AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I cough on a laugh. “Ah, no. This is to help out my friend,Annie, who runs a really cool column for the online Idaho Times.”
“So, it’s a joke?” Sam says—out of turn. But I can’t give Annie’s column a bad name, not even amongst seventh graders.
“No joke. I’m going on dates, and I’m trying out her advice. It’s working.” At least, that’s how Annie spun it in her column this week. The thing is, her advice is sound. But Ang was not the right person. The best advice, the best tactics, the best date wouldn’t have been enough.
Brynn Cash has both hands in the air, and just to get her to drop them, I call on her next.
“My—my mom is single. She has been for six years, and she said this is the year. She’s going to get out there—or something like that. I can send you her number!” She pulls her cell from her backpack pocket.
And while I am trying to play it cool, heat rises up my neck and into my cheeks. I must be flaming red at this point. “Whoa,” I say, keeping my tone as cool as Lucy Bailey’s when she gave Miles and me that very long sex talk. “That would be completely inappropriate. I’m not allowed to date Moms. Just like you aren’t allowed to have your phone out during class.” I stab my pointer toward her backpack, and she hustles the thing back into her bag.
Eight minutes after my internal three-minute timer went off, I have every single student’s attention, and we haven’t talked about the solar system once.
How did Mom do it? I’m sweating like a pig.
I stand up from leaning against the edge of my desk and clap my hands. “All right! Science time. Take out your books. We’re in chapter four today.”
“Mr. Bailey,” Rylee says, hand raised, though I haven’t called on her. “Why don’t you just date Annie?”
Mr. Cool has left the building. He melted in the corner about ten seconds ago. “Ahhh, well. We’re friends.”
“So you like her,” Rylee says.
I tug at my button-up collar. “I do.”
“And you know you get along.”
“Yes.”
“It sounds pretty simple to me.” Rylee lays her fat textbook onto her desk and opens it up, giving me the out I need.
“Yeah,” I mutter to no one but myself. “Me too.”
Annie sits with her back in the crook of my couch and lifts her legs so they are neatly in my lap. “When Pouty in Pocatello asked if first impressions were really that important, I told her absolutely. It’s important to put your best foot forward. Eighty percent of couples don’t return for a second date because of a bad first impression.”
“Is that true?” I ask, my fingers mindlessly massaging at her ankles.
“Heck yeah, it’s true. Owen, you know I check my facts.” She studies the paper in her hand. “So, this week, we’re going to work on first impressions. I know things didn’t go well with Ang. Maybe we’d be on a second date had the first impression gone off better.”
“You mean, had I not gone into anaphylactic shock?”
“Well…” Her eyes pause their roving, but she doesn’t look at me. “Yeah.”
“I don’t think so. That girl is not right for me.”
Annie pulls her auburn hair up into a little bun on top of her head. “I know. I’m sorry. I saw a few connections and got excited. But this”—she picks the paper back up and holds it out to me—“is Belle, and I think you’re going to really like her.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean?” Annie’s auburn brows pull together, and she at least gives me a glance.
“Why, Annie? Why am I going to like her?”
“Because”—she bobbles her head in a shake—“because she teaches science at the university.”
“Soooo… we teach the same subject.”
“Yes—and that’s a connection worth investigating.”
