in to say hello.”
“Well, hello.” The tips of Harmony’s ears turned pink, and she motioned to the boy at the head of the line of students. “Brandon, you know where to go. Straight up the stairs and wait for me at the top.” The boy nodded and skipped down the hall with the other students following in a meandering line.
Surely Harmony couldn’t think he was here to see her. Yet the way she focused her gaze on first his mouth and then his chest, he wasn’t sure.
“You know, the offer still stands,” she said in a low voice. She took one step closer and gave him a look he couldn’t mistake. “No strings attached.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, okay,” he stammered, knowing full well Harmony didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of spending the night with him, no matter how many times or how many ways she offered.
She reached out and patted his arm. Then she turned and followed her students, but not without one last wink in his direction.
I can only imagine her getting her claws into someone. Harmony Donaldson was someone to watch out for. Word around town was that she’d faked a pregnancy last year with a lawyer over in Silver Valley, and he’d almost popped the question before a phone call from the doctor’s office set everyone straight.
Mike turned back to Room Eighteen, but Sienna had disappeared inside. He hoped she hadn’t seen or heard that exchange with Harmony. He looked through the window. She had rejoined her students on the rug, but she looked up with a smile as he waved goodbye. “Thank you again,” she mouthed over the twins’ heads. It took all he had not to let the movement of her lips turn into something wicked inside his head.
Friends. We’re just friends. Mike repeated the words all the way back to the gym, through his workout with Zane, and later that night, when he stepped under the shower and found himself thinking of Sienna naked and wet and wishing for just an instant he hadn’t screwed up his life royally in the past so that he could enjoy someone like her in his life and his bed without knowing how it would all end.
Chapter Fourteen
He brought me a table. And beanbag chairs.
Sienna couldn’t stop staring at the new furniture in her classroom. Even the weird, flirtatious exchange between Mike and Harmony couldn’t dim her pleasure.
Friends. We’re just friends. She had to repeat the words to keep her feet on the ground. Still, it took a pretty solid friend to buy things out of his own pocket and deliver them here himself. “He’s such a nice guy,” she said aloud as she walked down the hall to check her mailbox after school.
“Yes, he is,” Darryl the custodian said as he wheeled a mop bucket past her in the opposite direction. Then he winked. “Course, I don’t see Mike Springer dropping off a special delivery to anyone else at this school. And he’s friends with a lot of people.”
Before Sienna could answer, the old man turned the corner. She trailed her fingers along the cool cinder-block wall. Drawings by the kindergartners and first-graders filled the display cases by the lobby, and she slowed to take a look. Words ran across the page in crooked lines below some of the drawings.
My favorite food is green beans.
My favorite color is black.
My favorite sport is baseball.
Sienna shivered in the frosty lobby air. What she wouldn’t give to be sitting in a baseball stadium on a hot summer day, with peanuts and a hot dog and a beer in her hand as she watched the Yankees kick the crap out of the Red Sox.
“Hi, Hillary,” she said as she fished next week’s lunch menu and a book catalog from her mailbox. She checked the clock behind Hillary’s gray braids. Three twenty-five. She still needed to ask Jenny a couple of questions about testing and the possibility of taking the students on a field trip in the spring. But the principal’s door was tightly shut.
“She’s busy again?” Sienna asked.
Hillary nodded.
“You
“Well, hello.” The tips of Harmony’s ears turned pink, and she motioned to the boy at the head of the line of students. “Brandon, you know where to go. Straight up the stairs and wait for me at the top.” The boy nodded and skipped down the hall with the other students following in a meandering line.
Surely Harmony couldn’t think he was here to see her. Yet the way she focused her gaze on first his mouth and then his chest, he wasn’t sure.
“You know, the offer still stands,” she said in a low voice. She took one step closer and gave him a look he couldn’t mistake. “No strings attached.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, okay,” he stammered, knowing full well Harmony didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of spending the night with him, no matter how many times or how many ways she offered.
She reached out and patted his arm. Then she turned and followed her students, but not without one last wink in his direction.
I can only imagine her getting her claws into someone. Harmony Donaldson was someone to watch out for. Word around town was that she’d faked a pregnancy last year with a lawyer over in Silver Valley, and he’d almost popped the question before a phone call from the doctor’s office set everyone straight.
Mike turned back to Room Eighteen, but Sienna had disappeared inside. He hoped she hadn’t seen or heard that exchange with Harmony. He looked through the window. She had rejoined her students on the rug, but she looked up with a smile as he waved goodbye. “Thank you again,” she mouthed over the twins’ heads. It took all he had not to let the movement of her lips turn into something wicked inside his head.
Friends. We’re just friends. Mike repeated the words all the way back to the gym, through his workout with Zane, and later that night, when he stepped under the shower and found himself thinking of Sienna naked and wet and wishing for just an instant he hadn’t screwed up his life royally in the past so that he could enjoy someone like her in his life and his bed without knowing how it would all end.
Chapter Fourteen
He brought me a table. And beanbag chairs.
Sienna couldn’t stop staring at the new furniture in her classroom. Even the weird, flirtatious exchange between Mike and Harmony couldn’t dim her pleasure.
Friends. We’re just friends. She had to repeat the words to keep her feet on the ground. Still, it took a pretty solid friend to buy things out of his own pocket and deliver them here himself. “He’s such a nice guy,” she said aloud as she walked down the hall to check her mailbox after school.
“Yes, he is,” Darryl the custodian said as he wheeled a mop bucket past her in the opposite direction. Then he winked. “Course, I don’t see Mike Springer dropping off a special delivery to anyone else at this school. And he’s friends with a lot of people.”
Before Sienna could answer, the old man turned the corner. She trailed her fingers along the cool cinder-block wall. Drawings by the kindergartners and first-graders filled the display cases by the lobby, and she slowed to take a look. Words ran across the page in crooked lines below some of the drawings.
My favorite food is green beans.
My favorite color is black.
My favorite sport is baseball.
Sienna shivered in the frosty lobby air. What she wouldn’t give to be sitting in a baseball stadium on a hot summer day, with peanuts and a hot dog and a beer in her hand as she watched the Yankees kick the crap out of the Red Sox.
“Hi, Hillary,” she said as she fished next week’s lunch menu and a book catalog from her mailbox. She checked the clock behind Hillary’s gray braids. Three twenty-five. She still needed to ask Jenny a couple of questions about testing and the possibility of taking the students on a field trip in the spring. But the principal’s door was tightly shut.
“She’s busy again?” Sienna asked.
Hillary nodded.
“You
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