He ran a hand down his face. “That’s almost a twelve-hour day. When do you take a break?”
“There’s tons of free time between classes. I make it work,” I said. It was sort of true. “Do you want to come in and check out the teachers’ lounge? I could show you the mysterious cup that everyone refuses to clean?” I wasn’t sure why I’d offered, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. So much for pointless cerebral cortexes.
He shot a look at the building, and his lip curled. “Nah. I think I’m going to go back to bed.”
“You really don’t like being here, do you?” I asked.
“It’s not my favorite place.” He tugged at his curls and took a breath. “I never really fit in here. I was bullied. Pissed off teachers with my complete lack of attention span. I couldn’t wait to leave...Now I’m back.” He mumbled the last bit to himself.
“Nothing wrong with coming home.”
He shrugged but didn’t speak. Another person who wanted nothing to do with Green Valley. He hated it here, so he probably couldn’t wait to leave. Of course, I was attracted to him. Something was deeply wrong with me.
I grabbed my stuff and opened the door. “Thanks again. I’ll see you later.”
He looked like he was about to say something. I waited until he nodded with a tight smile before I left with a wave. I glanced back one last time and caught him watching me walk away. He looked away and focused on putting the car in reverse.
I bit back a smile. Maybe not totally unaffected.
As usual, the day flew by. I hardly thought about the almost kiss with Leo as plenty of other distractions occupied my mind.
It was after-school marching band rehearsal before I knew it.
I was dizzy and starving by the time we ran through the Fall Festival routine. Mouth watering, I eyed up a granola bar poking out of a backpack.
I chugged from a water bottle as we took a break.
“Who’s the creepy dude staring at Miss Mitchell?” a sophomore called, tucking their trumpet under their arm and pointing at the parking lot.
Several heads turned to see what he was talking about.
Arms crossed and leaning against the side of the car was Leo. His head was down as he played on his phone.
“Was that the guy who dropped you off this morning?” Ruby asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said.
Cath narrowed her eyes at Leo. I had explained to her about the car situation earlier but not about why I had been at his house to begin with. The drums were his surprise.
“Oooh.” Several people yelled and catcalled.
I held up my hand and closed my fist to bring them back to attention. “I was going to wrap five minutes early, but you know, I think we have time for one more run-through.” The whole group groaned, and I smiled. “Okay, let’s start from the top.”
We ended up going five minutes over, and by the time I’d helped everyone off to the instrument room to pack up, it was almost twenty minutes later than I’d promised Leo.
As I walked out to meet him where he still waited, my heart picked up at an excited pace. My lady bits decided that now would be a good time to remember how it felt to straddle him, after suppressing those thoughts all day.
“You better stop that right now,” I mumbled to myself.
“What?” he asked as I got closer.
“Nothing. Ready?”
“Whenever you are. Do you need help with anything?” he asked as he opened my door.
We both looked at his hand holding the door in confusion. He let go and went around to the driver’s side. “Nah. My students have it.”
“They sound good,” he said after he got in.
