Page 53 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

How had he remembered that? He wasn’t teasing after all. If I didn’t know any better, I might think he genuinely cared what I thought.

“Yes,” I said, carefully. “Back in the day. But that was a long time ago. That girl is long gone.”

His gaze turned serious, and I got the distinct impression that he could see into my soul. “You’ll always be Princess to me,” he murmured.

My chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe. “Well… then, I guess I’m okay with it when you say it. Mr. Cooper.” The smile I gave him was soft and shy.

“Jack.”

“What?”

“It’s my name. Just call me Jack.”

“Jack,” I repeated slowly, testing the name on my tongue. I would have sworn I saw him shiver as I spoke, though it might have been a trick of the afternoon light. “I’ll call you Jack if you call me Mel.”

He regarded me for another moment before saying, “We’ll see.”

I straightened my bag on my shoulder and took a step toward the door. “Alright, Jack. Are you ready to go?”

“After you, Princess Mel.” He gestured for me to go ahead of him.

I rolled my eyes and grinned. Playful Jack was back.

“So,” I started as we descended the stairs, “where did you learn to teach like that?” After observing for the last hour, I was much more interested in getting to know him. I still knew so little.

“The South Bronx.”

“Are you from there?”

“No, I’m from upstate. My family lives near Buffalo, and I went to school at Syracuse.”

My face scrunched in confusion. “So, then how did you end up in The Bronx?”

He was silent for a long moment, and I was afraid he might not answer.

“I didn’t get a scholarship for college like I did for Newbury. After I got my bachelor’s degree, I had a ton of student loan debt. My girlfriend convinced me to do the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program to get some of the debt waived. The plan was to work in an at-risk district in the city for ten years, pay off some loans, and then go somewhere quieter.”

He held the door for me, and we stepped out into the chilly afternoon air. “Ten years,” I mused. “You weren’t there that long.”

Cooper shook his head. “No. Living in the city was fucking hard. Brutal really. The kids didn’t want to learn. Didn’t want to listen. I spent more time fighting them than actually teaching for the first couple of years. It felt like beating my head against a stone wall. And then, there was the money—hardly any to live on after rent and food. I had to pick up side gigs—tutoring and UberEats. It was exhausting.”

“I can imagine,” I replied quietly.

“Can you?” There was a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

My stomach rolled over, and my gaze dropped to my feet. “I guess not. Like, I know teachers are underpaid in an abstract sort of way, but I never really thought about what that looked like for a real person. I’ve never had to worry about money.”

Silence stretched between us again. The only sounds were the tapping of our shoes on the sidewalk.

“That must have been nice,” he said finally, and I released the breath I had been holding. We had been making so much progress, but this particular subject felt like walking on eggshells. One wrong step, and all of the goodwill between us would be gone in a puff of smoke.

“I think I took it for granted,” I said carefully. “It didn’t always feel nice but I suppose it was. I mean, I was never below level three in Maslow’s Hierarchy.”

Cooper—Jack—snorted a humorless laugh. “I can tell you from experience that level one is a bastard.”

I jerked my head over. “Level one?”

He shrugged. “Yep. Food. Shelter. Sleep, sometimes. It really sucks having to decide if you’re going to pay for food, rent, or credit card debt. Or work extra gigs when all you want to do is crash.”