“I’m sure it’s all going great.”
“Other than bringing coffee, which I’m grateful for, why exactly are you here, Luca? I thought this would be the last place in the world you’d want to hang out,” she asked, seeming genuinely confused.
“Why would you think that?”
“Cos there are kids everywhere, and a lot of them are staring at you.”
“How do you know they’re not staring at you?” I challenged.
“Ah, yeah sure.”
“You never know. How are you feeling anyway?”
“Better than I was.”
“Good to hear. You know you should’ve called me. I would’ve come over and taken care of you. Or you could’ve crashed at my place,” I offered, choosing my words carefully, conscious of the little ears hovering around.
“I know. I just didn’t want to make you sick too. Besides, I didn’t want you to see me all snotty and gross.”
Unable to keep my hands to myself a moment longer, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and hugged her against me, almost a bit surprised when she let me. “That’s the part in the vows ‘in sickness and in health’,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, in wedding vows. We’re not married, remember?” she threw back, thinking she’d won this round. Silly girl.
“Not yet anyway.”
Well that shut her up didn’t it? I worried I’d pushed too far too fast. I mean, poor girl almost gave herself an aneurysm when she sent a text that she hadn’t meant to and here I was, throwing the marriage word around like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. It was far from it. It was everything.
When she burrowed her head against my shoulder, and I held her close I knew she wasn’t going to run. Not this time. Until this moment, I thought I was angry with her. Annoyed and frustrated even. I wasn’t. I was just an idiot in love and I’d missed her. I wasn’t pissed she’d gone MIA for a few days with a head cold, I was pissed I wasn’t the one there filling her hot water bottle and feeding her chicken soup.
“Miss McCoy?” a young voice called out, and like that, Elise snapped back into teacher mode. I don’t know who I liked more. Miss McCoy or Elise. Both turned me the fuck on like no one else had ever done. It was a bloody good thing I got two for the price of one. There was no way in this world I’d ever be able to choose.
“Yes, Kirsten?” she asked, squatting down to the girl’s eye level.
“Mr. Sullivan told me to come and find you. He needs you over at the soccer. Tim is hurt,” she gushed out all in one breath.
Without blinking, Elise moved away from me, bent down, sticking her peach-shaped butt up in the air, making me groan as she grabbed a black bag from the pile behind her and followed the girl across the oval. Like the pathetic lovesick puppy I was, I tagged along, finding myself hoping the kid was okay.
By the time we made it around the field and over to where the kid was sitting, it seemed we’d missed all the drama. Elise dropped to her knees beside the young boy and asked what happened and where it hurt. When he pointed to his knee, I saw a bit of skin missing and an impressive grass stain but nothing to call the ambulance over. I couldn’t see what all the drama was about, but then again, I wasn’t a kid.
“You okay, Tim?” she asked gently.
The kid looked up at her with wide, watery eyes. “Yeah.”
“Do you want me to call your mum and she can come pick you up?”
“No!” he answered quickly, bouncing back to his feet, his sore knee quickly forgotten.
“Do you think you can go back on?”
“Yep.” He turned to the other teacher, the one who was eye-fucking Elise like she was his meal. Arsehole. Didn’t he know she was spoken for? “Can I go back on, Mr. Sullivan? Please?”
I didn’t hear what his grumbled reply was, but next thing I knew, the kid was running towards the rest of the players lining up on what appeared to be the makeshift bench.
Elise stood up and scowled. Thank fuck it wasn’t aimed at me, because it was seriously scary.
“Was that it, Corey?”
“Was what it? Tim was hurt. He was crying and bleeding. I had other kids to manage.”
