Page 59 of An Irish Hope

His lips pursed. Like a certain PE student teacher.

“Well, judging from that face, I’m going to guess that perhaps you might know what I’m talking about.”

“I have a feeling that I may.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help you out please let me know. I’ve done this a few times over the years.”

Moira was a legend in the school, especially considering how many student teachers she had. She certainly had her systems worked out to enable her student teachers to slot in with ease.

He returned inside after the second half of lunch, and nearly bumped into two young women he didn’t recognise. Probably the other student teachers. Except…

Wait. The redhead in green. No. It couldn’t be.

Then she laughed, and he knew that laugh in his very core.

“Aisling?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

That voice trickled like honey to her heart. Her head veered, her heart, her feet stuttering. “Andy?”

“You know him?” Maisie murmured.

She nodded, still unable to believe her eyes. Why, oh why, in all the name of everything that was holy, had she been placed at the very school Andy Scott was teaching at?

His jaw sagged, his eyes widened. Then he blinked, then blinked again, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, either.

Somehow her voice pushed past the shock. “You work here?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

He swiftly turned and walked away, his rejection as blatant as his ghosting her after their kiss. She wanted to crumple into a ball, yet she was on show. Maisie was watching her, a few of the students too. Even Miles seemed to be looking at her.

“You know him?” Maisie raised her eyebrows.

“I knew him,” she corrected. “As a friend. He, uh, visited the hotel I worked at this past summer.”

“Hmm. That’s not going to be a conflict of interest, is it? Didn’t the guidebook say something about not having relationships with staff?”

“It won’t be a conflict, no,” she admitted. “We’re not even really friends, I suppose.”

That much was obvious by the way he’d practically run away. Her heart ached.

“What are the chances that he’d be working at the very school you’re on placement at?”

“Crazy, right?”

“Crazy” was her for the rest of the day. It had been hard to pay attention, and any points she might’ve scored with Moira earlier seemed to have floated away. Far from her quiet confidence of earlier, she’d found herself flummoxed for the remaining periods that day. It was crazy to think that in all the secondary schools in Ireland, she’d been placed in his.

Except, when she thought about it that night, maybe it wasn’t so crazy. She had wondered if he lived over this way. And maybe if she was trusting God with all this, then perhaps this coincidence wasn’t something that took God by surprise at all. In fact, hadn’t her being sent to this very school been a last-minute placement? That’s what Patrick had said. Which meant maybe—a secret little part of her heart dared to dream—just maybe this was actually orchestrated by God. Not that Andy seemed to be on the same page.

“Lord, I really don’t want to let this get in the way of what You want for my life. And if he’s not for me, then please take away any feelings about him.”

She was too exhausted to drive home to Derryloughlin on the weekend, opting instead for a nice sleep-in. It was funny how even though all she’d done was observe teaching yesterday, she still felt tireder than she remembered feeling for a while.

But maybe that was the result of juggling studies and essays with the pressures of school. And this new pressure of wondering what this meant about Andy. Surely if God didn’t want her to have anything more to do with him, then He would’ve ensured she got given a different school?

She tried to explain some of this to her mother when Mam rang. “And now I don’t know what it means.”