Serena pouted. “Fine, be that way. Don’t meet the future hunk of your dreams.”
“If you’re that into it, you do it.”
“Maybe I will .”
“And on that note, I’m going home.” Ella stood up and put her coat on. “I’ll see you at schooltomorrow.”
“When your mom call s, tell her I said hi.”
“I’ll tell her you tried to set me up with H.G. Wells.” And with that parting note, Ella shut the door behind her and stepped back out into the cold evening.
Going over to her car, she glanced down as she was putting her key into the lock and groaned. She must have run over some glass or something because her front tyre was flat. Swearing under her breath, she kicked the tyre in frustration. “The end to a perfect day.”
“Something wrong?” A voice asked from the kerb.
She turned to see a man in a heavy jacket and baseball cap standing there. She couldn’t make out the details of his face in the dark, but he didn’t seem like an axe murderer. Then again, do axe murderers ever seem like axe murderers?
“Oh, just a flat tyre,” she said, gesturing to the car. “I was going to call someone.”
“Don’t you have a spare?”
“In the trunk, but the jack always sticks . . . It’s OK, really. I’m just going to call someone.” She got out her cell phone to illustrate that point so he would go away.
“No, don’t do that. I’ll change it for you, no problem.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I told you, it’s no problem. Look, I know you don’t know me -I’m some random guy that just walked up on the street. So just getout the tyre and the jack and put them on the ground and then I’ll come over there and change it and you stand over here. That way I’m never too close to you.”
Ella’s face coloured. “I didn’t mean to imply I thought you were some sort of maniac.”
“You’re just being cautious. I understand. Can’t trust Good Samaritans these days. Ready?”
She did as he requested and, within a few minutes, he had the old tyre off and the new one on again.
“Thanks for this,” she said, stepping a bit closer to him. She could see a hint of smile and a glimmer of blue eyes before he ducked his head.
“Like I said, no problem. I’ll see you around.” He turned and abruptly walked off in the opposite direction, leaving her to get in the car and leave the incident behind her.
Three
Ella had forgotten all about the evening at Serena’s by the end of the week, caught up in preparing for the kindergarten class play and the day-to-day drama that was teaching a bunch of five – and six-year-olds how to read, write and count. All thoughts of dating, let alone dating men who purported to be from the future, went completely out of her head until Serena walked up to her after dismissal one day and said, “You’re going to hate me.”
Ella finished saying goodbye to her last student and made sure the little girl made it safely on to the bus to go home for the day before turning to her friend. “What did you get me into now? It’s not the PTO carnival, is it? Did you volunteer me to run the cotton candy booth again?”
“Would I do that?”
“Yes, and I’ll come home covered in sticky glop like last time! Why can’t you volunteer me to do something easy, like the fishing game?”
“Well , it’s not cotton candy and it’s not the fishing game. It’s nothing to do with the carnivalor school at all .”
“Oh, God . . .”
“Remember that dating website we were checking out?”
“Youwere checking it out, notme,” Ella retorted and then her face fell . “Oh, no.”
Serena nodded.
