by Olivia Dade
Befuddled, he squinted against the glare from another car’s headlights. “What brought this on, Bea?”
She licked her lips. “When I called you Old Sobersides in front of Ms. Owens, you looked…I don’t know. Uncomfortable, I guess. Maybe a little embarrassed. And I got worried that I’d hurt your feelings. That we’d hurt your feelings, for all these years.”
“You didn’t hurt my feelings in front of Ms. Owens.” He shifted in the seat until he was facing her profile. “Please don’t be concerned about that.”
Bea, true to her stubborn nature, was not mollified. “But do you actually think those nicknames are funny? Do you like them?”
That…that was a hard question. “I guess I’ve had similar nicknames most of my life, so I don’t think too much about them.”
He’d certainly had worse ones, especially as a kid. Casper, for how invisible he’d tried to become. Mute Boy, for how seldom he’d spoken at home. Pansy, for how he’d proven a liability in organized sports and hated playing the violent, mean games his older brother Kurt and Kurt’s asshole friends had preferred. How he’d cried that time their father used the spatula on him.
“But do you like them?” Bea flicked him an impatient glance. “Come on, Dad, answer the question.”
There was really no simple answer. That was going to be true of many questions in Bea’s life, so she might as well learn it now.
“Sometimes I think those names are funny. Because you’re funny, and because you say them with affection.” Just as Bea had no doubt of her place in his heart, he didn’t worry for a moment about whether she loved him back. “But other times, maybe not.”
He certainly hadn’t appreciated them the last few years of his marriage. Not when the fondness in Sabrina’s tone had become edged with scorn. Not when she’d flung those nicknames between them like a gauntlet, a challenge to be better. Less boring. A worthwhile husband, one not so preoccupied with grading and other people’s children.
Then, the edge in those familiar phrases had left him bleeding but unable to complain about the slice of pain. Because it was just a joke, after all. Just a family joke.
Bea cut to the point. “Not when Mom uses them.”
Not in the last decade, no.
He chose his words with the care of a man disarming an explosive. “That’s a matter for your mother and me to address, if we ever find it necessary. It’s not something you need to worry about.”
Bea’s lips thinned. “Whatever. Either way, I won’t use those nicknames again.”
“That’s up to you.” He tried to convey his sincerity, but wasn’t sure he succeeded. “My feelings won’t be hurt if you do.”
“Hmmm.” In that moment, his daughter sounded very much like Rose had earlier.
Long minutes passed, and Bea had pulled into the fast food drive-through line, grabbed his wallet to pay the cashier, handed over their food, and started for home before she spoke again. “Ms. Owens is pretty. She seems nice, too.”
He almost laughed. Pretty and nice were such pallid terms for the woman he’d met that day, and neither strictly applied.
Gorgeous. Generous. Self-contained. Inscrutable. Those words captured Rose Owens.
But Rose had been nice to his daughter, and he didn’t care to reveal his thoughts about his colleague to Bea. Not when this conversation already had him skirting landmines.
So, sure. He could agree to Bea’s assessment. “Yes. I’m glad you liked her.”
“She’s really different from Mom.”
In so many ways. Thick and curvaceous where Sabrina had been slight and athletic in frame. Regally tall, rather than petite. Dark-haired, instead of blond. Monochromatic when Sabrina had loved bright colors.
Above all else, Rose was closed, while Sabrina had been a dwelling with the door flung wide open. Too open to contain either her happiness or her discontent, and too open to effectively conceal her extramarital activities from him, although she’d managed to shield Bea. They both had, and they both would. On that they agreed.
But again: landmines.
“Your mother and Ms. Owens both like kids. They have that in common.” He didn’t really want to know, but he had to ask. “Bea, why are you comparing them?”
They’d reached their driveway. She turned the key in the ignition, and the car’s rumble abruptly ceased.
“Mom has Reggie. I’m leaving for college next year.” She unbuckled her seat belt and angled her body toward him. “Dad, you need to start dating. The thought of you in this house all alone—” Her hands fisted in her lap. “I hate it.”
Her concern warmed him, but—dating. The word alone made his heart clench in terror.
He’d been awful at dating. Awkward and too quiet and…boring.
In academic settings, he’d communicated capably. Outside of them, he’d become someone else. Old Sobersides. Mute Boy. Casper. Only he’d been the one ghosted again and again as a teenager.
Sabrina had been his first girlfriend. Likely his last, too.
“I don’t need to date. I’m fine.” He touched her chin with a gentle finger. “And sweet Bea, you should know something. You can be more alone in a bad relationship than if you’d never dated anyone at all.”
Her mouth trembled. “Maybe I should go to Marysburg University.”
God, he’d love that.
“No, Bea.” He spoke over her protest. “No. You are not responsible for me. I can take care of myself, and you’ll have your own independent life to create. So you’re only going to Marysburg U if that’s the college you most want to attend. Period.”
His daughter slumped in her seat. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am. I will be.” He got out of the car, rounded the bumper, and opened her door. “Come on out. I’m claiming my moment of mush for the day.”
It took her a moment, but she eventually rolled her eyes and accepted his hand as she climbed to her feet. Then he pulled her into the tightest hug he could give without hurting her.
For a moment, he simply breathed in the familiar scent of her apple shampoo. Focused on the familiar sight of blond curls at the crown of her head. Soaked in the familiar feel of her, his baby girl, nestled against him.
But not everything was so familiar. Not her lanky limbs. Not her height.
Soon, her head wouldn’t even rest on his chest anymore.
His throat ached. He closed his eyes for a moment, bereft.
Still, he let her go as soon as she loosened her grip, and he worked hard to keep his tone teasing. “Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite daughter?”
She didn’t seem to notice how hoarse he’d become. “Ha-ha, Dad.”
The rest of the evening passed normally. At least until bedtime, when she gave him another brief hug and then lingered in her doorway, silhouetted by her bedside light. The oversized tee Bea used for a nightie was becoming threadbare, but she refused to let him buy new ones. So stubborn, his girl.
Without warning, she prodded his chest with a fingertip. “Ms. Owens likes you, you know. She smiled at your dumb jokes, and she was watching you when you weren’t looking at her. Which you were totally doing all the time. You should ask her out.”
His daughter needed practice interpreting body language, because his new colleague did not like him. Not in the slightest. But it was sweet that Bea considered her middle-aged father someone who could interest a woman like Rose Owens.
“I’m not going to date Ms. Owens. Or anyone, for that matter.” He kissed Bea’s forehead and nudged her inside her room. “But I love you. Good night, sweet Bea.”
“So stubborn,” he heard her mutter as he closed the door. “Love you too, Dad.”
Three
Rose sipped from her enormous mug of black coffee and surveyed her classroom.
As always, she’d arrived over an hour early, before almost everyone else, to make sure she had time for any last-minute adjustments and to enjoy the final few minutes of quiet she’d have until late that evening.<
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Her desk, cabinets, and shelves contained all the supplies and papers she should need for the foreseeable future. The student desks and chairs had been arranged in neat rows, and the seating chart—useful for taking attendance until she learned all the kids’ names—was posted in several places around the room. Stacked copies of the day’s schedule rested on a side table, laying out what would happen during class and roughly how long each activity would take, as well as the state objectives met by the lesson and any homework she might assign.
For all their avowed laziness, kids liked to know what to expect each day, and they responded well to structure, as long as that structure came coupled with a sense that their teacher actually cared about both her students and her subject.
She did. She loved both.
As soon as kids entered her room each day, they received a task to complete. Usually annotating a document, in the case of the AP students, or answering a review question or two, in the case of the regular history students. Otherwise, the beginning of class could devolve into chaos within moments.
Today, they’d immediately fill out introductory paperwork about their interests, their contact information, etc. All standard. And then she’d go over the syllabus and introduce another getting-to-know-you activity, one she’d formulated last month with photographs from the National Archives.
Every year, even if she kept the same preps, she tweaked her lesson plans. They could always be better. She could always be better. Pedagogical research and historical research both advanced inexorably over time, and she needed to do the same. Otherwise, she’d be a substandard teacher, not to mention a bored one.
She was neither. So everything lay in wait, ready for the whirlwind of students that would shortly blow into the building, and the rapidity of her heartbeat told her she needed to slow her coffee roll before she shook herself to pieces.
A light knock on her half-open door heralded company. She straightened in her chair, setting aside her mug. “Yes?”
A now-familiar head of neatly combed brown hair poked through the door. “Good morning, Rose. Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping to drop off some of the papers I’ll need for second period.”
One of her two planning periods, which she could no longer spend in her classroom. Lovely.
She stood and gestured for him to enter the room. “Come in.”
Then there he was, lingering just inside the doorway. Martin Krause, the paragon. Such a paragon she couldn’t really even hate him anymore, although she was petty enough to try. But hating a man who listened so intently, spoke quietly but intelligently, and never seemed to impose himself on others had proven more difficult than she’d hoped.
Almost two weeks of teacher workdays and staff meetings and department gatherings, and she still hadn’t spotted anything loathsome about him. Sure, she’d tried to despise his ever-present blue button-downs and striped ties and dark pants, and the careful side part of his hair, but that was a stretch even for her.
He didn’t bluster. He didn’t presume his authority over her or anyone else.
He was just another teacher put in an awkward situation by Dale Fuckwad Locke.
So as long as Martin minded his own business, she’d mind hers, and they’d get along fine.
Preferably, he’d also refrain from laughing or smiling while in her presence, because when he did either, he became entirely too attractive for her peace of mind. She couldn’t exactly make that demand, though, much as she wanted to.
He wasn’t smiling now. But why was he still lingering near the door, studying her like that?
She raised her brows. “Do you want me to remind you which shelves and cabinets we designated as yours?”
“No.” He tilted his head to the side, a pile of papers tucked between his arm and his body. “You just…never mind. I’ll drop these off and get out of your way.”
She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t, didn’t, didn’t want to know.
Christ, she wanted to know. “What?”
He put his papers on his allotted shelf, turned back to her, and seemed to consider his words carefully. A habit of his, she’d noticed, and not an unwelcome one.
“Are you okay?” He crossed and uncrossed his arms over his chest. Strong arms, as she’d discovered the day he helped haul textbooks to various department classrooms. “Because you seem a little…not yourself.”
She looked down at herself. Black velvet blazer, in deference to the overactive school air conditioning. Black silk blouse, knotted with a flourish at the side of her neck. Her favorite black trousers, made from polished cotton and cuffed at the hem. Black heels with pewter accents on the toe. No coffee spills. No hangings threads.
Nothing that should have tipped him off as to her mental state.
But maybe he’d meant something else. Maybe he was criticizing her appearance, and she’d finally find something to hate about him. A woman could only hope.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What, precisely, does not yourself mean?”
At that look, he took a half-step backward.
He pursed his lips before slowly, reluctantly answering. “Your foot. It’s, uh, tapping.”
“Maybe I’m impatient.” She enunciated the words very, very clearly.
He inclined his head. “Maybe. But your foot didn’t tap once during that marathon three-hour staff meeting, not even when the consultant used the term growth mindset for the seventeenth time.”
Taken by surprise at the unexpected snark, she couldn’t help herself. She snorted.
Her ex had tried to break her of that habit, the last remaining tic from her childhood as Brandi Rose Owens, trailer park princess. Barton had cringed at the sound every time, curling up on himself with irritation and distaste. But out of sheer contrariness, she’d chosen to retain that piece of her old self, unlike all the other telltale bits she’d so ruthlessly erased.
Martin, however, didn’t cringe at the noise. Didn’t look away in disgust. Instead, he transformed in an entirely different manner. His arms eased from across his chest, and he propped his fists on his hips as he grinned at her.
Dammit. Not again.
His smile and pose transformed him from a nondescript former Boy Scout into the sort of man you saw gazing off into an ocean sunset in an expensive cologne advertisement. His face creased, his blue eyes lit, and a woman would have to be either gay or dead not to respond.
His age had burnished him, not bowed him. He was…
Christ, he was lickable.
He moved a step closer. “Your hands are shaking a bit too. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an enormous mug of coffee in my life, outside of cartoons.”
She blinked at him, unable to recall the context for his observations.
He waited for a response. When it didn’t materialize, he concluded, “So I was wondering if you were okay. If you needed anything. Because the first day of school is always hard, no matter how long you’ve taught. I usually have trouble sleeping the night before.”
Her pride demanded that she spurn his concern. Refuse to be seen as anything less than capable and independent and impervious.
But then he gave a self-deprecating shake of his head and confessed, “One time, I dreamed I came into the classroom for the first day and had been unexpectedly assigned to teach the history of the steamboat. I had no lesson plans. No class rosters. Nothing. I was horrified.”
Her lips moved without her permission. “Do you know a lot about steamboats?”
“Hell, no,” he said, and they both laughed.
In truth, she’d barely slept the night before. And during the little rest she did manage, she dreamed of a classroom full of kids staring blankly at her as she belatedly realized she hadn’t created lesson plans or handouts or anything—anything—that would fill the time.
She’d thought those nightmares would cease after a decade or two in the profession, but nope. A few former colleagues who’d retired long ago told her they sti
ll had similar anxiety dreams on occasion, so she anticipated many nights in the future spent tossing and turning over mysteriously missing syllabi and seating charts she couldn’t decipher.
But she hadn’t anticipated talking about her first-day jitters with anyone at school. “I may not have slept quite as well as I normally do.”
“Thus the caffeine.” His blue eyes were so warm, her knees didn’t want to support her. For the sake of self-preservation, she dropped into the chair behind her desk. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She cleared her throat, gathering the mantle of pride around herself once more. “I’m fine. But thank you for the kind offer.”
He dropped the subject without another word. Again, a paragon. It was insupportable.
“The room looks great.” With a slow turn, he took in every corner of the space. He had a very, very nice rear view, which was a revelation she could have done without. “I love the Shakespeare quote on the bulletin board.”
“What’s past is prologue.” She drummed her fingers on her desk, now nervous for reasons that had nothing to do with either caffeine or first-day jitters. “I spend a lot of time during the year trying to show my students how our history still influences so much of our daily existence. Our government, our culture, our economy, everything.”
“Are those…” His lips curved. “They are. You’ve laminated articles from Our Dumb Century and put them up everywhere. I had no idea you read The Onion too.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Students respond well to satire. Besides, the articles are hilarious, and it’s all grounded in real history. If you don’t know the history, you don’t get the joke.”
“You’re absolutely right.” His eyes caught on the wall to the right of the door. “And thank you for putting up a few world history posters for my classes.” He strode to study one more closely. “This is a stunning photo of the Great Wall of China.”
There. That stab of grief as she remembered what she’d lost at his unwitting hands. That was just the reminder she needed.