“I know. I just—” Kira’s sigh hit like a familiar chord. I used to know the rhythm of her moods, how the smallest exhale could carry so much weight. “Maybe there’s a way to switch Landon to another class? It’s not personal.”
Not personal.Right.
That hurt more than I expected.
Mary didn’t let it slide. “It sounds personal,” she replied, not unkindly. “Is something wrong between you two?”
There was a pause.
“No,” Kira said tightly. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just…it’s fine. I’ll make it work.”
Yeah. Wasn’t that what I’d been telling myself all week? Maybe if we both said it enough times, one of us would believe it.
Chairs scraped. I stepped back but not fast enough.
The door opened, and Kira walked into the hallway.
She froze when she saw me. Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came out. Her eyes flicked from my face to my feet like she was searching for an escape route.
I gave her a small nod. Polite. Not too familiar. Not too cold. Like I hadn’t just heard her try to erase me from the room.
“Hey.” I kept my tone even.
Her cheeks flushed. A flicker of guilt? Embarrassment? Somewhere in the middle, I’d guess. My ability to read her wasn’t as strong as it once was.
“Hey,” she said, her voice clipped. She walked past me like I was a ghost she didn’t have time to confront, her scent trailing behind her—a quiet storm of lavender, citrus, and some sort of warm vanilla that twisted something in my chest.
I stood there for a second, staring down the hallway she’d disappeared into. The laughter of kids drifted from the classroom behind me. I could open the door. Put on a smile. Pretend none of this mattered.
But damn if it didn’t.
I reached for the handle and gave myself five seconds. Five seconds to feel the sting, to swallow the guilt, to remind myself that I was here for a reason bigger than an old mistake.
Then I opened the door and walked in.
“Good morning, Landon,” said Mary with a smile. She clutched her clipboard close to her chest as she slipped by me into the hall, leaving me alone in the classroom.
Sighing to myself, I tried to mimic the tasks I’d watched Kira do last week. I picked up a dry-erase marker and scrawled the date on the whiteboard, realizing too late it was crooked and slanted downward like a sinking ship. What a great analogy.
I moved on to straightening the chairs and wiping down the kid-sized desks, each one sticky with a mystery substance I decided not to investigate too closely.
I had just started debating whether to hunt down the paint cups when I heard footsteps behind me.
“You’ve got a red stain on your shirt.” Kira appeared at my side with a pile of rags. She handed me one without meeting my eyes.
Damn. A white T-shirt in the kitchen was a rookie mistake.
“Thanks.” I took the rag and dabbed at the splotch near my ribs. “I tried out a new pie recipe this morning.”
This was my tenth round of trying to recreate my dad’s bourbon-pecan pie recipe, and this time, it went so bad, it ended uponme.
“Landon in the kitchen. Not much new there.”
“I guess I’m still me.”
I’ve always loved cooking. It was the best way to bring people together. I only really started getting into baking over the past year. It felt more precise, more intentional. Like a science experiment with sugar. I wasn’t exactly good at it yet, but I liked the challenge.
“Is the pie for the diner?”
