“Yeah. Fine. I just—I didn’t know you were standing there.” Silently, I replay my speech. How much did he hear?
“I thought we could walk over to the assembly together, if you want.”
“Oh. Yeah. That would be… good.” My stomach flip-flops. I’m not ready to have this conversation with him. Not yet. Not when he looks this good. Even the stain on his tie doesn’t turn me off. It just makes him cuter, somehow.
He catches me looking. “Yeah. Sorry about this,” he says, smoothing the tie. “Breakfast mishap. But if you’re not too embarrassed to walk with me—”
“Sure. Let’s go.” I can’t stand this close to him, alone, any longer. Now without putting myself in serious danger of attempting the ‘sweep everything off the desk’ move that only happens successfully in romantic comedies and porn. I need witnesses to prevent me from giving in to him. Five hundred witnesses at an assembly should do the trick.
Luke follows me into the hallway. He pulls the door closed behind us.
Even after several days in Miami, I’m still surprised every time I walk outside. The thick, wet heat is always lurking, ready to envelop. We wind between the modern classroom buildings, the state-of-the-art music/theater/assembly hall looming at the center of campus, all steel and glass. Rivers of students stream toward it, converging from all sides of campus. I catch a few curious sliding glances at Luke and me.
“Don’t worry about them.” Luke reads my mind. “Next week, somebody will get busted for cheating or sex in the bathroom, and we’ll be old news.”
So last night really was more than just a kiss. Not just to me, but to Luke. He thinks there’s a we. I’ve always wanted to be part of a real we.
“Hey. Luke. Can we… talk?”
“Oh, God. The dreaded can we talk?.” He’s smiling, joking, but the worry in his eyes isn’t hard to find. “Find somebody else already? It’s that sexy son-of-a-bitch in the math department, isn’t it?”
“No, I—”
“Because if being able to solve for x is a must-have for you, then I’m afraid this just isn’t going to work. I’ll have to end it. Right here. Right now.”
“That’s not it. There’s no guy in the math department.” I resist the urge to play shove him through one of the sets of doors as we filter in the auditorium. Tempting, but unprofessional. White light pours in through the skylights overhead, casting halos over the students in the lobby.
“That’s a relief.” Luke cuts through a few layers of students standing at the second set of doors, and then unlocks them with an electronic key. “Ladies and faculty first, please.” He pulls open the door and I duck inside. Behind us, students pour into the seats at the back, shoving backpacks under their chairs and completely disregarding the “no-texting during school hours” joke of a rule.
We find seats in the faculty section at the front. Soon, Gwen and Waverly pop into the row behind us, and Gwen jabs me in the back with the business end of a pencil when she sees me sitting next to Luke. I swat her away.
“Mr. Poulos, doing some quality mentoring, I see.” Waverly coos behind him. “Mentoring in quotes, of course.” Her lips are too close to his neck. His totally kissable neck.
“Ms. Wells, indulging in some quality over-dramatization, I see,” Luke says lightly. Dismissively. “No quotes necessary, of course.”
Waverly winks at me and slides back into her seat. When she crosses her perfectly tanned legs, her pink silk skirt slides up to mid-thigh.
“So, you wanted to talk.” Luke’s voice drops as he leans toward me. Not that anyone could hear us anyway, with the pinging of cell phones and dull student roar.
Before I can tell him that an auditorium full of kids probably isn’t the best place to have this conversation, Dr. Goodwin strides onstage and thumps the microphone at the podium. It screeches, and everybody groans.
“Good morning, and welcome to the opening of a new school year here at Allford Academy.”
The hall explodes into cheers and whistles. Some of the older teachers press their fingers into their ears. Dr. Goodwin just smiles and offers an old-man fist pump, which riles up the kids even more.
I love this about Dr. Goodwin: it’s obvious that he adores what he does. That he would rather be on stage at Allford than anywhere else in the world. I sneak a glance at Luke, whose face is shining beneath the clear gold lighting pouring from several stories above. Sitting next to him, it’s impossible not to share his spark, not to feel completely electrified at the energy in this place. Or maybe it’s the fact that our knees are touching that’s electrifying. Hard to say.