AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I wanted to be a teacher,” he replied. “I was good at Spanish, and I enjoyed it.”
It had been his mother’s first language. I wanted to ask him how often she had spoken it at home, but I didn’t knowif talking about her upset him. I didn’t know much about Asa anymore. My smile faded.
“You’ll have the attention of all the female students,” I told him, keeping it light.
He finished off his last cookie and leaned back in his hair. “You think so?” he asked, studying me.
It was my time to smirk. “I hope you don’t have a jealous girlfriend,” I blurted out without thinking. Dang it. Why did I have to say anything about a girlfriend?
He shook his head. “No, I don’t have one of those.”
I had dug this hole, and apparently I was going to keep digging. “That’s good she’s not jealous. A jealous female can be difficult.”
He chuckled, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he looked at me. “Is this your way of asking if I have a girlfriend?”
Yes, no, maybe. I shrugged. “I was just making small talk,” I replied nervously.
“Okay,” he replied after a few moments. “Can I have a tour of the house?”
He wasn’t going to tell me. Which meant he did in fact have a girlfriend. Right? I didn’t care. He would be gone soon. I needed to remember that. I didn’t need to know about his life.
“Sure,” I replied, standing up. “It’s a short tour, though.”
He stood up then, and we were close. Too close. My body wasn’t ready for this kind of close. Not with him, at least. The sooner Asa left Lawton, the better.
“I don’t,” he said, not stepping back and putting much-needed space between us. He was so big now, and being so close to his massive, muscular body made me tingle in places I should not be tingling.
As always, I had to tilt my head back to look up at him. He was studying me for a reaction to his two words. I wasn’t sure what he had been talking about because my heart had begun to beat faster as my mind went to other things being this close to him. “Um… what?” I asked, jerking my gaze from his and forcing myself to move a few steps ahead of him.
“A girlfriend. I don’t have one of those,” he replied.
Unable to help myself, I smiled.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ASA
Walking out of the front door of Lawton High School, I saw Nash headed in my direction. He was grinning. How the hell did he know already? I had just walked out of the meeting with Ms. Campbell. There was no possible way he knew.
“Welcome home,” he said when he reached me.
I glanced back at the door as it closed. “How the hell?” I asked him.
“Ms. Campbell texted Rich the moment you took the position,” he replied. “The old man was beaming, he was so damn happy. I swear he let out a fucking hoot and punched his fist into the air.”
It felt right. All of it. Nash was right. No matter what had happened with my dad, Lawton was home. That field at the bottom of the hill was home. I belonged here.
“I don’t even care that you took it for a woman. I’m just glad you took it,” he said and slapped my back.
“You think I took the job because of Ezmita?” I asked him.
“I know you did,” he shot back at me, then laughed. “The moment you found out she was going to be teaching here, it was in your eyes. You were coming home.”
I started to argue but stopped. He was right. There was no use denying it. I had tried life without her in it, and I didn’t like it.
A familiar truck pulled up behind Nash and after it a Tahoe I also recognized. “Did you call everyone?” I asked him.
“Nah, I just sent a text to the ones that mattered,” he replied.
