Chapter 3 Altercations and Apologies
Chapter Three: Altercations and Apologies
Hannah glared at the empty coffeepot.
That morning her eldest, Sophie, had decided she was going to wear her favorite pink pajamas to school. Hannah’s firm refusal had erupted into a fight.
While she and Sophie were locking horns, August spilled the legos he wanted to take to Show and Tell all over the kitchen floor.
The argument and the clean-up took so long she didn’t have time to brew coffee before she herded her kids out the door.
They’d been running so late, a quick stop at Cupcake on Main was out of the question too.
An empty coffeepot this morning, of all mornings, was a disaster. Maybe if she hurried, she’d get at least half a cup. She filled the reservoir and filter and turned it on.
Once it was percolating, she put her hands on her hips and whirled around to glower at the math teacher who was the bane of her existence. “You couldn’t start a fresh pot after you demolished this one?”
Graham Hollister didn’t bother answering. Instead, he took leisurely sips from his black mug emblazoned with the logo “#1 Teacher” and gave her a smug grin. The air of superiority oozed from his pores.
Hannah propped her hip against the metal counter, crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Do you have something to say?”
“You should know by now, I always have something to say. But unlike you, I keep what I’m thinking to myself,” he said with a raised brow.
He was the most exasperating person she’d ever met.
Partially because he’d made good on his vow to act like they were mortal enemies.
If he hadn’t given her that raw confession last year, she’d have easily believed he hated her to the very marrow of his bones.
“Oh, I know. Even when you’re clearly in the wrong. ”
His expression hardened into something more opaque and cryptic than usual.
“No, I’m not. Because you’re the one who said it was better if I kept my distance.
When I extended an olive branch and was truthful about my feelings for once, you shut me down and said you didn’t have any room in your life for a relationship. ”
“I didn’t exactly shut you down,” she protested. Though his confession had surprised her, she hadn’t objected to it on principle. It was just that the thought of taking care of one more person emotionally was physically exhausting.
His empty mug hit the counter with a clank and he leaned forward as if he was going to contradict her.
She held up a hand to silence him. “I didn’t say it was you personally that I objected to.
I just said that my life was full and there were things already falling off the plate.
I was telling you I didn’t have the bandwidth to give anything to anyone else.
At least not in that capacity. Finding a place for someone at your table shouldn’t feel like a battle. ”
They’d faced off at last year’s Christmas party because they had a fundamental difference of opinion about teaching.
When the tipsy music teacher had joked that they should kiss and bury the hatchet, the tension between them had escalated.
He’d stepped closer and the memory of the gleaming look he’d slanted her still gave her shivers.
For a half second, before he’d broken the spell with his characteristic arrogance, she’d wondered what kissing him would feel like.
Every altercation between them since then felt like they were in the middle of another conversation. One they skirted the edges of and avoided like the plague.
There was a flare of attraction between them Hannah struggled to ignore.
Because, just like she’d told him last year, she didn’t have time for inconvenient things like that in her life.
Raging hormones aside, and the fact that sometimes she was momentarily hypnotized by the way that muscle in his jaw popped, or the way he wrapped his hands around his coffee mug, she knew she’d made the right decision.
Before that unexpected, spontaneous confession, she hadn’t thought of him as anything other than a thorn in her side. Before that disastrous confession that made her stomach somersault, she’d assumed he thought of her that way too.
“What if I still wish I’d kissed you under the mistletoe? Or in the parking lot?” He grumbled around another sip of coffee, using the mug to hide his face.
She swallowed her surprise and whirled around to face him again. He was probably joking, but that inscrutable expression was back and his tone was drily matter-of-fact.
When her husband Wagner was killed in combat, Hannah buried the need to belong to anyone but herself. For the first few years, the wound had been like earth scorched by wildfire. Deep, dark terrain full of her tears and pain. A gaping hole stitched over with false bravado and gritted teeth.
Despite her aversion to jumping in again, she felt the heat seeping into her cheeks. She ignored it and rolled her eyes in his direction. “As if. We decided to hate each other’s guts, remember? You’re still mad I was voted teacher of the year this past spring.”
He turned his cup so the obnoxious slogan was front and center. “I have no reason to hate you, Ms. Snow. Prior to your tenure, that title was mine five years running. I don’t hate you, I just think I’m a better teacher.”
He was leaning against the counter now, arms and ankles crossed, his glasses pushed toward the bridge of his nose.
“And this is why I hate you. Because you have no idea what the word humility means,” Hannah fumed.
He shrugged. “You can hate me, but it’s true. Kids need to know how to balance a checkbook to survive, not identify a dangling participle or name Henry the Eighth’s six wives.”
It was no use explaining she’d used the jingle about Henry’s wives to get her students interested in reading Shakespeare — because the patronage of the murderous tyrant’s daughter was what had ensured his success. She was debating her defense when the second bell rang.
Hannah groaned in frustration because the drip machine was still percolating and if she wasn’t sitting behind her desk in five minutes, hell would surely ensue.
“Try not to be such an asshole next time and start another pot of coffee as soon as you pour the last cup,” she called over her shoulder as she headed for her homeroom.
Just one more way life wasn’t fair — Graham Hollister could leisurely sip his morning coffee because somehow he’d escaped being assigned a homeroom or a study hall.
She slipped in the door of her room just as the tardy bell started ringing. An airborne soccer ball almost hit her in the face and she gave the students a stern look when she caught it.
“This belongs outside. And because you seem to have forgotten that, it stays with me for the rest of the day.”
Her declaration was met with a chorus of groans. “Ah, Ms. Snow, what if I promise to keep it in my bag?” Toby Meachum, the star forward pleaded.
“Nope. Not good enough, Toby. You know the rules. I don’t make them, I just enforce them.”
“Coach is gonna kill me if I don’t bring it to our intramural session after lunch,” Toby moaned.
Hannah shrugged and narrowed her gaze. “You should’ve stowed it in your locker instead of bringing it in here.”
Hannah blocked out the grumbling her response elicited and slid behind her desk to grade the stack of papers in the bottom drawer.
By lunchtime there was a dull ache at her temple and her eyes felt gritty. The universe was punishing her for staying up so late reading.
When she slid onto the bench across from the science teacher with a groan, Sarah’s eyes widened in alarm. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”
They’d become friends since last year’s Christmas party, and Hannah knew she could tell her anything. “I think I’m at death’s door. I kept telling myself just one more chapter last night and I’ve gone the entire day without coffee.”
“How does that even happen?” Sarah asked as she brandished her thermos full of cold brew.
Hannah rested her chin in her hands and raised a brow. “How do you think it happened? I’ll give you three guesses.”
“I don’t need three guesses. The only plausible explanation is that Graham Hollister happened. Here, have some of mine.” Her friend unscrewed the cap of her thermos and poured Hannah a cup.
“I can’t drink your coffee,” she weakly protested.
Sarah shook her head. “Yes, you can. That’s what friends are for. You’d do the same thing for me if I was having a bad day.”
The coffee worked some kind of dark magic, because the rest of the day was blessedly uneventful.
When Hannah dropped her bag off in her classroom the next morning, a white paper bag and a cup were already sitting on her desk. The Cupcake on Main logo was emblazoned on the bag and she said a prayer of thanks for friends like Sarah as she opened it.
One of the cafe’s famous red chocolate cupcakes was nestled inside it and she closed her eyes in reverence and appreciation. The coffee was probably her favorite too.
She didn’t see the message scrawled on the side of the cup until she lifted it to her lips.
This is my apology for taking the last cup yesterday. GH
Maybe Graham Hollister wasn’t such an ogre after all.