“My pleasure,” I manage to choke out.
I did this.
I did this to myself, and now I will pay for it.
Dearly.
“I saw you have Junie for Trigonometry. If we were still in Cedar Rapids, I’d ask you to not go easy on her. She has this habit of saying she can’t do it so she can get out of it. I’m pretty sure she’s afraid offailing, so she’d rather not try at all. But with all the changes she’s had to go through—”
“I can handle teenagers just fine.”
It is annoying as hell when she beams at me like that.
More annoying?
It doesn’t feel fake today. Not forced. Not manipulative.
She just looks like she’s having the best damn day of her life.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” she says. “Everyone says you’re the absolute best with the kids.”
“Are you buttering me up?” I wave a hand in the general direction of her entire person, realizing I’m standing way too close to her, and take a giant step back. “Is that what this is? Did you get all dolled up and put on a dress and pouty lips and bake me my favorite dessert so you can get your kid on my soccer team?”
She rears back. “Are you serious right now?”
I wave a hand at her again. “This—this is—you’reseducingme.”
That lush mouth sets in a grim line, and fuck me if it isn’t even hotter than her smiling.
And when she slides off the edge of my desk, squares her shoulders, and glares at me straight in the eye?
Yeah.
Seriously.
She’sglaringat me straight in the eye.
And Ilikeit.
“Mr.Jackson, has it ever occurred to you that when a woman dresses up, she’s doing it to feel good aboutherself, and your opinion matters for less than zero? I just divorced a man who had no respect for meorhis daughter. What in the actual hell makes you think I’d try to seduceyou? What makesyouworthy? This?”
She waves a hand at me exactly as I was waving a hand at her a moment ago.
And I shrink.
Ishrink.
She doesn’t notice, or if she does, she clearly thinks it’s not enough. “This? You? You come in a very nice package. Ooh,muscles. And floppy bedhead hair. And a beard and tattoos and a glower. So irresistible. Let me be frank, Mr.Jackson. While it was incredibly kind of you to help us with the bear and the cow and my hair, youclearlydon’t like me. I’m working very hard on having enough respect for myself to only have people in my life who are willing to appreciate me too. I’m here meeting teachers and handing out cherry crisps forJunie. And that’sit.”
If you’d told me over that dead cow last week that Maisey Spencer wouldeverreduce me to the size of a flea, I would’ve laughed you all the way out of Wyoming.
But that’s exactly what’s happening now.
Worse?
Watching her stick up for herself is triggering a primal instinct deep inside of me that wants to throw her over my shoulder, march her across the state, and tell her to repeat herself so my mother can hear what a woman who respects herself sounds like, despite the fact that I haven’t talked to my mother in years.
And it makes me want her.
