Miss Impractical Pants (10 page)

“Hey!
Earth to Katie!”
Jared nudged her in the ribs with his hockey stick. “I was asking you what you thought of our big
win?
You okay?”

Katie willed her knees to hinge, some of her color returning as she stood.

“Yeah, jjjust, just, fffreezing, that’s all.” She shivered. “I dddefinitely picked the wrong outfit tonight.”

“I don’t think you picked the wrong outfit at all.” His eyes smoldered as they roved all over her figure.

He had changed from his uniform into baggy jeans and a thin white T-shirt that hugged his pectorals.
Whoa!
Her eyes nearly bulged at his ripped physique, which she had never seen so thinly veiled. In one purposeful movement, he wrapped his arms around her in a warming embrace. Still hot from all the exercise, he felt like a sauna.
As Katie let her body thaw into his, he tensed. His hands that were vigorously rubbing life back into her body became slow and deliberate, kneading a seductive course down her back.

Her breath caught. Her panic mode, which had always kept her at a safe distance, was still frozen. She had blundered and left herself vulnerable, but for some reason, this time she didn’t want to avert her face. In fact, she was kind of excited when Jared dove in to claim his first kiss.

“So far, this evening is going even better than I had hoped!” Jared announced once they were back in the car with the heat vents on Katie’s side, blasting welcomed hot air.

Katie had no response. Her mind was racing with the knowledge and fear that with one kiss, the course of this relationship had been irrevocably altered.

“I have something for you.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket. Katie gulped. The dreaded Valentine conundrum was at hand. Retrieving a folded envelope, he slid it across the seat to Katie.

“What’s this?” She stared at the L-shaped piece of paper as if it might bite.

“Open it,” he directed, unable to conceal his cocky smirk.

Sliding the tip of her fingernail underneath the seal and pulling back the flap, she drew out two oversize tickets and read the neat lettering.

“They’re airline vouchers,” he stated what she had already ascertained for herself.

Bewildered into silence, she nodded, waiting for him to expound on the part that was not obvious: Why he had given her airline vouchers? But he didn’t expound.

Catching the contagious, kid-at-Christmas excitement in his eyes, she wrapped her confusion into an enthusiastic response. “Is one of these really for me? Are you serious? Thank you! …
But why?”

“I thought maybe we should do more than just talk about going to Thailand.” Jared was grinning so widely his eyes had disappeared behind big laugh crinkles.

             
Katie nearly leapt out of her seat with shock more than excitement. Travel opportunities with a willing and able partner never came this easily.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she gushed. “When are we going?”

“Whenever you want.
Just say the word and I’ll be ready.”

“How long will we be gone?” she probed.

“As long as you want.
I want to spend as much time with you as you’ll give me.”

She flashed a luminescent smile that gave him courage.

“Katie, I want you to officially be my girlfriend.”

In anticipation of Katie’s arrival, the door to Professor Bell’s office had been left ajar.

“You haven’t returned my messages,” Professor Bell, leaning on the window ledge, stated upon hearing Katie’s approach.

Katie cast a dismayed glance over his unoccupied desk. She longed to have the barrier of the tidy desktop keeping them at a cool, formal distance. Obeying his gesture to take a seat in the university-issued office chair that faced him, she noted he was towing a very fine line between annoyance and anger.

“And I noticed that you have been absent from my classes this week.” He waited for a response.

Her reply was not immediate. She took the time to ponder the best way to explain her avoidance without having him suspect it had been deliberate. Which, of course, he did, and which it was.

“It’s been a really crazy week for me,” she declared at last, offering no further rationalization.

Raising his eyebrows in a way that conveyed he was clearly unimpressed with her answer, he sat straighter into the boxed window casing, folded his arms tightly across his chest, and bore his gaze directly into her face. Katie shifted in the chair designed to make students feel as uncomfortable as possible and tried not to notice how his biceps swelled over the cuffs of his short sleeves.

“As I told you in the several unreturned messages I left,” his controlled, even tones were more severe than any angry rant, “your internship has, with no little effort on both our parts, been reluctantly approved by the Dean.”

Neither one looked pleased by the news of this hard-earned victory.

“I need to have all student internship files submitted by the end of the week and yours is still missing a work summary.”

He heaved a long sympathetic, or maybe impatient, sigh—Katie couldn’t really tell.

“Katie, this is a simple, twenty-minute assignment. Why are you dragging your feet? Is there something going on I should know about? You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

“No, of course not.”
That was mostly true; she hadn’t changed her mind about going to England, she just hadn’t thought any more about it.

Her quick reply earned a skeptical look from the professor. “Then you won’t mind staying here in my office a while longer until you’ve completed the assignment?” This was more a command than a question. “I have stuck my neck out too far on this for you to not follow through.”

Katie flinched, not at the rising anger in his voice, but at the realization he had more than she understood riding on her internship.

“For your own benefit,” he continued, “I feel compelled to remind you that without this simple assignment your file will be incomplete, which means you won’t have an internship, you won’t pass this
class,
and you won’t be able to graduate by the end of the summer.”

The guilt Katie had been feeling was instantly usurped by fear and a desperate longing to have achieved a piece of her Amazing Plan—to have a neatly framed degree hanging on her wall boasting of her one and only accomplishment.

Spurred on by that vision and the desire to make Professor Bell proud of her again, she pulled out her laptop, whipped out her summary, and went one bold step further: She booked a flight to London for the day after her last final.

Professor Bell’s reaction when she slapped the assignment along with a copy of her flight itinerary down on his desk was that extra boost of reassurance she needed to know she had gotten back on the right track. He was so relieved that in his elated state, he dropped the paper he was grading, practically
hurdled
his desk, and captured her in a tight military-caliber bear hug.

***

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Mr. Scott as he opened his front door to Katie. “It’s been a mighty while since I’ve seen you wearin’ a smile as big as that.”

“Is Heather here yet?” Katie asked excitedly. She removed one shoe and then other before entering his home, which was always kept British-grade pristine.

Katie had a mission to bring her two friends together, hoping they would eventually fuse their own friendship. It would be nice for Heather to have another friend in town, and Mr. Scott, even if he didn’t agree, needed someone other than Katie to encourage him out of the house once in a while.

“We’ve been
visitin
’ in the front room.
Such a pleasant lass,”
he said. “Mind, she’s not a harebrain like you—she’s a sensible sort of girl—but very pleasant nonetheless.”

His words couldn’t have pleased her more. Not only had she made a successful match, but in Mr. Scott’s eyes, Katie was the capricious girl she hadn’t been in far too long.

“Now, what’s so
bleedin
’ important that you’ve had to call this emergency get-together?”

“I’ve had an epiphany.”

“An epiphany!”

She nodded an emphatic affirmation.

“Lands, child,
the
things you say! I’m forever on pins and needles wonderin’ what you’ll come up with next. Well, come on then, let’s join Heather in the next room so we can get on with it, shall we?” He made an exaggerated sweeping gesture with his arm for her to lead the way.

“I’ve been wearing the wrong skin,” Katie blurted as soon as she had Heather and Mr. Scott seated on the sofa. She had begun pacing the length of the sofa in front of them and therefore didn’t notice the confused, uneasy look on Heather’s face.

When Katie turned her back to pace in the opposite direction, Heather leaned into Mr. Scott and asked in a panicky whisper, “I’m not sure I understand…is she turning
Silence of Lambs
on us?”

Mr. Scott patted Heather’s hand reassuringly. “Just give her another minute—she usually comes around to makin’ sense.”

Just as Mr. Scott prophesied, Katie rambled a few minutes more about her nonconforming skin before coming to the point. “Everybody wants me to be this compliant, practical, uninspired person that is just not me.”

Seeing Mr. Scott’s mouth open and shut several times in silent, guppy-like protest, she amended her statement. “I mean, except for you two. Mr. Scott—Avery—for what it’s worth, you’re absolutely right—I’m much better as the Old Katie.” She flashed him an uncertain Old Katie smile.

He crossed his arms, shifted in his seat, and harrumphed, indicating he would not be placated so easily.

“I turned in the last of my internship papers,” she continued, “and I leave for England right after my final exams!” She fished her flight confirmation out of her pocket and, with both hands, proudly displayed it out in front of her.

A reverent look stole into Mr. Scott’s eyes and a slow smile spread across his face. Then, he did something that Katie, despite having rehearsed this conversation in the car, could never have imagined: He turned his gaze heavenward and began to pray. Words of thanks and gratitude poured almost inaudibly from his lips.

Feeling a little shaken by Mr. Scott’s moment of spontaneous spirituality, she cut her gaze over to Heather. Heather bounded from the sofa, grabbed both of Katie’s hands, and began dancing in place like a crazy person, all the while squealing like an excited pig.

“This is so great! You’re going to England!” Heather squealed. “I’ve never been out of the country! Promise you will call and tell me about everything!
At least once a week.
I want to live vicariously through your adventures.”

“I’m only going to England, and I’ll be working. It won’t be very adventurous.” Katie chuckled at Heather’s naiveté.

Heather looked disappointed for a moment and then was overcome with a fresh wave of excitement. “This is so great!” She danced around with such gusto that Katie thought her arms would yank off. “What can we do to help you get out of here?”