Page 21

CHAPTER 20

NEVER LIVE IT DOWN

CASS

T hat fucker kissed me, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Not as I get Cricket and myself out the door and drive to school. Not through the nerves of my very first day with my own class. And not when one of the kids jams the fire alarm, which is currently blaring overhead.

“All right, you’re all doing a wonderful job,” I say, counting my first graders as they file out of the building silently. The sweet little babies in my class walk toward the soccer field behind the school looking terrified, whites around their eyes and everything. Cricket hovers near me, pale faced, and I smooth her hair.

As my worried little first graders head into the heat, I put on a face like I know what the hell I’m doing. Fake it ’til you make it. Thank God I memorized all the kids’ names. I have flash cards with their pictures on them and everything.

I spot the new librarian looking unsure of herself, clutching a clipboard in both arms as she hovers at the edge of a river of children heading for the door where I stand.

She’s a sweet thing, barely over five feet, with blonde, chin-length curls. The big, bouncy, coils are bigger than a quarter and absolutely gorgeous. On her pert, freckled nose sits a pair of oversized glasses that seem to be in a perpetual state of sliding down the bridge. Her eyes are the brightest blue, like she’s lit up from the inside. Despite the heat, she’s wearing an oversized cardigan over a drop-waist dress.

Honestly, she looks like a girl who’s wanted to be a librarian her whole life and finally got her wish.

I instantly. Love her.

I catch her attention and smile, waving her over.

Relief softens her face, and she pushes her glasses up her nose as she approaches.

“Oh, thank you.” Her Appalachian accent is thick. Kentucky, if I had to guess. “Is it normal to have a fire drill on the first day of school?”

I guide her out behind my class before passing the door to a third grade teacher and following my kids. Instantly, I miss the air conditioning, the humidity stifling. Cricket takes my hand as soon as it’s free. “I don’t think so, but I couldn’t tell you for sure. It’s my first day too.”

She lights up, squeezing her clipboard. “Maybe we can figure it out together. I’m Molly.”

“I’m Cass, and this is Cricket.” Molly wiggles her fingers at Cricket, and Cricket waves back. When I notice the little boy at the front of my line hesitate, I call, “That’s right, Bentley. Keep on following Mrs. Apple.” I sigh, the grass licking my ankles as we walk. “I heard one of the other teachers say someone pulled the alarm. Whoever did it better hope I never find them.” I gesture to Mrs. Apple’s kindies, half of which are crying. She starts singing “The Bees Go Buzzing,” and soon the fire alarm is forgotten. My kids sing along.

I bend down to Cricket’s ear. “You okay?”

She nods, but her face is drawn, and it kills me. The threat of fire follows her around like a terrible, flaming cloud. A flare of protectiveness leaves me wishing I knew who would be so thoughtless as to pull the alarm, although it’s probably better that I never find out.

It would really suck to get fired on my first day for chewing out a student.

“Want a ten second hug?” I ask, smiling playfully.

“What’s that?”

“Come here and I’ll show you.” When I kneel down and open my arms, she slips into them, circling hers around my neck. I squeeze her, rocking a little. “Ten second hugs are the best,” I explain, feeling her tense body begin to relax. “All you have to do is hug for ten whole seconds, and your body does all kinds of things. It slows down your heart, makes it match the other person’s. It tells your brain that you’re safe, and then your brain tells the rest of your body that it’s happy. Ten second hugs can fix just about anything, I think. What do you think? Do you feel better?”

She sighs, melting into me. “Lots.”

“Good.” I’m smiling, and give her a good last squeeze before letting her go to stand.

I must stand up too fast, because I see stars. It’s so hot, I feel a little woozy. Probably should have eaten breakfast like Wilder so helpfully suggested, looking criminal in his uniform this morning. That’s not even to mention his long body stretched out in Cricket’s bed while I read to her last night, so intent. Or when I came out of the bathroom last night to find him shirtless in bed, waiting for me.

Thank God I planned defensive measures. No one gets laid in a mouth guard. I make a mental note to pick up mouth tape. He can’t kiss me again if he can’t get to my lips.

“So, where were you teaching before?” Molly asks.

I flush, embarrassed, fanning my face like it’s just the heat. “It’s my first year.”

“Oh!” she says a little awkwardly. When I don’t elaborate, she smiles, pushing her glasses up her glistening nose again. She takes off her cardigan and ties it around her waist. “It’s my first year too. I just got my master’s from Kentucky State in May.”

“Well, welcome to Roseville.”

“Thank you. You…well, you’re the first person I’ve really talked to since I got here.”

My heart goes mushy as I gather my hair and twist it, wishing I had a hair tie. “Well, I hate everything about that. Tomorrow night, I’m going to a baseball game with my friend and Cricket here. Would you like to come?”

Her eyes are all hope. “Really?”

“Of course. They’re a bunch of unwashed heathens, but they’re the absolute best unwashed heathens.”

She laughs, but before either of us has a chance to speak, a firetruck pulls into the parking lot of the school, and the kids go wild.

It takes all of us teachers to keep the boys from bolting for the truck, and they aren’t the only wild ones—every female teacher under fifty adjusts something. Smooths her hair. Tugs at her top. Blots her lips. Because out of that shiny red firetruck climbs four men that raise the temperature another ten degrees.

One of the unlucky things about a small town is that when you come home to visit, almost no one has left.

One of the lucky things is that as a result, half our old high school baseball team is in the fire department.

Their navy T-shirts sport the Roseville Fire Department shield on the breast, the rest of their outrageous bodies in the bottom half of their bunker gear, red suspenders and everything.

“Oh,” Molly says softly from my elbow, but I barely hear her as I scan a cluster of firefighters walking toward the building, smiling and laughing about who knows what. Nothing good, I bet.

And then Wilder walks around the front of the firetruck, nearly knocking me dead on the spot.

He’s dressed like the others, his ball cap pulled low enough that I can’t see his eyes from this distance. But I’d know that jawline anywhere. The shape of his broad shoulders and the taper of his waist into those godforsaken pants. What was beneath that, I know quite well. In that moment, I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’m married to what’s in those pants. Once upon a time, every single bit of all that man was mine. Now I have to share a bed with him and pretend like I don’t remember what it was like.

Wilder turns his head and looks right at me. The corner of his mouth ticks up.

All of a sudden it’s too hot, the air soupy. Time slows down like we’re caught in amber, my breath sucked right out of my chest like it sometimes is when I’m near him.

I’d crack a joke about nearly blacking out, but then I actually do.

And all I can think is that he’s never going to let me hear the end of it.