How’s your day with the mini-monsters?
Call me when you’re free?
I don’t even bother packing up first. I hit the FaceTime button, and seconds later, his face fills my screen—hair damp from a shower, a hint of stubble darkening his jaw.
“Hey,” he says, his voice warm and low. “You look…”
“Like I’ve been through a war zone?” I offer, trying to smooth down my wild curls.
“Beautiful,” he corrects, and I blush. A lot. “Tired, but beautiful.”
“Flatterer,” I say, but I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
We talk for almost an hour.
He shows me around the empty dressing room, pointing out different players’ stalls and telling stories about their superstitions and best pranks.
Logan tilts his phone toward a row of lockers. “See that stall? That’s Kovy’s. He’s had the same jock since he was in junior hockey. The equipment guys have to sew it back together a couple times every season. The thing is disgusting.”
I prop my phone against my desk lamp and organize tomorrow’s art supplies while we chat, moving in and out of frame. It feels domestic somehow, sharing our spaces, ourmundane tasks. When I finally have to leave to meet Elena for dinner, I’m reluctant to end the call.
“Tomorrow?” he asks, and there’s a hint of vulnerability in the question that makes my heart squeeze.
“Tomorrow,” I confirm. “Text me after your game?”
“First thing,” he promises.
Friday lunch break finds me at my desk, scrolling through our text history instead of eating my sad turkey sandwich. I’ve saved screenshots of my favorite exchanges—the message where he told me about his childhood dog, the one where he admitted he’s afraid of spiders (“Don’t tell the guys, they’ll never let me live it down”), the photo he sent of himself as a gap-toothed seven-year-old in oversized hockey gear.
I’m so absorbed in my phone that I don’t notice my teaching assistant until she clears her throat.
“Hot date?” she asks, nodding at my goofy smile.
I lock my screen quickly, feeling caught. “Something like that.”
“Good for you,” she says, squeezing my shoulder as she passes. “About time.”
Is it that obvious? Have I been walking around with a neon sign flashing “CRUSHING HARD” above my head all week? I touch my cheeks, which feel warm. Maybe I have.
The final bell rings, and I usher my students out with high-fives and reminders about Monday’s field trip. The weekend stretches before me, forty-eight hours without lesson plans or sight words or lunch monitors. Forty-eight hours that, for the first time in months, I’m not planning to fill with Netflix and takeout for one.
Logan’s playing an away game in Detroit tonight. He’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. The possibility of seeing him sends a thrill through me that’s equal parts excitement and terror.
“Wait, back up,” Elena says, her face filling my laptop screen. “He did what after dropping you off?”
“He just kissed me goodnight,” I say, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. “At my door. Like a gentleman.”
Elena narrows her eyes. “That’s it? No ‘do you want to come in for coffee’? No wandering hands?”
“There might have been some wandering,” I admit, heat creeping up my neck at the memory of Logan’s palm sliding to my lower back, pulling me closer as our kiss deepened. “But he didn’t push for more. Said he wanted to take things slow.”
“Logan McCoy wants to take things slow,” Elena repeats, disbelief evident in her tone. “The same Logan McCoy splashed across gossip sites with half the women in Chicago?”
I frown slightly. “He’s not what I expected, El. He’s thoughtful. He asks questions about my day and actually listens to the answers. Last night on FaceTime, he spent twenty minutes letting me vent about that parent email that upset me, then suggested three different ways I could respond.”
“That’s… surprising,” she admits, her expression softening. “In a good way.”
“Right?” I reach for my phone, scrolling to pull up a particular message. “Look at this. I told him I was nervous about parent-teacher conferences next month, and he sent me this long text about how he prepares for difficult media interviews. With bullet points, El. The man made me a bullet-pointed list of confidence-building exercises.”
