At the end of the hall, a dark-haired woman waved at Ryan from where she stood with Lauren, the school principal.
“I think they’re looking for you,” I said.
“They are.” He waved to her in response. “That’s Stella. My publicist.”
He didn’t sound excited about that, but the scowl was nowhere to be seen. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in for a side hug. I felt his lips brush my temple as he shifted away.
“I’ll see you later,” he said softly. To Grace and Jamie, he added, “Good to see you both.”
He turned and strolled down the hall. I slumped back against the wall when he joined the women waiting for him. Immediately, Grace and Jamie closed in around me.
Grace extended her arm, pointing toward the front office. “What the hell was that?”
I gazed down at my beverage options. Was caffeine really the answer? I wasn’t sure. “What? Nothing! What do you mean?”
“I mean he kissed your forehead,” Grace whisper-yelled.
“That’s…that’s not a big deal,” I said.
“Wait a second,” Jamie said. “Wait just a second.” She waved the sticky note at me. “You never told me what happened at the dinner.”
“What dinner?” Grace asked.
Shit. I never mentioned that to her. The last we’d spent any real time together, not a few minutes between classes or random texts, we’d gotten carried away with work on the seating chart for her wedding reception. For once, I’d succeeded at shoving Ryan into the mental box at the back of my closet.
“A few weeks ago,” I said as casually as possible with two interrogators breathing down my neck. “Right after his birthday.”
“Start at the beginning,” Jamie said. “Leave nothing out.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” I forced a laugh into my words. Even if I could, what would I say? “He’s had some downtime in his schedule and he’s been in town lately, so we’ve hung out.”
And we’re slightly engaged. I think.
“And now you’re friends who give forehead kisses,” Jamie said.
“And get drink deliveries,” Grace added.
I pressed my shoulders into the wall. These two were human lie detectors. “We are making this into more than it is.”
“Or we saw the way Daddy Football was looking at you and know we could’ve been hula-hooping topless and he wouldn’t have noticed,” Jamie said.
“He wanted to put you in his pocket and carry you around all day.”
I didn’t think that was anywhere near true, but it was cute that she thought so.
Grace stared at me straight on. It was the kind of stare that kept her third graders in line and had earned her the nickname Killer from her fiancé. “We’re going to talk about this at lunch.”
The sharp click of heels sounded against the linoleum floors and Audrey Saunders hurried toward us with a huff. The fourth-grade teacher threw an impatient glare toward the ceiling and tucked her white-blonde hair over her ear. “The third floor copier hates me.”
“It hates us all,” Jamie said.
“We’ll be gathering in Emme’s room for lunch today,” Grace said, her stare gentle now. She wouldn’t say it, but I knew she was hurt that I hadn’t told her about seeing Ryan. Not a lot, nothing major, but it was another one of the many growing pains of not living together and sharing every ounce of our lives with each other. It was a weird shift after being joined at the hip since college. “She has some fun new developments she’d like to discuss with us.”
Audrey glanced between us. She had no idea what was happening here. As if anyone could walk into this ten minutes late and understand a damn thing anyway. “I made cinnamon roll blondies last night.”
“I already know that’s going to solve all of my problems,” Jamie said. “And even a few I didn’t know I had.”
Children started pouring down the hall, all lively chatter and squeaky sneakers. Grace took a step toward the door of her classroom. “Writing conferences, recess, small group reading,” she said.
