Game of Love by Melissa Foster

him.
    Quite possibly the only woman for him.
    He followed her inside and silently took her hand. They went to the balcony, and instead of sitting on a chair, Ellie slid her legs through the iron railing and sat on the cold concrete overlooking the park. Dex sat behind her, one leg on either side of her, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He closed his eyes and felt her heartbeat through her back. He knew the chance he was taking, allowing himself to feel for her again. To love her. Hell, he couldn’t help but love her.
    “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I had grown up in a normal house, with a normal family?” she asked.
    All the time . He’d never admit that to her. Admitting that would be like saying there was something wrong with her for not having had a normal upbringing. “No. If you had, you probably wouldn’t have spent time with me.”
    “Sure I would have. I just wouldn’t have been so…unhinged.” She let out a long sigh and leaned back against him.
    He turned her face so he could see her eyes. “You’ve never been unhinged. Just a little lost.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Tell me about Maryland, Ellie. Tell me about why you’re here.”
    She took a deep breath, and he felt her weighing her answer. When she didn’t respond, he changed the subject. Anything to keep her in the present. He was so afraid she’d fall back into her need to run. Was he stupid to want her to stay? Would she ever stay? Was she even capable of staying in one place when she wasn’t forced to?
    “Tell me about what you want to do as a teacher.”
    She pulled her legs from between the railings and sat cross-legged facing him. Her eyes held a spark of hope, and when she spoke, her voice was markedly more animated. “There’s so much I want to do. The interview I went on today was really disheartening. The low-income schools are really just scrambling to keep up. They have no money, they have minimal resources, and the worst part was that today, every time I asked about the kids, the actual children, the answers came in statistics and school-wide goals and percentages.” She looked away and shook her head.
    Dex wanted to pull her back against him, to feel her body against him again. He reached for her hand just to remain physically connected to her.
    “Do you remember when we were in elementary school, if there was a kid who had trouble, they had a person who came into the classroom to help them, or the teacher would spend a few extra minutes making sure they understood?”
    “Sure.” He caressed her arm, from wrist to elbow. He loved listening to her and hearing the excitement in her voice, but he needed to touch her.
    “Well, that doesn’t happen anymore. Now there are more kids from low-income families, and they’re often from troubled families. They face the additional challenges of poverty and are sometimes several years behind their peers. Many times one parent has been in trouble with the law and they can’t afford the things they need, so they go without or their older siblings work to help the family, or in many cases, steal and get into other types of trouble.”
    She stopped talking and looked at his hand, which was now caressing her other arm. She smiled and took his hand in hers, drawing his eyes to hers, distracting him from touching her.
    “Those kids need a different way of learning altogether. Where each child in an upper-income school has a laptop and programs available, the lower-income schools have half as many.”
    This was the Ellie Dex knew so well. The take-charge, pull-it-together-and-make-it-work Ellie. If only you could be that way with your personal life, too . Maybe one day, if I love you enough. If you feel safe enough .
    “And what’s the solution?” He knew she had a solution. She always had a solution, even if sometimes that solution was running away.
    “I don’t know. But I know that I don’t want to work somewhere that the kids aren’t the