The math wasn’t mathing.
Principal Pin Dick looked down his nose at Vander and me, standing shoulder to shoulder. “Well, looks like your boyfriend is back. Am I gonna be in trouble?” He snorted at his own “joke.” “Sorry. That’s probably not PC or whatever you’re sensitive to these days.”
Vander tensed at my side. He would totally be on board with the face punching. It had been weeks since I felt this way. Most of the town accepted my return, and I’d grown comfortable around town, especially when flanked by Mari. One comment from Pin Dick and old insecurities burned down my esophagus.
Failure. Loser. Loner.
No. I wasn’t a loner. I was in a room filled with the people I cared about. People whose opinions actually mattered.
My nostrils flared, and my head turned slowly, wide-eyed, to Janice as if to say,THIS GUY?
She crossed her arms, a slight smile to her lips. Turning to the new guest,she said, “All are welcome on Christmas, Curt, but was there something you needed?”
Even hearing her use his first name made me queasy?—
Wait, what had she said?
Pin Dick was still glaring at Vander. “I suppose it’s your foreign piece of trash blocking my driveway.”
Mari squeezed my hand as a sense of absolute nirvana flooded me. He wasn’t here as my mother’s date. He was just here to complain as normal. Confetti cannons went off in my mind.
“I didn’t think I was blocking it,” Vander said, tone flat.
“Two inches into my driveway,” Pin Dick said.
“Right. I can move my car,” Vander said, but not before looking back to check with us.
“Two inches is a lot to some people,” Mari said to Vander with doe-eyed innocence. I almost choked on my tongue, trying not to laugh. She said it so sweetly that Pin Dick just narrowed his eyes like he was looking for her to crack.
“Miss Mitchell. You’ve been spending a lot of time in my neck of the woods lately,” Pin Dick said. Ireallydidn’t care for the way his gaze tracked her figure when he spoke.
Mari, holding far more restraint than she ever gave herself credit for, didn’t reply to his non-question. Except I did just now notice the fork she had a white-knuckled grip on.
Will. Not. Punch. On. Jesus’s. Birthday.
The principal shifted on his feet. “Better make sure that student of yours is in tip-top shape. Just a few weeks away now. It’s bad enough that?—”
“Thanks, Vander,” Janice said loudly and interrupting whatever garbage he was about to spew. “We’ll be out of the way now. Anything else we can do, Curt?” My mother’s calming voice, when using somebody’s name, still had the same power as it did when she’d been a teacher.
“Just don’t let it happen again.” He turned on his heel and stomped away.
Vander jogged to get his keys and went out the door, followingCurt.“Merry Christmas,” Janice said. “Thanks again for finally taking care of the tree.”
Pin Dick grumbled, shoulders up to his ears as he left the house.
The second he was gone, I slumped into the chair, hand on my slamming heart. It was that feeling of skipping the last step times a million.
Janice came up and flicked my ear.
“Ow!” I turned to her. “Why?”
“You really thought that was my guest?” She stood with her arms crossed, head tilted and shaking.
“I-I didn’t know. I certainly didn’t want it to be. Or understand it.”
“You are something else,” she said.
“Sorry.” I slouched. “But Mari did too,” I mumbled.
