Page 9 of Working for the Teacher

My mother stays behind, arms crossed, surveying the damage with the particular satisfaction of a woman who has been waiting for an opportunity like this since I signed the closing papers.

“This is exactly why I told you not to buy this place,” she says. “I told you. Old house, old pipes. You should have just moved in with me.”

“Mom.”

“I have almost the whole place sitting empty since your father passed. It would have been so easy.”

“Mom, I need my own space.”

“You're my little girl. I don't understand why it’s such a terrible thing to live with your mother.”

“I'm not your little girl anymore. I love you. I appreciate you coming over, and calling Hank, and all of it. But I've had a very long day and I need to sleep before I can deal with any of this.”

She sighs the way she's been sighing at me since I was born. “You moved all the way to New York,” she says, like it's a fresh wound. “And now you're five minutes away and I still don't see you any more than I did back then.”

“We'll make time. Soon. I promise.”

She nods, unconvinced, and kisses my cheek on her way out, and I stand in my ruined guest bathroom for a long moment after the door closes.

I spend my lunch break the next day calling every plumber and contractor within a thirty-mile radius. I get a plumber, but every single contractor delivers some version of the same news. Booked. Backed up. Can maybe fit you in sometime after the new year.

Samuels Construction is the only one who tells me they can send somebody out tonight to at least assess the damage, and I say yes before the woman on the phone can change her mind, relief flooding through me so fast I nearly forget to write down the time.

I almost forget something else too, walking to my car after school, when I catch sight of a familiar pickup truck parked near the gym and have to actively steer myself in the opposite direction to avoid walking anywhere near it. Ryder is somewhere on school grounds, and I can’t afford the embarrassment of another encounter.

I make it as far as the teachers' lounge before my luck runs out anyway. I grab my lunch from the fridge and try to slip into a chair unnoticed, which has never once worked in this particular room.

“Did you see the guy working on the equipment shed?” Priya says, not looking up from her lunch.

“That's Ryder Kane,” Deb says. “I can't believe they're letting him on school property.”

“He was a kid,” I say, before I can stop myself. “People change.”

Deb gives me a look like I've suggested something wildly naive. “He works for Samuels Construction now, apparently. Foreman, if you can believe it.”

Something cold drops through my stomach.

“What?”

“Samuels Construction. That's who won the bid for all the work around here.”

I didn't notice the logo on the truck. Too busy noticing the man standing next to it. Of course that's who's coming to my house tonight. Of course. But they wouldn't actually send him, would they? There has to be somebody else at that company who isn't currently leading a huge construction project at the school. Somebody who isn't Ryder Kane specifically.

The doorbell rings a little after seven, and I open it already knowing exactly who's going to be standing there.

Ryder fills my doorway wearing a plain black shirt that does nothing to hide how much he's changed since high school. His eyes find mine.

“Charlotte.”

“You're the one they sent?”

“Apparently so.” One corner of his mouth lifts. “Did you finish last night?”

Heat shoots straight up my neck.

“Excuse me?”

“Last night. You said you needed to grade papers. That's why you ran out. Did you finish grading them?”