Chapter 8
Noah
Students will be able to pretend.
Five more minutes.
That was all I needed.
If I could have five more minutes, I’d ask for nothing else in this life.
Five more minutes of Shay’s body tucked close to mine, her hand flat on the small of my back. Five more minutes of knowing the feel of her skin against my lips.
Five more minutes of pretending she was mine.
But the problem with asking for five more minutes was that I’d suffer in the long run. I’d live with this knowledge and I had no doubt it would slowly ruin me.
Perhaps the ruination would come quick. Perhaps it was better that way. I’d always done well when I knew the suffering to come. My law school roommates had been a year ahead of me and they’d been an excellent resource for previewing my future misery. It’d helped set my expectations.
If someone could tap me on the shoulder or send me a text message about how much my life would suck when these five minutes were up and the pretending was over, I’d appreciate it. Always good to know the range.
I shifted, putting a bit of distance between us before this situation turned sour and Shay had to force me off her. But she trapped my hand on her waist, saying, “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t stop. Not yet.”
Okay. Great. I’d suffer while hearing that in my head and imagining the scent of her hair for the rest of eternity. Outstanding.
“Can I have a frozen lemonade now?” Gennie asked, her arms around my neck.
The beads from the bracelet she’d made last night—because Shay wore bracelets and we were obsessed with Shay—pressed against my clavicle.
It was enough to remind me in loud, screaming letters that I had a kid and I couldn’t fuck around just because it felt nice.
But god help me, I really wanted another minute or two of this. Of Gennie, safe and secure on one side of me, and Shay snuggled up on the other. It was like we were living a carefree life, the three of us out for a high school football game without any worries in the world.
Except none of that was true and this fantasy was seconds away from disintegrating in my hands.
“Yeah. No problem. Do you want to get it yourself?” I asked Gennie.
She shook her head against my shoulder. She didn’t like me picking her up.
Apparently it was too babyish and, as I’d been informed several times, she was a big girl.
Forty-five pounds and toothless, but yeah.
Big girl. She probably hated that I’d picked her up in front of Christiane Manning’s kids too.
Any minute now, she’d kick and yell for me to put her down.
And I would. Just as soon as I seared every inch of this into my memory.
“Come with me,” Gennie said.
And that was how I bought myself a few more minutes in line at the frozen lemonade truck with Gennie’s head on my shoulder and my arm around Shay.
It was a warm night made bearable only by a steady breeze off the bay. Bearable for everyone else. I was dying. Burning up, melting down, boiling over. In all the ways I’d imagined touching Shay, I never saw it happening here at the high school or while I held Gennie in the other arm.
When it was our turn, Gennie wiggled out of my hold to place her order. She glanced back at me, saying, “Money, please.”
Getting to my wallet meant releasing Shay and there was a solid moment where I blinked down at my niece and prayed for a better solution to come my way.
In the end, Shay shocked the shit out of me by reaching into my back pocket, grabbing my wallet, and passing Gennie a five. When she returned my wallet to the pocket and gave my ass a swift pat, I was toast. Just fucking done.
Shay turned her face toward me, her lips pursed in a smirk I’d always tagged as condescending. I was probably wrong about that. I needed to be wrong.
“She’s still watching,” Shay whispered.
She leaned in, brushed her lips over my jaw. I shuddered, my grip on her turning needlessly tight. I couldn’t help it. And though I knew little about internal organs, it seemed like mine were rearranging themselves as my heart tried to break free from my ribs.
“Kiss my forehead,” she said.
“What?”
“She’s still watching us,” Shay repeated. “Kiss my forehead. Make it believable.”
Making it believable wasn’t my problem.
I dipped my face, pressing my lips to her temple. Her hair smelled lovely. I remembered that scent. It had lingered in my car when we were kids. She’d stayed with me even when she wasn’t.
I didn’t move, my lips on her skin and her body snug against mine. Gennie was talking about frozen lemonade, and how the watermelon-flavored lemonade was superior to cherry, and her face was sticky and streaked with pink. I nodded, still holding Shay like my existence depended upon it.
The truth was, it did.
I could resist all I wanted. Fight like a motherfucker. Push her and push her and push her away.
And still, there was nothing I wanted more than this.
“What’s the story?” she asked, low enough to keep it between us. “With your friend Christiane.”
“She’s not my friend,” I replied. “She’s just very persistent.”
Shay laughed, rocking her curves against me in the most delicious way. This wasn’t the time or place to be aroused, but goddamn, I was far past my limits here.
“I’m aware of that,” she said. “We had a little standoff in the restroom. I didn’t think I was getting out of there without scheduling a pelvic floor therapy appointment.”
“A—what?”
She shook her head, her earrings swaying with the movement. They were grapes, these earrings. Bunches of purple grapes.
I didn’t know why I found that absolutely charming but I did.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” she said. “So, what’s the deal? Did you ghost her? No, wait. You gave her a night she’ll never forget and—”
“Shut up, Shay.” It came out in a rumble, a rockslide of words that left her gazing up at me, her lips parted and her brows arched.
There’d never been a moment where I wanted to kiss her more than I did right now, and I’d devoted two years of my life to wanting to kiss her.
Yet this was different. It was so much more powerful. Truly, a rockslide.
“Wow. When did you turn into a player?” she asked. “Breaking hearts all over town, huh?”
“That’s not what happened,” I snapped. “She thinks—I don’t know—she thinks we’d suit.”
“What an old-fashioned way of saying she wants to get a piece—”
I pressed a finger to her lips. “Did I not tell you to shut up?”
She blinked at me, her brows raised as she silently commanded me to explain.
Before I could think better of it, I left her lips, traced the round of her cheek, and drew my thumb over the crease of her brow.
Smoothed out the curiosity gathered there.
“It doesn’t matter what Christiane wants because her kids have been terrible to Gen.
They’re twins and they’re terrible . I know I shouldn’t say that about children but, seriously, if you knew the half of it, you’d agree with me. ”
“What happened?”
“The boy, that little fucker, chased Gennie around the playground on her second day of school with a dead garter snake he’d found somewhere in the bushes.
But she was the one who got in trouble because she elbowed him in the mouth and knocked out a few teeth when he tried to shove it down her shirt. ”
Her gaze dropped, her lips parted. “What the fuck ?”
I nodded as I tucked a few pink strands over her ear again.
The wind was keeping me busy here. I loved it.
“That’s how we met. She said the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
Her boy was going through a difficult time since she and the father divorced last year.
She wanted us to arrange some playdates so the kids could get to know each other. That was her solution.”
“What was your solution?”
“I wrote a letter indicating I’d bring my concerns regarding student safety to the state department of education and file a lawsuit if she wasn’t moved into another class.”
“Was she moved?”
“The next day,” I replied. “But the teacher wasn’t a great fit for Gennie. Just didn’t get what she was all about. They clashed from the very first minute. I’m pretty sure she retired at the end of the year and credited Gennie with that decision.”
“That’s not great,” she murmured. “Were there any other incidents? With that boy?”
“Nothing as bad as the snake situation but lots of reports of them getting into it on the playground. And the girl, I thought she was the good seed in that bunch but that wasn’t the case.
Never lets Gennie play with her or the other girls.
Always saying awful things about Eva when the teachers aren’t around.
And that’s just the stuff Gennie tells me.
I know there’s a lot more. The issue with her hair, for example. She doesn’t tell me everything.”
“Have you mentioned any of this to the lady lusting after you?”
I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Christiane lingering near the bubble waffle cone vendor. She caught my eye, gave an enthusiastic wave. “Allow me to apologize right now.”
“For what?”
I’d suffer for this. So much more than I’d imagined. But I couldn’t care about that suffering when all this sweetness was right here, waiting for me. I tipped her chin up, slipped my fingers into her hair. Dropped my gaze to her parted lips. “This.”
I brushed my lips against hers, fast enough for our surroundings yet exactly long enough to ruin my whole life.
I didn’t bother glancing back at Christiane again.