Page 31 of Teach Me Your Ways

“She’s a student?”

“One of my TAs. Sort of shoved into the role by her mother. Big donor. Board member. The usual political crap.”

Felix whistled. “That’s a live grenade right there.”

“I know. I’m handling her like a Sumerian cuneiform tablet.”

Felix gave me a look. “Delicately?”

“Exactly.”

He chuckled. “What about the other one?”

I hesitated.

“Brown hair, beer drinker, laughs at your jokes⁠—”

“She’s not the problem.”

“But she is,” Felix guessed.

I didn’t answer.

“Want me to let you know when they leave?” he offered, already turning back toward the door.

“Please.”

Felix stepped out and came back maybe twenty seconds later. “Too late. They’re already gone. Not together, obviously. You could’ve cut the tension between those two with a bone saw. My money was on the busty one. She looked like she could throw down.”

“Do you even know what that means?”

He grinned. “I watch TV. I know all the lingo.”

I needed to go home and take a very long, cold shower. I left the coffee cup on the desk and headed out the back. But when I stepped outside, I saw her.

In the dim glow of the parking lot light, Cece was standing next to her car, hood up, arms crossed, hair pulled back and staring at the car.

I strolled over and stood next to her. “What are we looking at?”

“The biggest piece of shit car on the road.”

“Technically, it’s in a parking lot.”

She shot me a look. “It’s dead either way.”

I could see the problem from where I stood. I had been stranded in jungles and in the middle of nowhere in some pretty sketchy places. I had learned my way around an engine. I leaned forward and jiggled a few things before I found the loose battery cable.

I used the heel of my palm to pound it down and then twisted.

I tightened it and stood back. “Try it now.”

She slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the engine sputtered to life. I grimaced at the smell of burning oil and the plume of white smoke exploding from the back of the car.

She looked up at me through the windshield and gave a tiny fist pump. “You’re a hero.”

She stepped out of the car and came around to the front. I slammed the hood down and turned to face her. We were too close. That same electricity buzzed between us again, like it always did, wild and alive and impossible to ignore.

“Thank you,” she said, eyes on mine.