When I stick the last set of eyes on the receiver of her office phone, my gaze lands on a financial document. Cateline mentioned the school was having money trouble. Red marker circles the sum of thirty-four thousand dollars needed by the bursar’s office. A list in Cateline’s handwriting catalogs how they’ve already cut costs to save, including laying off employees.
All of a sudden, the door opens.
I startle and shuffle back.
“Mr. Wolfe, what are you doing here?” Cateline asks.
She wears a fuzzy white robe and her long dark hair is in a loose pile on top of her head. I never expected her to look so comfortable, so adorable...or so shocked.
I don’t answer her question.
All I can do is stare and stutter.
She caught me, and aside from moon-gate, that’s never happened. Why am I so off my game?
She steps fully into the room, wearing bunny slippers and wrapping the robe tighter around her waist, then flips on the stark overhead lights.
I can’t help it. My lips quirk with amusement.
“Attention. Up here,” she snipes.
“But you look so?—”
Gesturing around us, she asks, “What is the meaning of this? What are these?” She picks up one googly eye and then another.
I bite my lower lip. “I was watching you, so you don’t label me with notes that saywoofagain.” Unable to suppress it a moment longer, laughter explodes out of me.
For one liberated and joyous moment, she laughs and then stops herself. “This is inappropriate.”
“No, sneaking into my room and covering me with notes is...” Hilarious, but I won’t admit that.
She doesn’t move a muscle, neither confirming nor denying the prank.
“My last name is Wolfe, but do you consider me a dog?” I ask, referring to thewoof.
“A real mongrel.”
I step closer to her. “I think you like dogs.”
Again, not even the hint of recognition with a blink, twitch of her lips, or the brushing of a stray hair from her neck.
“How’d you get in here?”
My gaze reflexively flashes to the keys on her desk.
“You took my keys.” She snaps them up. Her brief amusement turns into anger.
As she stalks around the room in her fuzzy robe and bunny slippers, I hold back further laughter, but it builds inside.
“Go on,” she says, gesturing to the door. “To bed with you.”
I hang my head but don’t apologize. As I pass her, I lean in, close enough that I can feel her warmth and the feathery wisps of the loose hair from her high, messy bun. “I was going to say you look cute.” I wink because I am watching and I’m not teasing. Not at all.
18
CATELINE
It takes me a long moment to process that Connor said that I look cute in my pajamas and not something rude that rhymes with or sounds like the wordcute. I don’t know what that would be, but it’s what I’ve come to expect. My cheeks heat and match my pink bunny slippers.
