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“I’m never gonna let a boy chew on my face like that.”
Ryan fist-bumps his daughter.
“That’s what I like to hear.”
~ ~ ~
A while later, Callie is in the ladies’ room, and Dean lets Will drag him up onto the empty stage to the drum set that sits, unused, in the corner.
“You’re good for him, you know.”
I turn my head at the sound of Garrett’s voice, looking up at him as he watches his little boy sit on his best friend’s lap as he puts the sticks in his hands and shows him how to play the drums.
“You think so?”
Garrett nods. “Dean’s the kind of guy who was always on the move. He could never sit still, couldn’t just . . . be. Even when we were kids, especially when we were kids, he was always the one pushing for more—a bigger party, a bigger play, louder music, girls, drinking—like he was rushing around trying to find something. Trying to fill a void. I don’t think he even knew he was doing it. But since he’s met you, found out about the baby, these last few weeks, he’s been settled. Content. Happy. As his friend, it’s really good to see him like that.”
I think about the last few weeks—about Dean throwing the football around with Jason out beside the lake. It’s not my son’s forte, but he had fun. And I think about how nice it’s been to have someone to talk to and laugh with, and how I look forward to dusk now, because that’s when Dean comes to the house every day.
I remember my doctor’s appointment last week, when he came with me and we listened to the swish of our baby’s heartbeat, which is just the best sound in the whole world. And it felt different than when I was pregnant with Jason—even more joyful—because I had someone there to share it with.
No, not just someone . . . him.
“He’s good for us too.”
I meet Dean’s eyes across the room, as little Will Daniels sits on his lap, smacking the sticks against the drums. Dean smiles at me and winks, and a deep tender warmth suffuses my chest that’s bigger than attraction and more intense than lust. It’s scary and exhilarating at the same time. It’s a piercing, intimate, cherishing kind of emotion—that doesn’t feel even a little bit fake.
Chapter Twelve
Dean
The week before Christmas break, a thick, invisible haze settles over a high school that saps motivation and slows down time. Everyone feels it—I embrace it—and assign my students therapeutic coloring assignments at the end of every class. During my free period, on the way back from making copies in the office, I pass the open doors of the auditorium and see Callie working with Rockstetter—the football player who needed hardcore tutoring and an easy theater-A.
Garrett said she’s been working overtime with him, one-on-one, to get him prepped for his theater debut in the February musical.
This year, it’s The Little Mermaid.
I walk down the aisle to where Callie is standing, directing the big lug of a kid onstage in his red, meaty clawed costume.
A few music students in the pit begin to play, and the tinkling notes of a Jamaican steel drum, strings, and flutes, swirl together and float through the air.
I cross my arms. “How’s it going?”
Callie rests her hands on her baby-bulging stomach, tilting her head. “Well . . . there’s no way for it to get any worse. So there’s that.”
“Good job looking on the bright side.”
“The glass is always half-full.”
I cup my hands around my mouth, and give the wide receiver the same direction I give him on the field.
“Dig, Rockstetter, dig deep! You can do it!”
He waves to me with one claw-covered hand.
“Let go of your embarrassment,” Callie calls. “Feel the water around you—move with it. Think like a crab, be the crab.”
“Wait a second.” Rockstetter shakes his head. “I thought I was a lobster.”
“No, you’re a crab, it’s in the script. It’s in the name—Sebastian the Crab,” Callie replies.
“Ah, shit!” Rockstetter throws his claws up in the air. “I’m so screwed.”
Callie hangs her head. And I verbalize what every teacher will experience at some point in their career. “Yeah, you’re gonna earn your money with this one.”
~ ~ ~
The next day—a Saturday—a mid-morning blizzard blows in and parks itself over the tri-state area, dumping about three inches of snow an hour on us. After I clear Gram’s driveway and make sure she’s good to stay put for the rest of the day, listening to an audiobook with Lucifer curled on her lap, I make my way over to Lainey’s.
She’s in the kitchen, in a tank top and lacey pajama shorts, shaking her irresistible ass and ever widening stomach to Adele while mixing a bowl of dough with a wooden spoon. There are cookies cooling on metal racks all over the counter, and the air smells delicious and sweet.
