Chapter 10
Kevin
Sometimes I can tell when she’s on the track without even turning around. I feel it in the back of my neck.
I love to watch her run. I remember how those long, strong, smooth legs felt around my waist when I was inside her. My fingers itch to sift through her shiny hair—wavier and lighter than the night I met her—to free it from that thick braid…
I do my best not to get distracted from my work, but the students must have noticed something because they’re always teasing me.
“Isn’t that Ms. Salazar over there, Mr. Mahoney? Think you ought to go say hi?” Or “You’re killing us with these sprints, Mr. M. Go run with your girlfriend.” Or, one day, from one of the mouthier kids, “I see what you see in her, Mr. M. She’s big but man is she a MILF.” That earns him a pointed finger and a dead serious, “Cut that out. That’s no way to talk about a woman.” Which earns me a bunch of widened eyes among the circle of students around me. Kid apologizes, and they never make the mistake of talking like that around me again.
Thing is, I want to go run with her. I want to ask her to have dinner with me tonight. I want to get to know her better. I just can’t justify pestering her for a date when she’s told me no. What I want is moot.
If she still finds me attractive, I sure can’t tell. That first night, she was completely up-front about her wishes. Since then, though, she’s barely even cracked a smile at me. I can’t see any renewed interest on her part at all. And every day I feel a little crazier, a little more desperate to talk to her—really get to know her. A little sadder that we will never be a “we.”
But one hot afternoon in algebra class when some of my students are having trouble, I decide to ask Andi for help. I watch for her after school, and as soon as I can, I join her on the track.
“Hi.” I’m a freakin’ conversational genius.
She gives me the infrequent little smile I’ve actually grown fond of. It isn’t the big, wide grin that melted my knees that first night, but it’s…cute. Playful. “Hey.”
I turn my eyes to the track in front of us. “Got a favor to ask.”
“Yeah?”
“I couldn’t help but notice your Spanish language skills during your presentation to the football team.” I toss her a quick glance.
She nods. “I was raised bilingual.”
“Any chance you’d help me with something for one of my math classes?” This is a ridiculous, unreasonable, too-big, hopeless request. I’m an idiot.
She raises her pretty brows. “Like what?”
“I have these sample problems I always give out.” I’m wishing I hadn’t brought this up. Maybe I should’ve stayed over in the shade with students. But I’m in it now, so… “I make them to supplement the textbook. The samples lead the students through each kind of problem, start to finish, explaining exactly why we do each step and what it means.” I look over to gauge her reaction.
She just nods. “Okay…”
“So the sheets have really seemed to help students understand the process… but …”
“They’re in English and you have some students whose English isn’t strong yet.”
“Exactly.”
“You want me to translate them for you?”
“I think it would really help them. And I’d owe you big-time.”
She arches one brow and a tiny bit of Singer Andi shines in her eyes. “Owe me?”
God help me. Suddenly I’m way more breathless than this easy run calls for. I’m going to burst into flame right here on the track. “Yeah. Favor of your choice.” I make a heroic effort not to hope too hard for a candlelight dinner or something requiring condoms.
“Hmm.” There’s an undercurrent in her voice but I can’t pin it down.
We run in silence for a hundred yards before she glances at me again. “Is this a good-sized translation job that might require ongoing time or effort?”
Bigger than I have any right asking her to do, that’s for sure. “Well, I do it for all my classes, for each concept we cover…so yeah, I guess it could be. I was originally thinking about the particular sheet my algebra students were struggling with today.”
Her gaze captures me. “That’s actually good, because the first thing that came to mind as a return favor is ongoing too.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Marriage is ongoing. Marry me. We can call it… What’s the phrase? Marriage of convenience. Let it grow from there.
“We have a volunteer training session coming up in a couple of weeks. We always need volunteers to do all kinds of things including playing with the kids or helping them with schoolwork.”
“Okay…?”
“The kids in the shelter have often not had many good male role models. So we’re always on the lookout for male volunteers who’re good with children.”
Makes sense. “I like kids. What’s involved?”
“Any kind of work with minors involves pretty extensive background checks, but I’m assuming you’ve already passed those as a teacher, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you would come to our volunteer training sessions every night for a week in September, and then after that you’d donate time each month to volunteering at the shelter. We don’t allow adult men inside the residence part of the building, but we’ve got an outdoor area with picnic tables and a bad weather playroom.”
I’m surprised by how much I like the idea. I love kids. I like being useful. And I have way too much free time. This would connect me to my new community and maybe let me see more of what Andi does in her work.
I’m nodding before the words even come out. “Sounds good to me.”
“Excellent!” And damn if she doesn’t flash that blinding first-night smile.
I almost trip over my own feet. “Yeah?” I’m smiling back, warmth blooming in my chest.
“Yeah.” There’s that light in her dark eyes.
I could stop and kiss her right here on the track in front of the whole world. Instead, we arrange for me to email her the next few worksheets I need translated, and for her to send me the volunteer training info. But I’m still thinking about kissing her.
***
Andi
The dinner crowd is thinning out as I push through the door to July’s. July always packages leftovers for the shelter and it’s my turn to pick them up. I’ll treat myself to a nice dinner while I’m here, to celebrate my deal with Kevin Mahoney.
As usual, Blue Shoes music is playing, big James channeling Muddy Waters’s “Mannish Boy,” the rest of the band shouting the response to each line.
I love those guys. It’s all I can do to keep from strutting across the dining room in time to their music, but I manage to walk normally to the booth closest to the kitchen.
Sonya brings me water and a menu.
“Hey, you’re here late.” From what I remember, she doesn’t drive and she’s rarely out after dark.
Her smile is a fraction dimmer than usual. “Yeah… We have a couple out sick on the night crew. I said I’d stay till eight.” Her voice wavers and I see the effort she makes to firm it back up. “July said she’d give me a ride home after, but I told her it wouldn’t kill me to walk a few blocks at night.”
More like a mile and a half. And her knuckles are white, she’s gripping the order pad so tight.
“I’ll be done eating by then. My turn to take leftovers to the shelter, so I’ll be going right by your place. Let me drop you off.”
“Well…” She nibbles her bottom lip. “That’d be great, if you really don’t mind.” Her pretty smile widens and her brow clears as she writes down my order.
It takes some former shelter clients a while to feel safe again. A few of them never really seem to. I’m glad Sonya’s going home to a big, lively houseful of warm, strong survivors—Donna, Tina and two of July’s other employees, plus their kids, all in a modified fourplex.
I rack my brain trying to remember the details of Sonya’s particularly terrible boyfriend experience. It had culminated in a famous-about-town incident in this very restaurant, with several townspeople intervening before July sent him away for good…
“Hey, you.” July appears with my food, interrupting my thoughts. Instead of dropping off my meal, she puts down dinner for both of us and slides in across from me, her smile as warm as always. She shakes open a napkin and drapes it across her lap, even though she’s still wearing her sturdy kitchen apron. “What you up to tonight?”
I lean in and inhale the spicy, comforting aroma of Smokin’ Joe’s Peppery Pasta. “Oh, you know. Just sitting here hating men.”
“As one does.” Nothing fazes July.
“Not you.” I blow on a forkful before putting it in my mouth. The flavors explode on my tongue. “Damn, July, that man can cook as well as you and Donna! This stuff’s better every time I eat it. Where is he tonight?”
“Cullowhee. First week of classes. I’ll tell him you said so.” She’s eating the same thing as me, only topped with chicken instead of shrimp. She takes a bite and leans back as she chews, studying me. “You’re glowing. Something good happening in your world?”
Woman has an uncanny way of sizing people up. Sussing out what they might be feeling. Probably can’t tell I nearly dragged a big, sweaty, delicious man into a shadowy corner to have my way with him at the high school earlier, but she’s right, sexual frustration aside, I’m feeling good. “I pulled off the volunteer coup of the century.”
“Oh? Tell me about it.”
Between bites of pasta I tell her about the translation-for-volunteering arrangement.
She listens as she eats, her head tipped like she’s considering something. “This guy was running with you at the time? How’d that happen? You know him from somewhere?”
Ah. Of course. Trust July to pull the pieces together.
“Yeahhh…from that last time I sang with the Blue Shoes. He runs with me sometimes at the high school, ever since I did the presentation there.”
Her eyes go round and her brows shoot up. “Ohhh. That guy.” She picks up a blistered shishito from her plate, grins, and bites into it. “Well, isn’t that interesting?”
Gray eyes don’t usually look so wicked.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, goofball. It’s not like we’re dating. This is a business arrangement. I told him it was only a one-time thing, but I think dolled-up singers are more his type anyway.”
“Oh, please.” She scowls, raking me with an up-and-down glance. “You’re delusional if you think you can make yourself unattractive enough for him to not still want you.”
“Worked with everybody else. Why should Kevin Mahoney be any different?”
“No. No.” She wags a finger at me. “They’re scared of you, not oblivious. There’s a difference.”
Doesn’t matter, really. No point in thinking about it.
But of course I spend the night doing so anyway.