She glanced up at me then, her teeth scraping over her full bottom lip, and I forgot to breathe. I had to clear my throat and reach for one of the bottled waters Stella’s team had marked for me before getting back on track.
“The most important thing you can do is learn. Any guesses what the second most important thing is?” I fielded a mixed bagof responses before saying, “The second most important thing is keeping your body healthy.” I glanced back to Emme, pausing until she met my eyes again. “Can we do some activities? Get up? Move around?”
“Yeah, of course,” she said. “Friends, let’s stand up and tuck in our chairs.”
I motioned to Emme. “We always need to follow Miss Ahlborg’s directions. She’s the quarterback here. She calls the plays, she makes the decisions. To be a winning team, we have to listen to our QB all the time.”
I rolled up my sleeves and led the kids in a few sets of jumping jacks, squats, and stretches. Then, with Emme’s permission, I took them to run around the building a few times.
The media crew went crazy for it. They ate it up like there was something novel about jogging with little kids. Then they pulled me into an unplanned interview while the kids returned to the classroom and packed up for the day. I kept shooting Stellawhat the fuck is this?glares but she liked the questions and ignored my cries for help.
My publicist was a sadist. A straight-up, soul-eating sadist.
She came off as happy and bubbly, but she lived to torture her clients.
When it was all over and the crew was on the road and Stella knew I wouldn’t be talking to anyone for a solid fucking week, I went looking for Emme. The halls were quiet, save for the ever-present whirl and chug of copy machines. Her room was empty but her phone was on her desk along with some purse-looking bags. She was still here, somewhere.
I turned in a slow circle to finally take in her classroom. It was bright and cheerful, and more aggressively organized than seemed natural for Emme. The University of Vermont catamount was clearly the class mascot, which meant I waslegally required to send them a ton of Arizona Wildcats swag in response. It was only appropriate.
I had my phone out to call my assistant with a request for twenty-five stuffed wildcats and maybe an obnoxiously large one too when I noticed the bulletin board at the back of the room. The paper border hung limply from the frame and several star cutouts were scattered on the floor.
The crew had done this. Between the gear and all the people back here, they probably hadn’t noticed, but they’d fucked it up just the same. I crouched down, gathering the stars and then trying to get the border back in place.
“Whaaaa—what are you doing?”
I glanced over my shoulder to find Emme stopped in the doorway, her hands on her hips. I couldn’t look too long or I’d stare. I’d never been able to look at her for more than a few seconds without feeling like my chest was about to cave in or my head turn to sand.
I pointed to the bulletin board. “I’m fixing this,” I said, reaching for the stapler on her desk.
“It’s fine,” she said, finally unsticking herself from the doorway. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
I held up the stars. “Where do these go?”
She snatched them from my hand. “They—you don’t have to do this.”
“My crew fucked up your wall. I’m gonna fix it.” I shook the stapler at her. “You can either tell me where these star things go or I’ll figure it out by myself.”
She huffed out a breath and passed me a star. “There,” she said, pointing beside a planet cutout withLaribelwritten on it. Her knee brushed the back of my arm and I had to shut my eyes for a second.
My ability to be close to her and continue to function had been cut in half. I didn’t know when it’d happened, but there wasno denying it had happened. Whatever resistance I’d had in the past was gone now.
I really was ruining my whole life with this scheme and I could already feel it breaking me.
We continued like that until we returned the rest of the stars to their proper places. I mended the border, but that made little improvement.
When I gained my feet, she frowned up at me. “Sometimes I forget you’re twenty-nine feet tall.”
I ignored that and hooked an arm around her shoulders. “How much of your day did I ruin?”
“Only most of it,” she said, resting her head against my biceps. “But the kids had a lot of fun and everyone was on their best behavior, so I have no complaints.”
All I had to do was turn my head a few degrees and the scent of Emme’s hair filled my lungs. It was subtle but warm. Something like vanilla. I’d been chasing that scent all day.
“Let me take you out to dinner,” I said.
“It’s three thirty,” she said.
“We’ll start with drinks and apps.”
