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“Listen, Avery,” he opened, intending to make sure she understood he wasn’t going anywhere with her. But before he could continue, a loud yell compelled both him and Avery to look ahead.
“I won! Mom! I won!” The girl he had coached flew from within the herd of kids toward a woman who plowed her way toward them, her copper hair tied in a ponytail and her bangs reaching just above her green eyes. Jordan’s heart stammered in his chest.
“Oh, there’s your project,” Avery muttered. “I never reveal the contestants’ network to our outside judges for objectivity reasons.”
Hope bent to hug her daughter then raised her eyes, and their glances met just as he and Avery reached the two. He should have known. The hair, the eyes, the sticking to a list of dry facts while her real emotions were written all over her face should have clued him into whose child this was.
They were an island as the kids swerved around them on their way outside.
Jordan was pretty sure that this time Hope’s blush was mirrored on him because he couldn’t ignore the sudden furnace that heated up the blood in his veins.
“Hi,” they both said at once.
“Hope, congrats. Hannah ended up doing very well in there. We had a minor issue, right, Hannah?” Avery said.
“She was great. I didn’t know …” He faltered, holding Hope’s gaze.
“Thanks for the advice,” Hannah cut in, drawing his gaze from her mother several inchesdown toward her.
He smiled. “You’re very welcome. You’ll do great at the regionals.”
“We gotta run,” Avery said, pulling at his elbow as if they had something planned.
“Congratulations, sweetie,” Hope said, wrapping her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “I’m so proud of you.” She then raised her eyes back to his. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. It was well deserved.” His gaze lingered on her as she was then dragged away by her excitedly chattering daughter.
“See why I didn’t mention whose daughter she was? I didn’t want you to be biased,” Avery said.
“Why would I be biased?”
“Isn’t she your brother’s fiancée’s best friend or something? Weren’t you her knight in a shining car the other day?”
“You don’t know me, Avery. If I let personal connections bias me, I wouldn’t be able to do my job, and I did it for fifteen years.”
“It was nice of you to help her. You should have seen her last week when she lost the student council elections. She was mad at one of the girls who promised to vote for her but then made a deal with another girl. I told her she wasn’t even close, and that vote wouldn’t have changed much, anyway.”
He had only just met the flame-haired girl, but a small dagger shot through his heart, both at the pain caused by her friend’s betrayal and at the cold bucket of words that Avery had poured on her right after. “It’s the betrayal that stings the most. Not the actual loss. And she didn’t have to know she wasn’t close.”
“Well, Mr. Political Advisor. A soft heart in your position isn’t a good thing, am I right?” Avery teased as they reached the main entrance.
“Thanks for inviting me. I think my debt—whatever it was for—is now cleared. Take care, Avery,” he said in a tone that he hoped left no doubt as to his intention to never see her again.
