Travis made a dagger to his heart gesture.
"This may come as a shock to you," she said, looking at her cards and putting two face down on the mattress, "but I was a bit spoiled growing up."
Travis snorted.
"And most of my teachers spoiled me, too. My parents were very involved and everyone just sort of tiptoed around me all the time. But Mrs. Cheswick didn't. She didn't pad my grades. She didn't care about my cheering schedule or my parents' money. I thought she was this terrible teacher. One day I just got fed up with it and I waited until after class and asked her how come she was so hard on me. She told me it was because I was a 'smart girl' and I should be challenging myself instead of coasting along on my parents' influence.
"I was mad at first. But after I thought about it, I realized she was right. I ought to do something of my own. I didn't have any idea at the time what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to stay in Splitlog. So right then I just decided to work harder in school and earn the good grades I was getting. And it turned out, I really enjoyed it. I guess I decided to become a teacher so maybe I can do the same thing for some other kid that she did for me."
Travis had been watching her and smiling gently. When she finished talking she looked at him and lifted her chin. "Do you think it's silly?"
"Not at all. I was thinking how much better I would have done in school if my teachers looked like you."
Arden scoffed and took the cards from him. She dealt. "You would have done worse. I actually did some student-teaching for junior high and quickly gave up on that idea. It was six weeks and almost every male student's grades dropped during that time."
He laughed. "You're probably right. Now that I think of it, I had that problem in junior high. Ms. Tandy. Did you know her?"
"Yeah," Arden said. "I had her too."
"Well I had her her very first year teaching. We all thought she was such hot stuff. I never got worse grades in my life. I just couldn't pay attention. Some of the other guys dealt with it in other ways, acting up in class, drawing mean pictures...stuff like that. I just stared at her and learned absolutely nothing. She got so discouraged that year. I remember passing by her class after school was out one day. Probably heading to detention or something. She was sitting at her desk crying."
"What did you do?" Arden was listening intently, now, her cards hanging from her fingers.
"I went in and talked to her," Travis said. "I asked her what was wrong and she said how she thought she must be a terrible teacher. She had her grade book open and mine was among a whole long list of F's. I remember I said to her, 'Ms. Tandy, I'm real sorry about my bad grades. But you're so pretty to look at I just can't pay attention.'"
Arden smiled and put her hands on her heart, all girly like.
"Yeah, I don't know whether it helped, but she smiled up at me. And the next day she started cracking down. She got really tough and I think most of the guys quit looking at her as a hottie and started listening better. But she always had a special smile for me."
"That is so cute, Travis," Arden said.
He grinned. "Yeah. Well. Ever since then, I've always wanted to marry a school teacher." He stared into her warm brown eyes and watched them grow cold again, and distant.
"Layla Montrose is single," she said. She tossed an m&m on the mattress. "Ante up."
Travis chuckled and followed suit. "I think I've acquired a taste for blondes," he said.
She glared up at him, but her cheeks were pink again. Poor princess could control everything else about her body, but not that darned heart-rate. He thanked God for that. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him encouraged.
"Ms. Tandy still teaches, you know," she said, trying to change the course of the conversation.
"Yeah? Is she married?"
Arden glanced up at him. "Would it matter to you?"
"Of course. I've got standards."
"You've never been with a married woman?"
Travis wished she hadn't asked that. "I have. But it was back before I found religion. Now I'm on the straight-and-narrow."
"That so? I'm engaged and you keep hitting on me."
"I tone it down. If you were absolutely single, we'd have already had sex at least a dozen times."
Arden laughed. "You are so full of yourself."
Travis shrugged. "I'm telling you, women can't resist my charms. Not even you. Sure, you're stronger than what I'm usually up against, but you'll cave eventually. It's inevitable."
She shook her head. "You underestimate my moral fortitude. I'll never cheat on my fiancé."
"Even though you don't love him?"