand comment correctly, harbored some sort of half-joking vendetta against Rose?
No wonder they’d lobbied to change the Marysburg High mascot to a raven last month at the school board meeting.
“More cash for the school, and for our AP programs.” Rose flipped her tail in a cheerful taunt. “Bring it on, Perez.”
He edged farther to the side, half-behind a sturdy young woman with a nose stud and black boots. If Rose spotted him in the crowd, she might stiffen as she always did in his presence, even three months after his refusal of a date. And he was too fascinated by the scene, by the sight of her grinning and informal and loose, to risk ending it prematurely.
For those three months, he’d been working to regain her trust. Visiting her in the morning and after school. Walking her to her car. Waiting for her to thaw and let him behind her defenses again, so he could return her invitation.
It had sort of worked. A little.
She hadn’t asked him to stop his visits, which he’d half-expected and dreaded. And she would now talk to him easily enough about professional matters, if nothing else.
They’d switched classes twice already, in what he considered a very successful tactic to interest his honors kids in AP U.S. History next year. The students had returned from her classroom happy and intrigued, although they still had doubts about the AP workload. But he and Rose had several more months to execute their plans, and he possessed full confidence in her ability to sway his students in her direction.
She’d managed to sway him, after all, despite all his doubts.
Too bad he couldn’t seem to do the same for her.
That late afternoon in the social studies office, that brief stretch of time when she’d appeared before him unguarded and soft, had begun to seem more and more like the fever dream of a man obsessed. It wasn’t that her regal composure didn’t stir and attract him. It did.
He just wanted all of her. Not simply the parts of herself she deemed safe for exposure.
So, no, he wasn’t going to interrupt the dunking-in-progress. Because right now, right here, the rest of her sat before him, soaked and laughing and glowing with both cleverness and warmth.
Although, now that he looked more closely, she appeared to be shivering a little.
Dammit, what kind of fools rented a dunk tank in December?
