Authors: Lauren Gilley
He shrugged. “Home, probably. Or she’s sitting in the car and calling my sister to tell her what a tool I am. But, either way, good riddance.”
Ellie folded her apron slowly, stalling, knowing she shouldn’t say what she was about to. “Well…if you were this charming before I came over…” She let the sentence hang and arched a brow to fill in the rest.
He went still, his eyes guarded as they bored holes through her. And then, though he didn’t smile, the slightest show of approving humor colored her impression of him. It was as if his eyes deepened; sea foam and sparkling and touched with laughter even in the dim lighting of the restaurant. “Someone’s not too worried about getting an A,” he said in a monotone that would have been offensive if she hadn’t been paying attention. Ellie’s affinity for details so rarely made someone more interesting that it was almost a shame to have to walk away.
“Is that the secret to your class?” she asked sweetly. “Flattery?”
“And presents. I like a good bottle of Scotch.”
“I didn’t take you for a Scotch drinker.”
“I’m not, but it sounds sophisticated.”
When she chuckled, she thought he almost smiled. And then he asked a question that set off all the warning alarms in her brain.
“Do you have someplace to be right now?”
It was a harmless enough inquiry on the surface, but there was nothing simple about it. Ellie was aware of each and every way in which answering truthfully could make her life more complicated. If nothing else, she was looking at a potentially awkward semester of HPS. This wasn’t a lit prof, wanting to discuss a poem or story, or someone taking an interest in her love for writing. This was her very young coach asking if she had to leave…or if she could stay. And his eyes looked almost turquoise and Ellie was wondering why that even mattered to her at all.
She should have lied. Instead, she shrugged and said, “Not really. I promised my roommate I’d help her bake a cake tonight, but that’s as thrilling as it gets.”
You idiot
, she scolded herself, but the truth was out there and she couldn’t take it back.
“You hungry?”
He was giving her an appraising sort of look, and Ellie was overcome by the sense that he was daring her. She was too cynical to let herself get preyed upon, smarter than to get sucked into a man’s game. She knew better, damn it. But why did she want so badly to take him up on his offer?
“I can’t eat the whole thing,” he prodded.
It’s just pizza
, she told herself, as she slid into the booth opposite him.
There’s no harm in that
.
**
“Baby.”
Tam was starting to worry. Jo had taken “tired from work” to a whole new level of distraction, pushing her food around on her plate and staring mindlessly at the bubbles in her Sprite. The Sprite that had replaced her usual Friday beer.
“Joey.”
She didn’t respond, instead picked up a French fry and twirled it between her fingers, a frown marring her little pixie face. The glass lamp over their table painted dark, alarming shadows beneath her eyes he hadn’t noticed before.
“
Joanna
.”
“What?” Her head came up and Tam swore he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. She blinked and it was gone, but it spiked his anxiety level.
“What’s wrong with you?”
He said it gently – as gently as he could with stress churning in his gut – but the words sent pain flickering across her face. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You never could lie to me.”
Again, gently, because it was the truth. She was a shit liar anyway, but they knew each other too well for those relationship games to ever work. They couldn’t fool one another. Deceit was useless. Even when he’d broken her heart, he hadn’t been able to make up a story about another woman – she wouldn’t have bought it.
Her eyes – turquoise and wet – lifted to meet his and a sigh shuddered through her small body. “I’ve gone crazy all day not talking to anyone about it,” she said in a low, almost ashamed voice. “But I don’t want to say anything in here.” Her glance encompassed the shifting crowds inside the restaurant and Tam felt a hard knot forming in his chest.
He grabbed the waitress’s attention as she passed, paid their tab, chugged the last of his beer as a fortifying agent, and held out a hand that Jo took with head down, breaths coming in nervous little huffs. He could feel the tension running through her like electrical currents and pulled her close against his side as they waded their way to the door.
Outside, the parking lot was a glittering sea of cars, the red lights of the restaurant signage sliding across roofs and hoods. It smelled like steak and exhaust. The air was warm, velvety, a humid, late-summer night like so many they’d spent together over the years. But Jo’s fingers were flexing and curling inside his, and he could feel her pulse thundering where their wrists touched.
“Spill, Joey,” he told her, and watched her stare out across the lot and the busy street beyond, a deep breath lifting her chest.
“Okay.” She wet her lips and stayed rooted beside him on the sidewalk. “I…okay,” she repeated, “I don’t know anything for sure, yet. This is all just me being paranoid, so please don’t freak out yet. Not until we’re certain.”
He was going to freak out anyway, just a little bit. “Certain about…?”
Another deep breath rocked her. “I’m…I’m late.”
“For what?”
“No.
I’m late
.” Her head turned toward him, her expression full of apology. “As in, I might be pregnant.”
Tam’s heart slowed down, and then lurched into double time, his blood suddenly like motor oil in his veins. When he’d been twenty and invincible, during that untouchable age of unlimited wisdom and power, he’d dreamt of the day that he made the two of them a true family. He hadn’t stopped wanting that, but he’d come to learn the disease of his DNA. His parents had cursed him with the genetic cocktail from hell, and he didn’t wish that on a child; didn’t wish it on Jo’s child, especially.
He’d married her because he couldn’t live without her. But he didn’t want kids; not anymore. He’d been a college student for all of a week, and they were living with her parents, trying to save money, neither of them making much…
“Are you sure?” he heard himself ask, but felt a thousand miles from the conversation, lost somewhere in his head.
“No.” She disentangled her fingers from his and he didn’t reach for her hand again.
“How?”
Jo took another deep breath and afterward, her voice was more composed. Harder. More detached. “Last month, when that cat scratched me at work and I took a round of antibiotics. The drugs would have made the pill ineffective. I didn’t even think about it until…”
Tam wanted to reach out to her, to slide his arm around her shoulders and tuck her in against his chest. He really did.
But he didn’t.
4
“
I
’m not sure of the etiquette when dining with your professor,” Ellie said, and Jordan watched her snitch a pepperoni off the slice on her plate with black fingernails. She folded it into her mouth and looked at him expectantly. She was nervous, he assumed, wondering why he’d been crazy enough to ask her to join him, but she covered it well.
“Well.” His mind was split clean in two on the matter. Half of him was backpedaling like a madman, citing policy and propriety; this was wrong. But the other half was plotting her demise; she looked far more capable of scratching his itch than Sasha had. And he’d always had a thing for curvy brunettes. “For starters, no ‘professor.’”
“Coach, then?”
“Jordan.”
“Jordan,” she repeated, staring at the hurricane lamp, head tilted in contemplation.
He felt the urge to smile again. “What?”
“It suits you.” She let her gaze slide over to meet his and nodded. “It’s got a nice taste to it. Lots of character.”
He did smile. “You’re a little strange, aren’t you?”
“Depends on who you ask.” She picked up her pizza and took a bite, further proving herself an eater, and not one of those food-phobic twig girls who felt like they’d snap in half in bed. “For instance, you might be totally normal, but I think it’s a little strange you want to have dinner with me.”
“Strange? Or better than what – bake a cake, you said?”
She nodded. “My roommate is trying to start up a business and her orders are getting big, so I pitch in.”
Jordan searched his memory for Wednesday’s class and brought up an image of his dark-haired date leaning across the aisle to talk to the chick with the pink hair and lots of first-day questions. He’d taken note of the hissed whispers and meaningful head dips in Tam’s direction – who’d sat behind them and looked amused about the whole thing – and had glanced away. The females liked Tam. Nothing new there. “Your roommate being the one with the pink hair and the hots for the guy who sits behind you?”
“Paige, yes.” She sighed and took another bite of pizza, dabbing her lips with her napkin afterward. “She’s always trying to set me up with someone.” When she rolled her eyes, they caught the candlelight and flared silver, the gray irises full of white flecks. “I’m sorry; you don’t care about my stupid teenager stuff.”
Teenager
brought his conscious to the forefront. Jesus, what was he doing? “How teenage are we talking?” he asked before he could stop himself.
A sly, white smile stole across her face. “If I say eighteen, does that make your intentions more or less wholesome?” she teased, a laugh threaded through her voice. It was the sound he needed to kick his mind out of the gutter.
“Ah, shit. I’m being a creeper, aren’t I?” he said with a sigh, guilt sour on the back of his tongue. He tore what was left of his crust in half and stuffed a bite in his mouth to keep from saying anything else too damning.
She chuckled and shook her head, propping an arm on the table. As he watched her, some of the coy mystery dropped away. Her eyes sparkled more, her smile stayed firmly in place. She was relaxed, amused, and a little bit stunning. “No,” she assured, “just…well, you seem like you’re trying to be Mr. Cool…only…” She chewed at the inside of her lower lip, color blooming in her cheeks, almost like she was embarrassed. “Sorry, but I don’t think you’re as cool as you’re pretending to be.”
He reached for his beer because that was way too sobering. “Ouch.”
“I know!” Her blush deepened. “And I’m sorry, really. I have this thing about details.” She motioned helplessly with her hands. “And well, I try to be honest - ”
“And the burn continues.”
“ – but it’s not your fault. The cool thing would work on most girls. I’m just, well.” She was becoming a little flustered, but it was cute. “I’m not the girl who trades winks over drinks and goes home with guys.”
“At least not creepy, ‘Mr. Cool’ guys.”
She smiled again. “I’m not forbidden, sweaty, teacher/student tryst material, Coach Walker, and that applies to all my professors, even the cute ones. So please, don’t feel like a creeper.”
Jordan stared at her for a handful of silent seconds, studying the firm, self-assured set to her delicate jaw, the unblinking way she met his gaze. She had one of those pert, regal noses. Everything about her face was classic and he had a passing wonder if she was an artist or just one of those academics so dedicated she viewed her field as art. And she was very, very certain in her assertion that she was not “tryst material,” and not embarrassed about it in the least.