ABBY
MOST WEEKENDS, I enjoy the hours I spend with my older students who struggle with reading. It’s something I look forward to. These kids come in because they want to learn, and watching their confidence grow from week to week and month to month gives me a satisfaction like no other. But today all I can think about is Hank. What happened Thursday. How I avoided his call last night. And how there’s no avoiding him today.
Except that isn’t exactly true.
My students are gone. I’ve already straightened my classroom. And now I’ve been running this dingy dried-up Clorox wipe over the same spot for fifteen minutes. Winter break starts today, and if I left now, I could conceivably avoid seeing Hank for another two weeks. But I haven’t.
I don’t like the way I feel when I realize that, yes, I am waiting for him. I don’t like how it feels to know that despite my best efforts, I’ve started pinning my hopes on a man so capable of breaking my heart… whether he means to or not.
I know better. But here I am… waiting to see what line he’ll cross next.
The floor creaks behind me and then he’s pulling my hair off one shoulder, twisting it loosely so my scalp tingles at the delicious sensation I remember from so long ago. My breath catches and I turn to face him.
“Hank.”
He’s dressed in jeans and a fitted Henley that showcases the breadth of his shoulders and definition of his pecs, but it’s his eyes I get tangled up in. The way he’s watching me, it’s like he’s seeing everything we’ve ever been to each other as he looks at me.
His hand slides down my shoulders, to my hip, and then to that spot low on my back. He pulls me closer.
“Today I’m breaking the rules for real, Abby.”
My hands are trembling, my skin hot as I nod.
Eyes locked with mine, he kisses me.
It’s a soft brush of his mouth against mine, barely more than a breath, and yet that scant contact is enough to ignite every nerve in my body. Hank pulls back to look in my eyes. The corner of his mouth tips up and that gentle pressure at the small of my back increases as his hand slides higher up my spine, pulling us into closer contact. His mouth dips to mine again and this time he kisses me the way he’s been looking at me for weeks. He kisses me the way he’s been talking to me each night.
He kisses me with purpose.
And it’s enough to break down the last of those crumbling walls within me. I open beneath him with a gasp, and then moan as he slips his tongue past my lips.
I kiss him back. Cling to him. Fan my shaking fingers over his jaw, those sexy glasses, and into the overlong, silky mess of his hair.
That hair.
Our tongues twine and taste, one leading gently before following the other. Our breath mingles hot and then hotter between us. My back meets the filing cabinet behind me, and desire churns low in my belly, spilling need through me as I whimper.
This. We can have this.
Hank groans against my mouth, his fingers tightening at my hips once before he pulls back.
The distance between us is torture. My breasts ache for the pressure of his hard muscles. My mind begs for more of the kiss I can’t think past.
He looks at me beneath the fall of his hair, his breath coming in harsh pants.
I wait for the moment when he grabs me back, crushes me beneath his kiss and—
“Have dinner with me, Abby. Tonight. A date.”
When he told me he was going to break the rules, I thought he meant the kiss. But this is the line he wants to cross. The one I’ve been defending more fiercely than all the others.
The one I’m too scared to let slide.
“Hank, I-I can’t.”
Letting out a humorless laugh, he adjusts his glasses. “Can’t.”
He reaches for me, cupping the side of my face in one warm palm before brushing my mouth with his thumb. Quieting me. He doesn’t want another excuse and I don’t want to give him one. Almost as much as I don’t want to watch him walk out of my classroom.
But that’s what he’s doing.
He stops at my door, gripping the frame with white knuckles, and I wonder whether it’s because he’s trying to make himself go through or make himself wait. Either one tears at my heart.
Why can’t I just tell him to stop? Tell him I want to go with him to dinner. I want to go with him anywhere. Everywhere.
The words are poised on the tip of my tongue, pushing at the walls of my heart, but they don’t come.
Hank looks back over his shoulder, not quite meeting my eyes. “Have a good weekend, Abby.”
I take a step toward him, my hands clutched in front of me like they’re tied, even though we both know they are not.
“Will I talk to you tonight?” I ask, suddenly sick with the worry that I won’t.
“Sure.”
And then he’s gone.
HANK
JUST KEEP WALKING. It shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve been doing it for twenty-eight years. But damn, putting one foot in front of the other as I walk the wrong direction down Abby’s hall is the hardest thing I’ve done in forever.
Through sheer force of will, I make it halfway down the hall, but come up short when I hit the open door with the light on the left.
No one’s supposed to be here.
Even the custodians leave by noon.
Abby and I are the only ones with programs running past two on Saturday. So what the hell is Wilson doing parked at his desk, staring down at the veneer top like there’s more there than empty space.
“Wilson?”
He doesn’t turn, but the muscle in his jaw tics once, twice. “So that’s what all this is about? The robotics program. The Smart Boards. It’s about her.”
My muscles go rigid. “You came to see Abby.”
“Things have been a little weird between us for a few weeks. I was going to see if she wanted to grab a burger or hit a movie. Not a date.”
He turns his head and glares at me. My respect for this guy triples, because not a whole hell of a lot of people have the sac to do that. Maybe it’s because he considers this his turf, but more likely it’s some sense of having the moral high ground here. And maybe he does. I’m not even sure.
“If it makes you feel any better, she won’t let me take her to dinner either.”
“Makes me feel better about her. You, not so much.”
Yeah, he’s still pissed about the way I worked him into coming clean about his feelings for Abby. Maybe it’s time I come clean too.
“I want her back.”
He nods. “Pretty used to getting what you want these days, I’m guessing.”
“That’s a fair assessment.” And then, so there’s no misunderstanding between us, I add, “I’m a decisive guy who’s made a career out of making my goals a reality. And the way I do it is simple. I set my mind on something and then I work fucking hard to make it happen. I don’t let fear of failure hold me back. Ever. And when I want something a lot and I can’t see my way to finding it… I don’t quit, Wilson. I back up and find another way to get there. So yeah, I’m pretty used to getting what I want.”
What I’m not telling him is that I’m fully aware it doesn’t always work that way when you’re talking about a who and not a what.
I’ve had more than my share of not getting what I want with Abby. Those are the failures that burn the worst.
Jaw shifting to the side, he cuts me a cool look. “Why won’t she go to dinner with you?”
Because she thinks she’s protecting her heart.
Because I’m the guy who leaves and she’s the girl who won’t wait.
Because she’s never gotten over her mother—her birth mother—dying before she could get Abby back.
But I don’t tell him any of that. “You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”