“A deck.”
“Really?” She leaned her elbow on the middle console. “I helped my dad rebuild our deck when I was in junior high.”
“Yeah?” He shifted in his seat so he could see her better out of the corner of his eye.
They spent the rest of the drive talking about his plans. She wanted to know all the details from the type of railing to the thickness of the support beams. By the time they pulled into the first school, he was on the verge of asking her over to check it out. The invitation stuttered and died on his tongue. She had too much on her plate right now, and he wasn’t in the mood to get shot down—again.
They made their way into the eerily quiet building. Their footsteps bounced off a row of blue lockers with too many coats of paint, and a florescent light flickered overhead. He leaned over and whispered, “This is when the scary clown comes out with a chainsaw.”
She snorted a laugh. “They’re in class, dork.”
He opened the door to the office, and they were met with a hive of productivity and the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. A student stood on their side of a tall desk, leaning against it as if his legs could barely hold him up and talking on the phone. “Mom? Can you bring my gym shorts?”
Brock groaned. “That brings back memories.”
“What?”
He pressed his lips, debating whether he should confess one of his biggest embarrassments. No matter how old he got or how many home runs he hit, the memory would follow him around and pop up like a bad penny. “I showed up to the wrong gym class my first day of junior high.”
“So?”
“So, I walked into a weight room full of ninth graders wearing the school-issued speedo, thinking that was the door to the pool.”
Sheila’s hands flew to her mouth. “No!”
“I had the world’s skinniest legs, a tan line across my thighs, and these spindly arms.” He waved his arms around like octopus legs. “The guys in there were all Heaths.” He puffed his cheeks out and waddled two steps.
“What did you do?”
“I took off for the door and managed to make it to the locker room, where I locked myself in a bathroom stall and stood on the toilet until they left.”
“That must have been horrible.”
He twisted his lips. “It wasn’t so bad until I slipped.”
“You didn’t!” She giggled. “That’s horrible.” Her laughter belayed her words.
“Splash!” He blew his hands apart.
She laughed harder.
His story was interrupted by the secretary asking what they needed. Sheila explained, and they were ushered back into the vice principal’s office; he was finishing up a phone call.
Sheila switched to professional mode. The laughter was replaced by a soft smile and no-nonsense tilt to her chin. She sat so straight her back didn’t touch the chair. He much preferred the laid-back attitude in the truck.
He decided to see if he could get her to crack a real smile. “They called me swim trunks all year.”
Sheila laughed but hurriedly covered it up with a cough. “Later,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth. The VP held up a finger to say he’d only be a minute.
He went in for one final shot before the buzzer. “Someone ran my suit up the flagpole. It fluttered beautifully.”
Her shoulders shook with silent laughter, but she held on to her composure as the VP folded his hands in front of him on the desk and welcomed them to the school.
“Thank you. It’s wonderful to be here.” Her voice warbled.
“And slightly disturbing,” Brock said, just loud enough for her to hear.
Her head tipped to the side as if she’d been dealt a blow. Her hand went to his knee just out of the VP’s line of sight in a warning. His skin burned from her touch and the warmth spread throughout his cells.
