Page 4 of Hold
Wow. One word. She felt so honored.
“It’s just a two-bite brownie for you, probably,” she said in the voice she used to tease Jake out of a funk. As she said it, he ripped off the wrapper and bit into at least a third of the bar. “Three bites, then,” she said to herself, though loud enough for him to hear.
He swallowed, which must have hurt—had he even chewed?—and grimaced. “Thank you,” he said, “again.” Then he stuck out his hand. “Liam.”
“Thea,” she replied, shaking his hand. It was warm—and ever so slightly sticky from the apple core.
“Crap,” he said, and let go to rub his hand on his pants. Thea laughed, which helped dispel the tingle in her fingers from touching him. She wasn’t sure without staring at him even harder, but she thought he might have gone a little pink above the beard.
“You’re already a teacher?” she asked.
“Yep.” He bit off the word the way he’d taken bites out of that apple.
She waited.
“Technically,” he said, and there was a heavy weight of story behind the word.
She opened her mouth, but Professor Havilland called them all to order at that point, moving back to the front of the class. Thea reached into her bag one last time and handed Liam a wet wipe. He sheepishly took it, and she grinned at him, which for some reason made him scowl again.
Jeez. Can’t even laugh at himself.
She had no more interaction with him during that class. As it ended, Thea’s mind was already on how quickly she could get home and see how much ice cream Jake had let Benji eat tonight. But Zahra put her hand on her arm, stopping her from turning away from the table.
“Do you think…?” she began, biting her lip. She tried again. “Are you looking for a study partner?”
“Yes!” Thea said with enthusiasm, just as Chloe chimed in, “I sure am!” and one of the twins said, “We are. We know nothing about teaching.”
Beardy McSticky Hands was hauling his backpack onto his shoulder and didn’t say a word.
“Oh,” Chloe said. “Let’s set up a group. Can we? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I haven’t studied for about twelve years, and I was always crap at taking exams.”
“But how are we going to coordinate everyone’s schedules?” Thea asked.
“If it’s in the evenings, I can do it,” Zahra said. “My husband’ll watch the kids.”
“Evenings work for us,” said the twins.
“And me,” Chloe added.
“Well,” Thea said, “Then you’d better come to my house, ’cause it’s just me and the boys, and if I ask Jake to babysit his brother one more night, there’ll be a full-scale rebellion.”
The idea of her house didn’t seem to bother anyone. She took a quick mental inventory of it, with its scuffed walls, old furniture, and general smell of boy. Then she shrugged. She wasn’t going to apologize for her life anymore.
“If you all really don’t mind traveling to me, let’s get together next week. Just give me this week to bury the dead bodies and wash the cat and stuff like that.”
♦
When everyone else had left the room, Liam dropped his backpack with a crash before sinking into a seat and lowering his forehead to the table next to it.Damn. That is so inconvenient.
That was a line from some movie. Avery had watched it with him. Well, she would know all about inconvenient. She’d apparently found their marriage pretty incon-freaking-venient, hadn’t she?
Yeah, your marriage that you just got out of. That lost you your job. That screwed up this degree for you.
He raised his head and scrubbed his beard with one hand, looking at the door she’d left through.Thea. Huge, tired eyes. Long, thick, dark hair that looked too heavy for her slim neck. She’d given him a protein bar, but she was the one who looked like she could use a few meals.
And she barely looked at you. Never even looked your way when they were all talking about the study group.
He’d probably scared her off. But he’d seen the surprise on the faces of their group when she’d talked about her ex, and he sure the hell didn’t want to get into his own horror story and see the same look on her face.