“I went to your office. When you weren't there, I knocked on the doors of the other offices around until I found someone who knew where you were.”
“Oh my God!” I blurt out.
Max, walking the halls of the comm building, knocking on doors until he found someone who knew where I was?
I’m friendly with a lot of people, but there are only a handful who know about my class at the high school. “You must have talked to at least twenty-five people.”
“Thirty-three,” he says gruffly.
I honestly can’t tell if he’s put out or expects me to praise his persistence.
“Why didn’t you just text me?”
“I did. You didn’t text back.”
“Right. Because I’m in class. It didn’t occur to you that I might be busy and that you should just wait?”
His scowl deepens, the nerve by his left eye twitching in obvious annoyance.
Good lordy. If this is what he’d looked like stomping around the comm building looking for me, he’s lucky the villagers didn’t come after him with pitchforks.
“You are the one who keeps telling me how important all this stuff is. That I need to follow your directions. That this is the most important thing for me to do right now.”
“Yeah. It’s the most important thing inyourlife right now. But not in mine.”
For a second, he flinches. And looks almost hurt.
I even feel a stab of regret. “Look, you have to understand, these girls are important to me. I'm important to them. They don't have a lot of stability in their lives, so I have to be there when I say I'm going to be there. For an hour and a half, once a week, on Thursday afternoons I'm here for them. I need them to believe they can trust me. Just like I need you to believe you can trust me.”
That squinty look in his eyes relaxes just a little, like the reality of this situation is slowly sinking in.
“I can't ever tell them that you're more important to me than they are. They have enough people in their lives telling them that educated white men are more important. If I bug out of their class thirty minutes early to take you to get your hair cut, they’ll think I believe that too.”
He studies me for a moment, looking at me like he’s trying to figure something out. Like a puzzle he has to solve. It’s disconcerting.
I’m used to men looking at me. Leering at me.
This is different than that. He doesn’t look at me like he wants to possess me, but rather like he wants to unravel some mystery.
After a moment, he asks, “Can I come into the class? Can I meet them?”
He wants to meet them?
I have no idea what to make of that.
My first instinct is to protect them, to shelter them, in case he acts like an ass.
My second instinct is to protect him.
Because there is not a tougher crowd in the universe than a group of underprivileged Gen Z girls.
Geez, maybe that’s just what he needs.
If he can hold his own in this room, then how hard can the McPherson selection committee really be?
“I suppose.” I reach for the door and then pause. “You can't talk to them. I mean, you can greet them. But you can't dominate the conversation. Just listen.”
Maybe if he doesn’t talk too much, there won’t be too much damage.
