“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back against the table behind me.
“I know that look. You did something. What’s going on with my class?”
“Oh, nothing to worry about. Just, an art YouTuber asked to come and stream it for an episode. Of course, you never check your emails and didn’t answer, so I did for you. She’s coming today.”
“Who?”
“Her name is Rain. Her channel is RainnyDayArt.”
“Seriously? You do know she’s the number one art streamer, right? Wynter watches her all the time.”
Cara shrugged, trying to go for innocence. That woman hadn’t been innocent for a second.
Fuck my life. My eyes closed briefly as I thought about what we were doing today and if it would even work for a fucking YouTube video. It was an advanced class, but they were also mostly regulars, so I was sure they’d adjust.
I opened my eyes to glare at Cara, but all the annoyance seeped out of me once I saw her sheepish smile.
“Sorry?”
I barked out a laugh. “No, you’re not. Just, next time can you give me notice?”
“So you can back out? No, I’m good. I know your ways, Riot St. James. I’m smarter than that.”
Sighing, I walked over and wrapped Cara in a hug. “What would I do without you?”
“Probably still be teaching one class a month at the senior center and that’s it.”
“Hey! I love that class.” They’d been the first ones to give my teaching a chance, so I still made sure to go over there. They were the best.
She patted my cheek affectionately. She had to stretch up to reach it since I had nearly half a foot on her, even if I didn’t consider myself tall, but Cara was a tiny thing. “I know you do. But sweetie, you’re the most talented potter I’ve ever met. You deserve to have the world see your art. Lucky for you, we live in a time where it’s easy for that to happen. And lucky that I know the password to your work email.”
“Pretty sure that’s an employment privacy breach somewhere,” I teased her.
Cara shoved me playfully. “Oh, go on. You can thank me later.”
“Thank you, Cara,” I said and meant it. I still wasn’t quite used to this whole social media thing. When one of my students had convinced me to start sharing my work on my Instagram, I’d never expected anything to come from it, but one of my tutorials had gone viral, and then it had escalated from there. Now, apparently I was about to do a collab with a YouTuber with nearly a million subs. What even was life?
Chapter 2
Koa
It wasa few hours before I had a chance to check my phone. We were one week out from the homecoming game, so things were nuts here, and that wasn’t including my normal classes. In a small town like River Hills, homecoming was bigger than most holidays. Everyone got involved, not just the kids, and as the head coach and the homecoming advisor, I had a lot of shit to do.
I wasn’t overly surprised to see I had four missed texts from Riot. My finger brushed over his picture smiling back up at me on my notifications. It didn’t matter how many times I saw this, it always sent my heart fluttering like the pathetic asshole I was. I’d caught him at the exact moment he’d gotten his first ever sale on the website I’d set up for him. He’d fought me so hard over that bullshit, positive that it was a waste of time. But by then his social media following had already been building, and people all over the county had started coming to his classes. The site had barely been up for a day before Riot had made his first sale.
He had just turned away from the laptop to look at me, smiling so hard his mouth probably hurt. His honey-brown eyes were wide and wet with unshed tears. But that wasn’t why I loved the picture so much. It was the way he’d turned to me first. How something amazing had just happened and the first personhe’d needed to share it with had been me. And the look on his face—fuck. I knew it was because of the sale, but when I closed my eyes and pictured Riot, he was looking atmelike that. Not because his business was taking off, or Hawk finally said his first word, or Knox got president of the National Honor Society, but because of me.
I shook my head at my own ridiculousness and clicked on the message. What was the world record for the longest unrequited crush in existence? Asking for a friend.
He had reacted to the photo of Cruz and me drinking milkshakes with a heart emoji, and of course the first message was a response to my text.
Husband: Of course. Something specific?
He was asking what he should bring up with Cruz, but I had no idea. He hadn’t talked much after his session, and his therapist had only told me it had been intense.
I answered him before really paying attention to the other messages. One was a picture, but I wanted to get the important stuff out of the way first.
