I closed my eyes.See, he wanted to tell you himself. He just overslept.And sure enough, he had called me right after school, when I was heading home with a dead phone. I returned the call but he didn’t answer. Probably already at the arena.
I sent him a text.
Me:Josie told me about Chloe. That must have been quite a shock! We can talk when it all calms down a bit, okay? Miss you too.
Apparently, things didn’t calm down for several days, because I didn’t hear from Liam. Not a return call, not a text. He didn’t pick Josie up from school and if he dropped her off, he never hung out in the parking lot long enough for me to see his car.
The only time I saw Liam was on my television screen during the two games the Sting played at home. He scored in both, but he was the only one. The team’s win in New York seemed to be a blip before they plummeted into another losing streak.
Josie continued to be the complete opposite of the sad, sullen girl I’d met at the beginning of the year. She was happy and giggly and more than once I overheard her telling Gabby about something her mom had done. When the anecdote involved both of her parents taking her out to dinner, I ordered myself to stop eavesdropping on third graders if I didn’t want to walk around feeling like I’d just took a punch to the gut.
But nothing could compare to the way that I felt that afternoon, when Evelyn came to pick up Josie. She didn’t come alone.
“Mommy!” Josie cried, dropping the backpack she’d been putting on to dart across the room and into her mother’s arms. “You’re here!”
Chloe O’Conner laughed. “You told me you wanted me to see your classroom. I thought I’d come with Grandma and then we can all go out for ice cream, how does that sound?”
I didn’t hear Josie’s response. I was too busy staring unabashedly at the tall blonde woman who had suddenly appeared in my classroom. I hadn’t laid eyes on Chloe in more than a decade—not since graduation day our senior year. She had somehow become even more beautiful over the years. Her always well-behaved blonde hair was now a sleek, shining curtain of perfectly highlighted gold. Nothing at all like the frizzy mess on top of my head. She was just as willowy and thin—thinner, maybe. I also didn’t remember her boobs being quite so big, but I supposed that might have been the shirt she was wearing. It was V-neck and low cut, clinging to her like a second skin.
And that’s what Liam has had to look forward to all week.
I shook off the nasty thought, and just in time, because Josie was dragging Chloe across the room to my desk. “Miss K! This is my mom!”
Chole’s eyes widened momentarily, before a slightly confused expression settled on her face. “I’m sorry, you look familiar to me but I just can’t place you.”
Breathe, I told myself, wishing that I would have gone to yoga with Rosa more than once. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like ripping this woman’s hair from her head. She absolutely remembered me. Her confused expression was just a little too perfect, her eyes slightly calculating behind the calm facade.
“Grace Knight,” I told her, pleased at how pleasant I sounded. “We went to high school together.”
Chloe’s eyes went wide again and her mouth dropped. “Grace Knight! Look at you! It’s been years.” Her eyes ticked up and down my figure as if to assess how the time had affected me. Her little smirk told me she was not impressed. “What on earth brings you to Austin?”
“My brother moved his company down here a few years ago,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek now. Like she didn’t know that. Andy was easily the most famous person to come out of our high school. As the youngest billionaire in the country, his face had been plastered on countless magazines and newspapers. The gossip sites just loved to speculate on his life, and Chloe definitely struck me as the type to follow gossip sites.
“Oh, isn’t that sweet, you following him here. I guess it would make sense, him being your only family and all.”
All of a sudden, I felt like laughing. Was this thirty-year-old woman seriously going to pull the mean girl act on me? We weren’t in high school anymore. And while that little dig would have hit me hard at one point, now I just had the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes.
“Does Liam know you’re in town? Didn’t you write his papers for him back in high school?”
I gritted my teeth. “I tutored him in high school. And of course he knows I’m in town.” I shot a pointed glance at her daughter. “Since I’m Josie’s teacher.”
Chloe’s eyes flashed for just a moment before she shot me a sickly-sweet grin. “Funny, he didn’t mention it to me at all.”
Okay. That jabdidhurt, and there was no point in pretending it hadn’t.
Chloe leaned in conspiratorially. “Though between us girls, we haven’t really had a chance to talk about anyone else. We’re so focused on repairing our own relationship, you know?”
Cold dread slithered into my belly. Repairing their relationship?
Chloe lowered her voice. “If things go the way I think they will, you’ll be seeing quite a lot more of me from now on.”
It took everything in me to keep my expression neutral. Only by looking down at Josie’s sweet, beaming face could I manage a smile. “I’m sure that would make Josie very happy,” I murmured. And to be honest, I hoped Chloe would stick around. Whatever her faults, Josie clearly adored her mother. And Josie deserved to be happy.
I just hoped her decision to stay or go had nothing to do with Liam.
“Mommy, let me show you my desk,” Josie was saying, tugging on her hand again. “And the fish!”
“Okay, baby,” Chloe said. “But we should hurry. I’m sure Miss K has a very busy social life she’ll want to get home to.” It was impossible to miss the note of sarcasm in her voice.
