Chapter 8 #2
“The school?” Liam asked, and I finally dared a glance at him. He was staring down at me—or rather, at my hair. And I had no clue how to read the expression on his face.
“Yeah,” I said brightly, crossing my fingers behind my back.
Please just go. Standing this close to him was torture.
My hands were literally itching to touch his arm.
“The whole school is open for Meet the Teacher night. You could see the gym and the music room and all of that. We have a really great art program here.”
“Bye Miss K.,” Mrs. Lopez called, ushering Miguel out of the room. “You can go ahead and sign us up to work the welcome parade next week.”
“Awesome,” I called after her. “Bye, Mr. Lopez. See you in a few days, Miguel.”
Now it was only the Conners left, and they had gone to join Josie and Gabby where they still stood at the science station.
“I’d like to see the school,” Liam said. “I had to enroll her long distance and everything was such a rush getting down here I didn’t get to check it out.”
“Great!” I said, probably too cheerfully. But I needed him to go. My body had apparently decided nothing had changed since high school. I was still drawn to him in a way I’d never experienced with anyone else. Just a crush, just a crush, I told myself, over and over again.
“Will you show us?”
My head snapped up. “What?”
He gestured around the mostly empty room. “You said you didn’t have anything else to do in here, right? And I sure don’t know my way around the building. It would be really nice if you could show us a few highlights?”
The Conners called out their goodbyes as they left, and Josie came running over.
“Daddy, they have a robot in here,” she said, sounding kind of out of breath. “And I think that Gabby girl is going to be my friend, she was real nice.”
“See?” He ruffled her hair. “What’d I tell you, Josie girl?”
Alarm bells went off in my head as I watched him smile down at his daughter. There was so much love in his face, so much pride. He looked at her the way every child deserved to be looked at by their parent. Mix that tenderness with how dangerously hot he was? Yeah, my ovaries were howling.
“I was just asking Miss K. if she wouldn’t mind showing us the rest of the school,” he said, and Josie turned her happy little face to me.
“That would be cool,” she said. “Gabby was telling me they have lots of games in the media center.”
Liam nudged her foot with his then said, in a loud stage whisper, “do the puppy dog eye thing. We’ve nearly convinced her.”
Josie widened her eyes then batted her long lashes prettily. “Oh no,” I said, smiling over to Liam. “You’re in trouble. That is one dangerous trick she has.”
Liam laughed. “You’re telling me.”
Knowing I had no decent excuse not to give them a tour—and also fully aware it was exactly what I would have done for any new family—I grabbed my bag and keys from my desk. “Let’s go check out that computer lab.”
Our school was a newer building and it had a lot of bells and whistles we never had in our school back home. I showed Josie the computer lab and the gym, complete with a padded gymnastics station.
All the while I could feel Liam’s presence right behind me.
I was somehow sure that he was watching me, like I could feel the heat of his eyes on my skin, but that was ridiculous.
Why did my imagination always have to get the best of me when he was around?
I’d been seeing more than was there with this guy since I was a teenager.
“And this is my favorite place in the school,” I told Josie, swinging open the double doors to the library. “When I started here, there weren’t all that many books so we’ve been doing a lot of fundraisers to buy more.”
From the way her eyes lit up, I knew that I was dealing with a fellow book worm in Josie. “Do you have the His Dark Materials series?” she asked. “That’s what I was reading at my other school but I didn’t get to finish it. I only read the first one.”
My eyebrows went up. That was a pretty advanced series for a third grader.
“I don’t have them in my classroom,” I told her and her face fell. “I have them at home though. It’s actually my favorite series ever.” I leaned down to her and lowered my voice. “In fact, if you think you can keep a secret, I’ll show you something.”
“I’m an awesome secret keeper,” she told me solemnly.
I grinned, squatting down so I was on her level. “Okay then. I don’t usually show this to students but…” I pulled on the cap sleeve of my shirt, revealing the back of my shoulder. “Do you see that?”
She peered over my shoulder and her eyes got big. “You have a tattoo!”
“I do. Can you tell what it is?”
She squinted at the two-inch simple line drawing of a badger-like animal on my shoulder and then a smile broke out over her face. “That’s Pan!” she squealed.
“He’s my favorite character.”
Josie clapped her hands while I straightened my shirt.
I happened to look up at Liam and saw his jaw clenching.
Crap. Did he not approve of tattoos? Had I just crossed a line?
Showing a kid my tattoo wasn’t exactly professional.
Swallowing, I turned back to Josie, who was excitedly telling me about her favorite character, a goose named Hester.
“Or maybe it’s Lyra,” she said. “I can’t decide. And I like the witches, too.”
“Those are all good choices. But Pan is my favorite.”
“What do you think your daemon looks like?” she whispered conspiratorially, and Liam cleared his throat.
“Demon? Is this a horror novel they were letting you read at that school?”
Josie rolled her eyes. “No, Dad, not that kind of daemon.” She gave me a can you believe this guy look. “He doesn’t read much, if you can’t tell.”
I burst out laughing—I couldn’t help it. Her expression was just so haughty and perfect. I looked over to see that Liam was grinning too.
“Oh, Miss K knows all about my thick head. Did you know she used to be my tutor?”
Josie’s eyebrows went right up into her blonde hairline. “Seriously? Then you must be pretty old!”
“Josie!” he cried, aghast, and she looked confused at his scolding.
“What? I’m just saying, you’re really old, so if she was your tutor then she’d be even older.”
“I was his student tutor,” I explained, not the slightest bit offended.
I knew full well that to most of my students, thirty was ancient.
And they had no qualms about telling me, either.
Nor did they mind asking me all those questions a thirty-year-old single woman just loves to hear—why aren’t you married?
When are you going to have babies? Kids were brutally honest—and that was one of the things I most enjoyed about them, really.
“I was in the same grade as your dad,” I told her, then winked at him. “So I’m only kind of old.”
She giggled. “Do you know he can’t even figure out how to make a playlist on his phone? He had to ask me when he wanted music for his work-out.”
“Hmm. Maybe your dad could use some tutoring in technology.”
His grin was slow and oh-so-mischievous. “Are you volunteering for the job?”
Crap. I’d walked right into that. “My rates have gone up considerably since high school,” I said, standing and trying to look casual even as my heart raced. “You probably can’t afford me.”
“You realize I’m a professional hockey player, right? Your brother is paying me a lot of money to score goals for his team.”
“Sounds like you’ll be way too busy for tutoring then.”
He leaned in, just a little bit, enough that I could feel his breath against my cheek when he murmured, “I’m actually very good at multitasking.”
Holy lord. Why did that sound so hot? I focused on Josie so my cheeks didn’t burst into flames. “I think we saw pretty much everything. It’s too dark outside now, but we have a really cool playground out there. And some fields for soccer and field hockey.”
“Field hockey,” Liam muttered disdainfully.
“I’m not very good at sports,” Josie said, looking down.
I nudged her shoulder. “I’m not either. My twin brother played hockey with your dad at school but I think he must have gotten all the sporty genes in our family. I can barely hold a baseball bat.”
“I seem to remember having a lot of fun with you on the ice once,” Liam murmured, and my entire body went hot and then cold.
I couldn’t help my eyes from traveling to his face.
Why would he bring that up? We had only ever skated together the one time, and that day had ended with his lips pressed to mine.
His blue eyes looked stormy, his pupils dilated. And then his gaze flicked down, right to my mouth, and I was pretty sure my heart was going to beat right out of my body.
Was Liam O’Conner flirting with me?
“Come on,” he said, breaking the spell by raising his voice to include his daughter. “Let’s all walk out together. It’s getting late.”
I nodded, mute, and followed the two of them back to the hallway. Josie was chattering on, asking questions about other books I liked. I managed to answer her but my brain was spinning.
A guy didn’t look at your lips unless he was thinking about kissing, right? And for him to bring up the one day we had actually kissed…that had to mean something.
God, I wished Peyton was here. She was so much better at reading signals. I had always been total crap at figuring out what a guy wanted.
The proof of that was standing right next to me.
The parking lot was well lit but mostly deserted. I pointed over at my Prius. “That’s me. Josie, I’ll see you bright and early on Monday.”
Then a large palm brushed my lower back.
“We’ll walk you to your car,” Liam said, and goosebumps erupted all over me at his nearness, at the way I could feel the warmth of his hand even through the material of my blouse.
Such a simple action, just being a gentleman, and it sent a swarm of butterflies loose in my chest. Matt had never made me feel that way, not in all the time we dated.
And I’d let him do a hell of a lot more than place a hand on my back.
Liam didn’t drop that hand until we made it to my car. “It was nice meeting you, Josie,” I said, trying to keep my focus only on the little girl.
“Do you think you could bring me the second book on Monday?” she asked shyly.
“Why don’t I send your dad some information on His Dark Materials tonight?” I hedged. The series was pretty advanced for her age. Not every parent wanted their eight-year-old reading about witches and epic battles and shadowy religious institutions.
“Is it a kids’ book?” Liam asked.
“Definitely,” I said. “But maybe better for fifth and sixth graders.”
He shrugged. “Josie has always read way over her grade level. I usually let her pick whatever books she wants.”
“Please, Miss K.” Josie did the blinking trick again and I laughed.
“If your dad says it’s okay, I’ll have the books in the classroom on Monday. That can be your first free reading book if you’d like.”
“Really?” Her eyes were big in the dark parking lot. “That would be awesome!”
I raised my fist for her to bump. “It’s a deal then.”
Josie giggled, bumping my fist. “My dad always does this, too. He says high fives are lame.”
“I guess Miss K. isn’t lame,” Liam agreed, grinning at me. And oh, I was going to be in so much trouble. That grin just did things to me.
“It was good seeing you again,” I told him, opening my door.
“You, too, Miss K.” There was amusement in his voice.
Like maybe he knew exactly how he affected me.
I climbed into the car, determined not to look at him again.
But as he moved to shut my door for me, the bastard leaned forward, face only a few inches from mine.
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around. I just love to volunteer in Josie’s classroom. ”
Then he shut the door, leaving me to wonder what on earth I could have done to have made the universe so angry that it would reward me with Liam O’Conner invading my working day.