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Tyler’s mouth dropped open. “How… how are you here?”
Stevie shrugged. “I snuck out of gym class because I saw you walking into the school.” She licked her lips and balled her fists. “I thought somethin’ was goin’ down.”
Tyler and I made eye contact and I struggled hard to keep a straight face. He told me all about how he used to skip class, and now karma was biting him in the ass.
“You can’t skip class, Stevie,” he said, rubbing a hand over his jaw to hide an amused smile. “I’ll walk the jailbird back to class.” He placed a hand at the small of my back and leaned in close to whisper down to me, “But I’m glad you texted me, I’ll pretend it wasn’t by mistake. Hope you feel better.” He gave me a sympathetic smile, then leaned into my classroom. “Behave for Miss Josie, ya hear?”
I swatted his chest, but he just shot me a wink before turning away and grabbing Stevie’s hand.
When I turned back to my class, the kids went absolutely nuts.
“Miss Josie?! He called her Miss Josie, boys!”
“Did you guys see that?! He’s a simp for Ms. Pete!”
“Are you dating Tyler ‘the Jett’ Jettersen?!”
“He was totally flirting with her!”
“OhmyGod, Tyler Jettersen is going to marry Ms. Petey!”
“Did you see how hot he was? OhmyGod, he’s so hot!”
“I haven’t been this excited since Taylor and Travis!”
“Guys!” I cut in, trying really hard not to laugh. “Stop!”
They all stopped and stared at me for a millisecond.
And then, “You better not get married after a single day and have six people killed like Romeo and Juliet!” one of the boys shouted.
I rubbed a hand over my face, not sure if I should be mad or amused, but then one of the calmer girls in my class, Rachel, was sitting in the front seat, straining to hold her hand as high as she could.
“Rachel?”
“You didn’t say thank you!” she whisper-shouted.
I ran to the door and yanked it back open to see Tyler and Josie about to round the corner of the long hall. “Thank you!”
He raised his hand in a salute and flashed me his signature lopsided grin, and I think I fell even more in love with him.
________
The rest of my day passed by pretty uneventfully, but I couldn’t get Tyler’s kindness out of my head.
And I couldn’t get over the stark difference between him and my ex-fiancé.
Anytime I felt bad, Garrett treated me like a major inconvenience. He never once acted empathetic. And there’s no way Garrett would have ever brought me what I needed. In fact, I think he’d refuse to even buy tampons for me. Tyler purchased an assortment. I wanted so badly to kiss him at that moment, but we hadn’t kissed since the night we went on our little pause…
That afternoon, I drove Stevie home from school— we worked it out that I’d bring her home the days they had afternoon practice. But when I asked her how her day went, all I got was a little shrug, and she seemed kind of down.
I swung by the Starbucks drive-through to treat ourselves because I figured she might need a familiar little pick-me-up in the form of a cake-pop.
When we entered the loft, Garcia was home from practice early, icing a pulled groin.
Stevie plopped on the couch next to him and stole the clicker and his bowl of popcorn.
“How was school?” he asked her.
