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At first glance, he gave off the appearance of a hard man. But I could see the fine lines around his eyes, the crease of worry in his brow, the small scar just below his bottom lip.
He wasn’t just a handsome man. Nor a sexy one. He was imperfect, his flaws there for anyone to see.
For so long, Hunter had been nothing more than a fantasy, someone I watched from a distance. But now, in this room with me, he was real.
Real and incredibly tempting, my heart aching for the father who wanted to do better even as my good sense told me to keep my distance.
He was the parent of a student joining my program—and presumably straight.
It didn’t get much more off-limits than that, even if I hadn’t already promised myself to never mess around with a DILF. That was the purpose of the note in my planner. It was a warning. It meant, beware.
Because blurring the boundaries between school and personal life? That never ended well for anyone involved. Alexa was living proof of that.
Luckily, Hunter would never look twice at me—straight or not—because men like him did not go for nerdy history teachers. It was one rule I’d never have to break.
* * *
HUNTER
So this wasIola’s grandson, the man she’d been so eager to set up on a date that she’d propositioned me in a laundry room.
Clark Fletcher was an interesting contradiction of nervous chatter and professional decorum, babbling one minute and calmly explaining his program the next. That seemed to fit with how he dressed, a mix of casual and professional in skinny jeans and tennis shoes topped with a button-down shirt and bowtie.
He had a sort of geeky flair, which was pretty cute. His style wasn’t feminine like my brother usually preferred, but it also wasn’t the T-shirt/flannel combo so many men around here wore, either. Not that there were any rules to how a person should look, gay or straight. Or bi? I didn’t actually know where Clark fell on the sexuality spectrum.
And it’s not your business, even if his grandma did try to pimp him out to you.
I could see why Iola had called him an angel, though, with his blond curls, rosy cheeks, and cupid-bow lips.
I internally rolled my eyes at the turn of my thoughts, glad that Clark was preoccupied with Toby. He’d drawn him across the room to show him some examples of previous projects the after-school club had done, probably sensing I needed a few minutes to decompress after coming a hair’s breadth from breaking down.
Things with Toby had been tough, but not so tough that I needed to cry. There was just something so warm and sympathetic about Clark it brought my emotions to the surface. It probably made him a great teacher.
“I don’t get it,” Toby said as they returned to the front of the room. “I thought I had to come here because I’m doing bad in school, but this program isn’t even about that?”
“Well, it depends on how you look at it,” Clark said. “We’ll help you with classwork, sure, but the real purpose of GrasshopPeers is to do community projects that will make you feel more like a part of the town.”
Toby wrinkled his nose. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Toby,” I said wearily, “let’s be polite, okay?”
“It’s okay,” Clark said, clearly more patient than me. “A lot of kids come into the program wondering why we’d want to do projects that have nothing to do with school. But your life isn’t just about school, is it? It’s about what you do outside of school too. It’s about the town, and the people in it, and the ways we can all help one another succeed.”
Toby looked skeptical. “And I have to join?”
I sighed, but Clark took it in stride.
“I don’t like it either,” he said. “I’d rather all the students in this program join because they want to. So, how about I make you a deal? Let’s just try it for a couple of weeks. If it’s not helping you, we’ll figure out a plan to try something else, okay?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Toby was quiet on the drive home. I was pretty sure he didn’t know what to make of Clark Fletcher, and I was right there with him. Judging by the way he talked about his program, he was passionate about it. And yet, when Toby copped an attitude, he’d graciously accepted the skepticism.
I wasn’t convinced that giving my son an out was a wise idea, but when I’d quietly mentioned as much on the way out, Clark had shrugged and said, “People have to opt in for these things to work. Kids are no different. This way, he comes to the program without resentment, and when he stays, it’ll be his choice.”
“And you’re confident he’ll choose to stay?”
