Page 52 of Bless My Heart

“Hey, are you sleeping?”

“No, just laying here. Drifting in and out.”

“You miss me yet?”

“I don’t know. What’s your name again? I have so many boyfriends, it’s hard to keep track these days.”

“Good one. You know no one will ever compare to me.”

She smiles. “I know. And of course, I miss you. My mom won’t stop asking me questions about you.”

“I can’t help that the ladies love me.” She rolls her eyes and shifts her position in the bed. “Oh, and get this. She wants us to name our baby Agnes after my great aunt.”

“Uh…” I cringe. I can’t picture having a child named Agnes.

“Don’t worry. I told her absolutely not.”

“Thank God.” We laugh, and she catches me up on what she did during the day and little Chance asking about me.

I can tell she’s getting tired, so I tell her goodnight and let her go. I get out of bed and walk across the hall to the bathroom to do my business.

When I come back out, I see Ozzy leaving Stella’s bedroom. He’s got sweatpants on and no shirt, which is normal for Ozzy, but maybe not walking out of my little sister’s bedroom.

“What are you doing?” I ask. He looks a little surprised to see me, which I guess makes sense since he thought I was in bed.

“Oh, Stella just texted me and asked if she could borrow my phone charger.” He looks back at Stella’s door, and I follow his eyes, half expecting her to be standing there, but she’s not.

“Why wouldn’t she ask me?” I know Ozzy would never go behind my back and do something with my sister, but I don’t know how comfortable I am with him sneaking out of her room in the middle of the night.

“I don’t know, man. Ask her.” With that, he walks back into his room and shuts the door. I wonder if she’s leaning on him more since I’m not around. I hate that I have to be away from the house so much, but Hazel and our baby are my priority right now.

I remind myself that I only have a few more weeks until I’m no longer considered Hazel’s student. I’ll finally be able to tell everyone what’s been going on.

I look from Stella’s door to Ozzy’s door. Everything is silent. Hopefully, I don’t have anything to worry about.

I sigh and go back to my room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

HAZEL

Thanksgiving without Wes kinda sucked. I mean, it was nice to see my family and all, but I’m in that stage of our relationship where all I want is to see Wes and spend my time wrapped in his arms.

Who am I?

Luckily, he got home from Atlanta early on Friday and came over to help me prepare for my Friendsgiving dinner with Lexi and Caroline. The girls insisted Wes stay for dinner, which was really nice of them because it’s usually just a girl’s thing. But Wes was more than willing to stay. In fact, he didn’t leave my apartment until Sunday night when he had to go home and get some schoolwork done before classes on Monday.

I feel a little bad that I’ve kept him from going home, but then I remember how happy he makes me, so I push that thought away.

The lecture hall is filled with excitement when I walk in on Monday morning. There are only two weeks left until finals, and then the semester is over. Everyone usually hates this time of year because students end up cramming for their finals and then stressing out until they hand in their test papers. But I love it.

I love revisiting all the major topics we talked about during the semester. I love hearing what each student remembers and why and hearing them relate microeconomics to real-life scenarios. That shows me they’re actually learning the material, and maybe, just maybe, won’t forget everything I tried to teach them.

I’m going to miss seeing Wes’s smiling face sitting in the middle of my lecture hall every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I’ll be so glad when we don’t have to keep everything a secret anymore.

My office hours are pretty busy right because of finals. Everyone wants to ask questions and see what will be on the test and if there will be a study guide, which I don’t give out because I want them to know the concepts and not just memorize things for a test. They’ll thank me later.

My office hours ended about five minutes ago, and my last student just left, so now I can catch my breath for a minute.