“No problem, there’s one right here. Plenty of room fortwo.”
She glared at him, trying not to fall for his charm, but her lips couldn’t stop trying to smile. “No.Upstairs.”
He put on a hopeful-puppy look. “Do I get to joinyou?”
She thought about it for a full second. “Yes.”
It was a very long, soapyshower.
THE FIRST THINGthat struck Luke when he pushed through the scratched and dented front door of the high school was the smell. It was as if he were going back in time. He’d forgotten that mix of adolescent sweat, chalk dust and cleaning chemicals that sent him traveling through time to feel like a high school troublemakeragain.
A kid half a foot taller than him with sneakers the size of Montana gave him a curious once-over as Luke stood there taking it all in—a glass case containing athletic trophies, a plaque with the names of the top scholastic achievers, the patches of fresh paint on the buff walls that didn’t quite cover scrawled blackgraffiti.
Luke shook his head and followed Shari’s directions to the office. He hadn’t quite reached it when the bell rang and the relative quiet was over. Chairs scraped, voices rose, doors opened and streams of kids spilled out into thehallway.
He dodgedbodies and curious glances and finally escaped into the office where he asked a surly receptionist who looked as though she ate freshmen for coffee break to page Shari. It seemed touch-and-go as to whether she would or not, and Luke realized his palms were sweating. He wouldn’t go back to high school for a millionbucks.
He had to stifle the urge to kiss Shari when he saw her. Even though they’d made love that morning, she shook his hand, darting a glance at the old biddy receptionist as she did so. It seemed to him that her blush would broadcast to the world that they were beyond the hand-shaking stage, but if pretending they were strangers gave her confidence, he was happy to play along. He’d tease the hell out of her later,though.
“Well,” she said breathlessly, “you’re right on time. Come to my classroom and we’ll get you setup.”
“Thank you, Ms. Wilson,” hesaid.
God, she was cute when she was flustered. “Please, you can call meShari.”
She waited until they were in her classroom to say another word. “I’m sure that old gossip suspected something the way you were looking atme.”
“Shari, we were at that party together with a bunch of teachers. I think they know something’sup.”
“You don’t understand. Miss Pavel is the last person you ever want to know about your business. Believe me. She’d carry on forever if she thought I had aboyfriend.”
Luke was amazed at the sharp burst of hurt pride he felt. He wanted Shari telling Miss Pavel and everyone else in the world that he and she were acouple.
He blinked at his ownthoughts.
Hedid?
Pushing all ideas about their relationship, whatever it was, to the back of his mind, he pulled out his notes and put them in the rightorder.
“Do you have everything you need?” Shari askedhim.
“Not quite,” he said, and kissed herswiftly.
She pulled away, her color high once more. “That is completely against school regulations,” she said on alaugh.
“I’ll get the rest of that after school,” he promised themboth.
Before she could reply—if she was even going to—the first kids shuffled into the room. He blinked as the desks filled rapidly and noisily. It was as though he were looking back at his own high school class. Apart from the change in fashions, the kids were the same. He could pick out the smart ones, the nerds, the athletes and the rebels.Amazing.
He felt a wave of protectiveness that Shari should be alone with this pack of wild animals every day. Then the bell rang and she moved to stand in front of the scarred oak desk. Silence fell like a stagecurtain.
“Class, this is Mr. Lawson. He’s going to talk to us about working on a newspaper or online magazinearticle.”
He would have asked them to call him Luke, but she’d already warned him about that. Mr. Lawson wasn’t him, that was his father, but he figured he could impersonate Mr. Lawson for Shari one day out of his life. He impersonated a total moron every day. He shrugged off the thought uncomfortably, cleared his throat and said, “Hi.” He looked around at the faces staring at him with a variety of expressions from bored to catatonic, and remembered what it was like to sit in classes day after day listening to boring stiffs likehim.
He glanced at his neat pile of notes. Hell withit.
“Who, what, when, where, why. These are the building blocks of a newspaper article.” He stepped to the blackboard and wrote the five words down, the scratch of chalk and the smell of the dusty eraser sofamiliar.
