I bit my lip. I wanted to take them back to the office with me. But it wasn’t like they could not go to school. They needed to learn.
Beck reached down to pick them both up. “This is a great school, and you’re going to make some new friends. It’s okay to be scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Enola declared. “I just don’t like the people here.”
A stately woman with spectacles came out of an office labeled Headmistress. “I assure you, we have the best students from the finest families here.”
Beck set his sisters down.
“Mr. Svensson,” the woman greeted Beck. I did not like the way she was looking at him, like he was a gold-plated piece of meat that had just danced across her dinner table.
You don’t even like him, I reminded myself.And if he’s dumb enough to catch that headmistress when she throws herself at him, then that’s his own problem.
She was salivating over him, but Beck seemed oblivious.
“We’ll take good care of the girls,” she said.
“Have a good day at school!” I called as the headmistress led Annie and Enola away to their classes.
“Oh my god,” I said when we were back in the car. “That was terrible! I’m a wreck.”
“They’ll settle in,” Beck said in bemusement.
Maeve:OMG you went to school? You hate school. You said you would rather eat a cactus than go to school.
Tess:I know!!! But they looked so cute in their uniforms!
Tess:*Sends picture*
Maeve:I know who else looks cute, or should I say hot.
I peeredat the picture I had taken of Beck with his sisters while I sipped the double caramel latte with whipped cream and sprinkles to try and get enough energy to make it through the rest of the day, even though it was only two thirty in the afternoon.
Maeve:If he didn’t have such a terrible attitude, he would totally be on my top list for dads I’d like to fuck.
Tess:He’s their older brother, not their dad.
Maeve:But don’t they look like they could be his kids! My ovaries are training for the Olympics gymnastics team here!
I was not the family type. I didn’t date, though I did bake, which I supposed was homemaker-like.
I looked at the picture again.Ugh, Beck does look hot.Damn, and now my ovaries were doing half pikes on the balance beam too.
Tess:He’s my boss. I am not dating my boss because my name isn’t Cressida the HR skank.
Knock, knock!
I yelped, spilling my coffee all over myself, and slammed the laptop lid closed.
Beck, face unreadable, peered at me through the glass wall. “We have to go,” he mouthed.
13
Beck
Why was Tess looking at a picture of me? I turned it over and over in my head as we rode to the school.
Tess had shoved a wad of paper towels under her blouse and was trying to blot the coffee she had spilled all over herself.
