2. Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
CAROLINE
“ D on’t forget you need to read up to chapter six by the end of the week,” I say to a chorus of groans as my last period of the day stalks out of my classroom. They’ve had over a week to read, but I have a feeling most of them have waited until the last minute. And I guess I get it. This isn’t my favorite story either. But putting off things you don’t want to do only comes around to bite you in the long run.
Ask me how I know.
I’ve been avoiding Austin for the past five days, so maybe I should take my own advice.
I just need to get the details of this holiday community service project ironed out with him. Working with him for two weeks won’t kill me. Probably.
Earlier in the week, we agreed via email to meet in my room today after school, but he’s nowhere to be found.
I sit in my desk chair, grabbing my favorite grading pen, when my phone lights up with a text.
Mack the Menace:
Caroline, it’s Austin. Can we meet in the lab? Experiment got out of hand, and I need to clean it up.
I push back from my desk, wondering what could have gone wrong. It must not have been too severe. I didn’t hear any fire alarms or smell smoke. I’m suddenly imagining a radioactive scenario leaving him with lime-green hair like the Grinch, though I’m not sure what would have to go awry in a chemistry experiment for that to happen. The thought makes me smile, nonetheless.
Grabbing a notebook and pen, I make my way down the empty hallway. It’s eerily quiet, save for the click-clacking of my shoe boots—shooties? Is that what the lady at the store called them?—on the tile floor. I pass a student or two in no rush to leave, scanning their locker to make sure they have everything they need before they go home.
I’m a set of lockers away from the lab when my mind flashes back to the last time I wandered to this side of the building. It was the first week of school. I thought it might be nice to see if Austin would like to join me for lunch sometime to get acquainted, maybe show him how to use the online grading software or something. Make him feel as welcome as the other faculty members made me feel when I started teaching here.
But then I heard the words echo through the room and out into the hallway.
Harler Grant…all mine…old, dusty books.
He and the other person in the room—I don’t know who because I got out of there as fast as I could—shared a hearty laugh before I bolted on my tiptoes as quietly as possible.
My pulse picks up, not like it did Friday night during the pet photo shoot—what was up with that, anyway?—but because the hurt is still there. I hate that it is. I hate that, despite the chill in the hallway, pinpricks of sweat dot the back of my neck. And I hate that I can’t just shove this feeling down and pretend it doesn’t exist. I was really raw back then, and unfortunately, the scab still is quite sore.
I pause before I walk into the lab, and now I’m hoping the scientific mishap has also turned his arm hair green to match his hair.
But when I walk in, there’s not a neon hair to be found.
Just a man bent over a long black lab table, leaning on exposed arms, thanks to the rolled-up sleeves of the dress shirt he always wears, despite the fact that all the other men here wear something more casual. And he always punctuates the look with a tie. Only right now, it’s flipped over his shoulder.
When he hears me step into the lab, he stands tall. I’m not at all distracted by the combination of the flipped tie and the goggles that somehow don’t look nerdy on him. I’m also not noticing the way he’s standing, each hand on a hip, like he’s posing for Hot Teachers of Science magazine. No, sir.
“Sorry about the mess,” the model–er, chemistry teacher–says. It’s only now I’m noticing the billowing white foam all over the tables. “I was making snow out of disposable diapers and kind of got carried away.”
“Making what out of what now?”
Austin chuckles. “Diapers have sodium polycarbonate in them. If you add water, you get a realistic-looking fake snow.” He scoops a clump up in his hands and walks around the table. “Touch it. You’ll be surprised how cool it is.”
I’m half wondering if this isn’t some kind of trick, because he’s being way too nice right now. But then I realize he’s in “teacher mode,” giving me permission to enter his world and teach me something I didn’t know about science. Or diapers. And okay, the educator in me is intrigued. So, I reach for it, letting my fingers sink into the white foam.
“You meant cool literally.” I look up from the faux snow to find him staring at me, a small, close-mouthed smile greeting me, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s having the same feeling I do whenever a student of mine finally “gets” the meaning of a Shakespearian sonnet.
“Literally and figuratively. I just thought it might be something festive my students would enjoy.”
I take a step back and dust off my hands, forcing my eyes to look away from him because he hasn’t stopped staring at me since he scooped up the snow. Glancing down at my white sweater, I check for stains, because if there’s a day that I’d be walking around with leftovers of lunch on my chest, it would be the day I’m wearing white. And scheduled to meet with Austin.
I blink my eyes away from him and look around the lab. “I think it’s plenty festive in here already.” There’s a blinking strand of lights across the top of the whiteboard and over the tops of the windows. A small Christmas tree sits atop what I assume is his table at the front of the class, while stockings hang across the wall behind it.
“Yeah, I kind of go overboard around the holidays.”
“Nah,” I say, shaking my head. “My grandma always said there was no such thing as going overboard for the holidays. In fact, she’d be appalled that I haven’t even gotten myself a Christmas tree yet.” I wish I couldn’t hear the emotion that coats my words. I also wish Austin didn’t notice. But his eyes get a little rounder, a little sadder, and the only thing to do now is get this meeting back on track.
“So, for the community service project,” I begin as he brushes some of the snow into a plastic bin. “I’m thinking we do an angel tree.” It’s a perfect idea, if you ask me, because it’s something we do every year, and the prep work for it can be done separately. Ideal for this…situation.
Austin shakes his head. “Not gonna work, I’m afraid.”
“Excuse me?”
He clips a lid on the bin and walks to my side of the lab table. The scent of spice fills my senses, and I try not to enjoy it.
“Mr. Murphy said the church across the street is doing a community-wide angel tree this year, so there’s no reason for both of us to do it.”
Am I bothered that the principal filled him in on this little tidbit and not me? A smidge.
“Well, that’s…great.” For the community, it is. An angel tree of this size will be able to help way more people in the community in need of gifts for their children this holiday season. But for me having to spend as little time with Austin as I can? This is…not so great.
“So, he had this idea,” Austin begins before I can concoct a project we can work on from opposite sides of the building. “How ‘bout a cookie table?”
I arch a brow and look at him. “How is building a table out of cookies serving the community?”
“Not a literal cookie table. Haven’t you ever been to a wedding in the Pittsburgh area?”
“No…”
“Okay…well, it’s a staple at most wedding receptions—the best part, if you ask me.” His eyes come alive, like the cookie table is the best part of life in general, not just the best part of a wedding. “Families will start weeks, maybe even months, ahead of time. They’ll bake so many varieties of treats for guests to eat at the reception.”
I know where this is headed. And I need to stop it. It’s not that I’m the worst baker in the world, but baking is something I haven’t done since my grandma passed last year. And there’s no way I’m going to get all vulnerable in front of Austin Mack. The last thing you want to show your enemy is a weakness.
“I just don’t think baking cookies for a wedding is serving the community. We’re not caterers.”
Austin shakes his head. “Not for a wedding. For the hospital.” His eyes drop to the ground, like he’s a little unsure of himself. “Mr. Murphy already talked to the hospital, and they thought it would be a great idea to set up a cookie table at the hospital on Christmas Eve. That way, anyone visiting loved ones could have a little something to maybe cheer them up.”
Now, I’m the one staring at the ground—and not because I’m unsure of myself. It’s so he can’t see the redness of my eyes that I’m sure is there. I can definitely feel the sting. The truth is, I know firsthand how lovely that would be for someone in that situation. I was living that reality myself last year, just days before I lost my very best friend.
“Hold on a sec,” he says as he reaches for his ringing phone. With a glance at the screen, his face falls, and he quickly mutes the ringing. “Spam,” he says with a shrug as he places the phone face down on the table, and I so do not believe him, because while those calls are super annoying, they don’t warrant the pinched expression he’s wearing. But I don’t pry, because we don’t have that kind of relationship.
“So, back to the cookie table.” It’s like someone has plugged him back in. His eyes light, and his smile is big, but it’s not a real one. Not like the one he flashed when he showed me the scientific snow, and I hate that I can so easily spot the difference. “I’m thinking first we start with getting you a Christmas tree.”
“What’s this now?” I ask, wanting to make sure I heard him correctly because what the heck does a cookie table have to do with a Christmas tree?
“I just think you’re not going to be able to focus on this project and give it the attention it deserves if you’re preoccupied with your treeless living room.”
“I think you’re overestimating how much that’s bothering me.”
“And I think you’re lying.”
I am. Because every time I walk into the living room of my tiny home—the home I used to share with my grandma—the empty corner stares at me, almost as if it’s asking when I’m going to fill it and reminding me that time’s a wastin ’.
“I really don’t need your help getting a tree.” I mean, hefting a tree onto my car by myself kind of makes my back ache just thinking about it, but he doesn’t need to know that. Besides, I’m sure I can get someone at the tree farm to help. And getting it off the car and up the porch stairs when I get home…well, I’ll just cross that bridge when I get to it.
“I know, but maybe this can be the start of us working together—you know, without you wanting to kill me.”
I twist my lips and avoid eye contact when I remember what he overheard at the pet shop. But then I also remember what Brooke said about getting along with him. “And you think getting me out in the woods with a saw is the best way to do that?”
He tips his head back and laughs. “Good point. But maybe this is my way of extending a pine branch.”
I look at him with a slight head shake.
“Offering to go is me extending my olive branch.” He clears his throat, and his cheeks redden ever so slightly. “I was just going for a more Christmassy analogy.”
Dang it, that’s kinda cute. A lot cuter than when Brooke did the same at the pet shop. And now he’s shuffling his feet along the tile floor, upping the cuteness factor tenfold while I try to remember the ways he’s gotten under my skin in the last few months to dial down the insanity.
Old, dusty books. Old, dusty books.
The words repeat in my brain just as I’m noticing a novel I know very well sitting on his desk.
“Did a student leave that here?” I gesture to the book, marked halfway through the center with a Post-It.
He’s still not meeting my eye when he shakes his head. “It’s mine. It’s a baseball?—”
“Romance,” I finish because Megan Cousins is one of my favorite authors, and I’m a little surprised to see Perfect Game sitting there. “You’re reading it?”
His eyes move to his desk as he shrugs. “Yeah. Baseball and romance…what’s not to love? But anyway”—he waves his hand like he wants to stop this conversation before I start dissecting his reading habits—“what do you say about hitting up the tree farm?”
When he looks up at me, eyes rounded behind goggles he’s still wearing that are unfortunately still kinda sexy, I swallow down the words that fly to the tip of my tongue. Because I don’t want to spend extra time with him. I don’t want to spend any time with him.
But there’s something about Austin Mack that makes saying no to his requests impossible. It’s probably the reason everyone in this school–this town–loves him. All along, I thought he had this whole politician vibe going, one that my father could write a book about. But this crack in his facade, this tiny space that’s letting the tiniest sliver of vulnerability shine through, doesn’t seem like an act at all, which is the only reason I can figure the next words spill out of my mouth.
“I’m free Saturday morning. Want to get a tree then?”