A gray cat wound its way around Henry's ankles and he picked her up. The tag around her neck said Soot and Henry scratched around it. She purred and leaned her head into his hand.
"I know we need to trust in the Lord's timing and all," Layla said, with a wave of her hand, "but we can't sit around and wait for things to happen to us.”
“Exactly,” Logan said, resting his forearms on his knees and clasping his hands. “We need to put ourselves out there and be anxiously engaged. Which means moving, trying, maybe even failing, but always doing."
"And hoping," Tessa said. Henry glanced up, her words speaking straight to him. Hoping was something he'd given up on about two years ago. Henry caught Tessa watching him pet Soot, whose soft purrs rumbled against his legs and stomach. Their eyes met, and she looked away before Henry did. Of course.
Henry tuned out Logan's oft-told, over-bloated story about how he'd been offered admission to three different medical schools and how they wooed him to come to Texas by flying him out there several times and all the dinners he went to, including one with the president of the school. Then a similar scenario played out when he was choosing where to do his residency, and he was torn between New York City and Arizona. Henry was sure Logan would somehow tie his humble-brag story in to trusting in the Lord's timing, but at that point, the only timing Henry cared about was the one telling him it was time to leave.
"Well, thanks for letting us come," Henry cut in when Logan took a breath. He gave Soot one last scratch behind the ears and stood. The girls looked startled for the second time that afternoon, while Logan’s face turned red with anger. "Can we offer a word of prayer before we leave?"
The air in the room was awkward while everyone decided if they should go along with Henry's rudeness or ask Logan to continue telling his predictable story (spoiler: he chose to do his residency in Arizona).
Addison asked Logan to give the prayer, after which Henry and Logan folded the chairs the girls sat in and set them against the wall. A flicker of movement on the coffee table caught Henry's eye.
"Tessa, do you have a spoon or a stick or something?"
"Sure," she said. "What's wrong?"
Henry pointed toward the table where a wolf spider had crawled up from the underside of it.
Her face paled. "You're going to eat it?"
He bit back his laugh. "No. I’m going to take it outside."
“But won’t it come back?” Layla asked. She held on to Addison’s arm, who looked ready to flee. It never ceased to amaze Henry how worked up people could get over something so much smaller than them.
“Most likely not.”
Logan came up from behind with a frustrated growl. "You've got to be kidding me." He grabbed the anatomy book from the table and picked it up.
"Logan. Don't!" But before Henry could stop him, Logan brought the massive book down onto the wolf spider. It exploded like a dust bomb, becoming thousands of crawling pieces.
Henry let out a long, annoyed exhale while the girls screamed like they were being attacked by a serial killer. Even Logan shouted and backed into the television. "What just happened?" he yelled.
"It was pregnant." Henry lifted the book to reveal that although the wolf spider was smashed, the force had dislodged the eggs she carried on her back and hundreds of little spiders had hatched. The only thing they could do now was call the exterminator or get a bug bomb.
Henry turned to let them know, but the front door was open, and everyone, including Logan, was gone.
Chapter 3
Tessa's dad's credit card got the girls two bug bombs, new pajamas, and a room at a resort in north Tucson. Even now, three hours—and that many showers—later, Tessa still felt bugs crawling on her skin.
"You know we have to move, right?" Layla threw herself onto the queen bed beside Tessa, her skin red from scrubbing it raw. They'd all grabbed matching red and yellow polka dot pajama pants and blue t-shirts at Walmart when they’d picked up the bug bomb Henry told them to get. It was very high school of them, but it made Tessa happy. "I'm never stepping foot in our apartment again."
"Agreed." Addison propped herself up on her elbow in the other bed, and flipped through the room service menu.
"Henry said he'd take care of it." Tessa tried to infuse confidence into her voice, when really she wanted to do nothing more than see how long they could live on her parents' money. Maybe they could get one of those nice rooms in the apartment complex Logan and Henry lived in. They probably didn't get termites and pregnant wolf spiders. But Jenkins had gone through college and medical school on his own, without the help of their mom and dad, and Tessa would too.
With the exception of tonight, but desperate times, right? Besides, perfect Jenkins had probably never had anything horrible like this happen to him before.
Layla snorted. "Henry will probably buy a thousand tiny bottles to put them in, one by one, so he can release them into the wild."
Addison pantomimed opening tiny bottles and then threw her arms out like the goddess of sunlight. "Go, little ones. Be free."
Tessa threw a pillow at Addison. "You guys are weird."
"He's weird," Layla said, erupting into laughter.
Maybe. But he had saved Soot from the apartment, while the rest of them had run away. "He is going to bug bomb our house. Plus he took Soot home with him."
And when he talked about studying insects, his entire face lit up. Even though everyone else thought it was strange, he was passionate about what he was studying. What would it be like to have that kind of passion for school, instead of dragging herself into class every day, hoping no one figured out she was a fraud? What would it be like not to look toward your future with dread?
Layla grabbed Tessa's arm and shook her. "He. Ate. A. Termite."
Tessa cringed. Yeah. That was one image she'd never get out of her head, thank you very much, Henry. "Okay, he's weird. But a nice guy."
Addison got up on her knees and did what looked like a victory dance, with her arms pumping out at her sides while she shimmied her hips. "Someone has a crush," she sang.
"Stop."
Layla jumped in. "Was it when he licked the termites off his finger? Or the chewing? Love at first crunch."
"I know! It was the cloudy brown glasses."
"Yeah. Tessa likes things a little off-kilter.” Layla reached across Tessa and twisted her phone so it wasn't perpendicular to the bed anymore. Tessa slapped her hand away and moved it back to how she had it.
Addison's dancing made a reappearance. "Tessa loves the bug guy!"
Tessa covered her face. "I hate you both. You guys are going to accidentally spread this around and ruin all chances I might have with Logan."
At the mention of his name, Addison faked a nineteenth-century swoon, complete with rolled back eyes and hand on forehead. She popped up with a grin. "Now there's a man I could spend all night talking about."
Layla fanned herself. "I've never seen forearms like his before."
"Seriously!" Addison said. "I didn't know forearms could be sexy."
Tessa closed her eyes and pictured him again. Smiling. Laughing. Teaching. Being perfect in every way. "I want him to notice me."
"Wait. Tessa's actually interested in someone? For real?" Addison asked Layla like Tessa wasn't sitting right there.
"It's rare this happens," Layla said in a serious voice. "But occasionally Tessa pulls her head out of her books long enough to realize men exist. And that she might want one someday. It doesn't usually last longer than a few days."
Layla and Addison might have been mocking Tessa, but it was true. Too many guys got on her nerves once she saw past their attractiveness. "If they kept their mouths shut, I wouldn't have to get annoyed with them. But Logan's different." Tessa was able to listen to an entire home teaching lesson without wanting to throat punch him. She had to walk away when he and Layla got into swim stats, but it wasn’t like soul mates had to care about everything the other person did and said. "Do you care?" Tessa as
ked her roommates in case one of them liked Logan too.
Layla leaned her elbow on the table and held her hand up, an amused twinkle in her eye. "Arm wrestle for him?" Layla spent as much time in the pool and gym as Tessa spent sitting in front of her books. There was no contest.
“You and Logan will make a cute couple,” Tessa said.
Layla took her arm away with a laugh. “I’m totally kidding. I think he’s hot, but if you’re interested, you should go for him.”
She glanced at Addison next, who held up her hands and shook her head. “Not my type at all.”
Tessa let out a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she was holding. "Okay. Then how do I get him to, you know, see me?"
Layla clapped her hands together and rubbed them back and forth. "Oooh. Scheming."
Tessa's roommates had plenty of ideas, and must have been running on the false assumption that there were no dumb ideas in brainstorming. It started out small: sitting by him in church and faking a problem at the house she needed him to come fix. (Layla was willing to sacrifice one of her appliances if Tessa needed to blow out an outlet.) Then it got worse, Layla and Addison playing off each other while every scenario ended with Tessa getting injured or arrested.
"I am not installing video cameras in his house while he's at work," Tessa finally said, cutting off Layla before she could explain how that would in any way help snag him. "And I'm ending this conversation because you guys are creeping me out. I want to date him not stalk him."
"It's a fine line." Layla sighed, but Tessa wouldn't budge, bringing her fingers together with a snappy "Shh" when Layla's eyes lit up with another new idea.
"Whatever. Ruin our fun." Layla pouted.
"Mormons are strange," Addison said.
"We prefer peculiar," Tessa told Addison, who had emailed a contact at the hospital to get Logan’s work schedule so Tessa could be there when he got off shift. Because that wasn’t the least bit disturbing.
"Speaking of peculiar . . ." Layla propped herself up on her elbow to snag the bag and picked out all the green skittles, leaving the reds for Tessa. Another reason they were friends—their favorite flavors were different, which made it easy to share. "Have you decided what you're going to do about the road show yet?"
Tessa hopped off the bed to pace. Even hearing the words road show filled her with anxiety.
"What's a road show?" Addison asked, her phone to her ear. Before Tessa could answer, Addison was ordering three large ice cream sundaes. Tessa interrupted her with a shake of her head and held up two fingers.
"Wait a minute," Addison said to the food service person and covered the receiver with her hand. "What's the problem, Tessa?"
"I don't want ice cream."
"Yes, you do."
She did, but knew if she ate it she'd have to go to the gym tomorrow for at least an hour, and she’d left her anatomy book in the apartment. Which meant she had to study tomorrow, or maybe never again, seeing as how it had wolf spider guts all over it, thanks a lot, Logan. But then she pictured his tan forearm, resting on top of her tan-ish forearm, their fingers twined together while they ate dinner with her parents and Jenkins and his wife, everyone admiring how successful they all were, and she forgave Logan for sacrificing her book and accidentally making her apartment uninhabitable. Still, all that meant extra study time tomorrow, which meant no gym time, which meant no ice cream.
"I can't."
Addison ordered two sundaes—with three spoons—and waved her wrist at Tessa, jangling the cow pendants on her bracelet. Layla and Tessa made Addison watch Johnny Lingo after a misunderstood eight-cow joke went awry. Addison loved the movie so much she bought three matching silver bracelets with eight tiny cow charms. Partly to remind them of how much they’d laughed, but mostly so that every time they looked at it, they remembered that God didn’t care about appearances, only their hearts.
Meaning, Tessa needed to stop trying to one-up her family in her endless quest for perfection. Easier said than done.
Addison finished her order and then turned all of her attention back to Tessa. "Now. Tell me about this road show."
"They're mini musicals,” Layla said.
"Each singles ward in the region has to write and perform a ten to fifteen minute play.” Tessa stood, nervous energy running through her. “They're giving us three months before the main performance."
"So why is it called a road show? Do you do it in the road?"
"No. They used to travel around and show off their plays, but we're doing ours in the Tucson stake center building."
"Bishop Riggs asked Tessa to be in charge of it," Layla said. "And I think she should tell him yes."
"I'm too busy."
"This is right up your alley, Tessa. You loved acting in high school,” Layla said.
Tessa sat on the desk chair and spun it in a circle. For so many years, she’d loved play practice and looked forward to it every afternoon. Her mom and dad hadn't given her too much grief about it since she’d always kept her grades up, but her mom had let her know once she went to college, it was time to put aside silly pursuits and focus on her goals of being a doctor.
"I'm not doing well in my classes," Tessa confessed to the girls.
Layla shook her head. "School started two weeks ago. Give me another reason."
"What if it's dumb and everyone hates it?"
"It's supposed to be dumb. The dumber the better." Layla sat up and crossed her legs. "Come on, Tessa. Tell him you'll do it!"
"It's so much work." But she could feel herself softening even as she continued to fight them. She could combine two of her favorite things—music and the stage—for one fifteen-minute burst of escape from the pressure of all her classes and trying to live up to Jenkins. Her parents would never have to know.
"We'll help you," Addison said. "It sounds like a ton of fun."
"Or," Layla shot up from the bed, her face alight with excitement, "you can get someone else to help you."
"Who?"
"Logan."
Tessa's heart skipped a beat, but still, her words came out skeptical. "We're back to this again?"
"Hear me out." Layla stood and grabbed her phone. "Logan himself said it earlier when he was talking about timing. We can't sit around and wait for things to happen, we need to be anxiously engaged."
"I don't think this was what he was talking about."
Addison caught onto the excitement as well. "Tell your bishop you want to do the road show, but it's too much to do alone."
Layla jumped in then, barely holding in her enthusiasm. "Say Logan Richardson is your ministering brother and you think he'd be great for something like this."
"You can't request people for callings."
"Yes, you can." Layla handed her the phone with their bishop's number ready. "Come on, Tessa. What have you got to lose?"
Tessa stared at Bishop Riggs’s name on the screen while she debated. "What if Logan finds out I did this?"
A knock sounded on the door and Addison popped up to get their ice cream sundaes. She took the tray with a thank you and carried the ice cream back to the bed. "So what if he does?" She handed Tessa the extra spoon and pulled her down to sit beside her.
"It would be embarrassing." Tessa took a bite, but held Layla's phone in her hand, wanting to call despite herself. In theory, she’d love to believe someone like Logan could be interested in her and that she was the kind of girl who actually went for what she wanted. But in reality, she was the kind of girl most guys didn’t seem too interested in dating. And she made all of her most important decisions based off of what her family would want her to do.
They’d love Logan. And hate the road show.
Layla joined them on the bed, her legs crossed. "What if you two connected while doing the road show? This time next year you could be Tessa Richardson. Isn't that worth risking a little embarrassment?"
Tessa closed her eyes under the pretense of savoring the thick ice cream she shouldn't be eating and picture
d the scenario Layla painted in her mind. Her and Logan holding hands, going to the symphony with her parents, finally not the third or fifth wheel, while everyone's worries about her were set aside. They were commanded to be anxiously engaged, and if that led to an actual engagement, then all the better. Maybe this one time, the ends justified the means.
"Okay," Tessa said, pressing send before she could think too long about it.
Layla squealed. "You're doing it?"
The surprise in her voice made Tessa pause, like maybe she shouldn't, but before she could hang up, a deep voice said, "Hello?"
Tessa cleared her throat. No turning back now. "Hi, Bishop Riggs. This is Tessa. I'm calling about the road show.”
Chapter 4
Henry tapped his fingers on his knee while he waited to speak to the bishop. Church had been out for fifteen minutes, but groups of people hung around in the foyer, including Logan surrounded by giddy freshman girls.
Logan had been furious with Henry when they got back from home teaching last week. Not only did Logan have a phobic-level fear of spiders, but he was allergic to cats. For the three days they’d had Soot, Tessa’s cat, Logan had walked around their apartment with red, runny eyes, cursing cats, spiders, and Henry.
Tessa walked out of the Relief Society room reading a paper, but looked up when she got close to Henry. She gave him a quick wave and continued to walk. On an impulse, he stuck out his hand for a missionary-style handshake. She slipped her hand into his with a startled smile.
Had he always been this awkward? Or had taking the last two years off from anything social led to this regression? “How are you?”
"Good, thanks to you,” she said. “If you had left us to deal with the apartment, we probably would have used a real bomb."
He laughed and his glasses slid down his nose. He took them off, rendering everything in the distance blurry. He only needed them for driving and school, but if he removed them during the day, he lost about one pair of glasses a week, which got expensive. It was better if he wore them all the time. But these glasses were too big and not a strong enough prescription.
One Little Kiss (Christian Romance) Page 2